More Ledeen
Trolling through his archives will never get old:
September 11th wasn’t terrible enough for most Western leaders to recognize the gravity of the threat and the urgency of victory. The two leaders who were catalyzed by the terror attack (President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair) have been boxed in by a combination of so-called friends and allies and by their own advisers who counsel excessive prudence. This antiwar coalition prevented the rapid and decisive action Mr. Bush seemed instinctively inclined to unleash.
— First, the uniformed military insisted we were not “ready” to take on Iraq until we had totally replenished our supplies and massed a quarter of a million fighters for the Battle of Baghdad, even though there is abundant information suggesting that the Iraqi people are counting the minutes until we give them the chance of liberation from Saddam’s terrible dictatorship, and will do much of the job themselves.
Just try to wrap your heads around that for a minute. Ledeen is insisting that the uniformed military are part of the “antiwar coalition.” Seriously.
— All along, the really big prize — Iran — was there for the asking, and at a bargain price. Not a single bullet needed to be fired, not a single bomb dropped. The president had only to instruct his people to support the openly rebellious Iranians with money, vigorous radio and television broadcasting, and some communications equipment.
Just like the Iraqis were counting the minutes until we invaded them. Got. Cha.
On the plus side, though, I’m sure the Iranian dudes woulda loved the free TVs.
The only legitimate criticism of the Axis of Evil speech is that it was too limited, not that it was fanciful. There is indeed a working alliance involving Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, and it embraces other countries as well, including Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. It is a political and strategic alliance that unites this generation’s tyrants in common cause against the democratic West whose very existence threatens their grip on power by inspiring their peoples to fight for freedom.
Yessir, Saddam and them Iranian mullahs sure were bestest buddies, especially after Saddam starting lobbin’ chemical weapons at them an… hey, that don’t sound right!
More:
George W. is the most amazing president. How could anyone have imagined that such a man, who lacks all the credentials to conduct foreign policy (he hasn’t traveled, he hasn’t studied foreign cultures, he doesn’t speak foreign languages, his knowledge of world history is skimpy, and he hasn’t memorized the last decade of the New York Times) would turn out to have the best foreign-policy instincts imaginable? He reminds me more and more of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. He has the most important quality of a great leader: He instinctively finds the words to express what the American people believe. And his are simple words, not fancy ones.
What a pleasure.
Now let’s get on with the war. Faster, please.
Awesome. This stuff is going to keep me laughing for weeks.
is it in his contract to end every third post with “faster, please”? or is it some kind of Freudian insight into his psyche? ICK
hey Brad did you ever get your apartment situation sorted out? I assume so, but I haven’t been around to see the update.
Yes I got it sorted out and am now living in an AWESOME apartment. I will post pics soon, seriously 🙂
“— First, the uniformed military insisted we were not “readyâ€? to take on Iraq until we had totally replenished our supplies and massed a quarter of a million fighters for the Battle of Baghdad, even though there is abundant information suggesting that the Iraqi people are counting the minutes until we give them the chance of liberation from Saddam’s terrible dictatorship, and will do much of the job themselves.”
This reads like a essay I saw a while back from a physics professor, who claims that the Navy brass has been lying to Congress for 60+ years about not really needing the Iowa battleships, when in actuality, we need then RIGHT NOW!!* In fact, we need MORE OF THEM!** NOW!
What the fuck does the MILITARY know about militaries? Jesus, arrogant pricks. Think they’re so smart, just because they have training and experience and knowledge and expertise and shit. Do they not know that Bush was almost the PRESIDENT OF BASEBALL!?! Hellooooo!
*We don’t.
** We really don’t.
oh good! so I won’t feel bad about taunting your team for dropping two straight to Oakland! 🙂
One day, we’ll find out just what role that shit Ledeen had in the Niger forgeries.
In the meantime, let’s just content ourselves in knowing Iran policy is influenced by a man who speaks no Persian, has never been to Iran, and, furthermore, is now dead.
No wonder he loved Bush so.
“What a pleasure.” There’s the problem of the right writ large: for normal people, war is an absolute LAST RESORT. But for them…killing and maiming random strangers is FUN. I have nothing funny to say about that.
is it in his contract to end every third post with “faster, please�?
According to his original contract, the finishing phrase of every article was supposed to be “May I have another?”, but he managed to renegotiate that clause.
The two leaders who were catalyzed by the terror attack (President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair) have been boxed in by a combination of so-called friends and allies
Nobody every remembers our Prime Weasel In Short Pants! He was even there at the time, goldarnit! Okay, you couldn’t see him because the podium was in the way, but hey, he was there, supporting his bestest buddy George. It’s not George’s fault that the White House staff issued publicity blurbs touting the visit of “Australian Prime Minister Michael Howard”! *
the rapid and decisive action Mr. Bush seemed instinctively inclined to unleash.
“Instinctively”? What, like an alligator instinctively snaps at carrion? Like cats instinctively snooze? Like male dogs instinctively wee on everything? Instinctively like that?
There is indeed a working alliance involving Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, and it embraces other countries as well, including Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.
Fucken’ what?!?
It is a political and strategic alliance that unites this generation’s tyrants in common cause against the democratic West whose very existence threatens their grip on power by inspiring their peoples to fight for freedom.
This man has access to some quality drugs, I must say. I wonder if those tyrants meet in a secret lair built in an extinct volcano? Are they led by a man dressed in black and wearing an artificial hand? Is there, I must ask, an alligator pool?
How could anyone have imagined that such a man, who lacks all the credentials to conduct foreign policy…
…be allowed out in public, much less allowed to be in charge of a big country?
He reminds me more and more of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan: demented. Harry Truman: dead. Okay, Reagan also dead, but demented first.
He instinctively finds the words to express what the American people believe.
No. He instinctively employs the finest speechwriters who tell him to parrot what the American people believe.
What a pleasure.
Is this a man on his knees with his tongue out, or what?
Now let’s get on with the war. Faster, please.
Is he still saying this? I’d like to know whether he repudiates this drivel now, or whether he’s trying to pretend it never happened. Because I’d really like to rub his nose in it, wouldn’t you?
* Note for Americans: Michael Howard was a British pollie. Our Prime Monster is John Howard. You’d think they’d notice. At least since one of them is past tense, at least in political circles.
Wha? Huh? “…and Saudi Arabia” – So, how does Leeden feel about his Dearest Leader strolling hand in hand with THE ENEMY???!!! You know, those bad scary Arabs that financed the Bush business empire? Those guys? What?The?Fuck?
And Qetesh, you know if the Saudis are involved that lair has a big ol’ tank full of frickin’ sharks with frickin’ lazer beams on their heads!
The members of the armed forces are partners in the Coalition of the Willing? Does that mean they are each within their rights to use any property they own to forge their own independent nation-states with lower taxes and no extradition treaties? That would be kind of fun.
And once we have Ledeen on trial in the Hague, let’s not forget to ask him about the NINE BILLION DOLLARS his lovely daughter Simone “lost” while she was in charge of those pallets of cash during the early days of our latest Neato Iraqi Adventure. We all know that some significant portion of those pallets ended up in a bank account under the name Ledeen — stealing is the second highest art in the neoconservative pantheon, right behind lying — and it irks me like sand in a wet bathing suit every time I hear the L-name mentioned. That’s a lot of moola for a 27-year-old MBA to be allowed to get off with; if we don’t make an example of her, how are we going to discourage future generations of greedy little damp young neocons? (As for the paltry liberal theory that Michael shouldn’t be punished for Simone’s thievery, she’s said that she’d never have gotten such a ‘dream job’ without her Dear Daddy’s aid, so it’s not only grand larceny, it may be in violation of the RICO statutes as well.)
Well, hell, at least for one paragraph he advocates not bombing Iran!
Just wow, though. “Faster, please”? Next time someone objects to the phrase “cheerleading for war”, kindly point them in the direction of that post.
Wow, how stunning. Some shallow fascist who believes that noble war purifies all argues that noble war purifies all and that those who disagree are immoral cowards. Clearly a mind of the first order who deserves more national exposure.
At some point, most people mature and realize War is not the same as playing Risk.
But these mongering fucks find it all too exciting a game. The thousands dead and maimed, raped and starving? That’s all just something from the news, totally disconnected from teh Game.
What a totally amoral goon.
And speaking of amoral goons who think war is just a game, how ’bout Bill Kristol? Tbogg’s takedown is beautiful and vicious.
But as grimly satisfying as it is to savage these idiot neocon think tank buffoons who’ve been wrong about absolutely everything concerning the war from the very beginning, I find myself unable to derive any humor from it. After all, their stupidity has resulted in tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of deaths, and not only do they show no remorse whatsoever for their actions, none of them (aside from a few sacrifical water carriers like Libby) will ever do a minute of jail time as payment for all the death and misery they’ve unleashed on the world.
Ledeen has a long history of this kind of shit. Back in Reagantime, he and Arnaud de Borchgrave and Claire Sterling were cashing CIA checks to write dreadful, fact-free books and articles on “The Terror Network”, attempting to link everything from the Baader-Meinhof gang to the PLO to Mehmet Ali Agca’s attempt on the Pope up with the KGB. Anyone on the Right who ever utters the phrase “conspiracy theory” should be required to publicly and line-by-line repudiate the works of these hacks–starting with de Borchgrave’s dismal paperback _The Spike_.
These CIA asset “journalists” never go away–they just get jobs with Sun Myung Moon or other wingnut welfare sinecures.
Lucky stiffs.
Michael Ledeen needs to be tied to a telephone pole in Diyala.
Ledeen has a long history of this kind of shit.
You betcha. Don’t forget his glorious performance in the Iran-Contra fuckathon, all those many years ago. That in itself would have been enough to destroy the careers of dozens of lesser schmucks, but more than twenty years later Ledeen is still around and still churning out reams of maniacal jive, totally unfazed by decades of being spectacularly wrong about everything. What a guy!
Micheal Ledeen did make me think that I may have been misunderestimating shrubbies instinctivity all these years.
dunno l4m3, I think he needs more national exposure.
Say Death Valley National Park, for July.
With no water …
Nah. Sounds lovely, but I’ll stick with “torn to shreds by furious Iraqis” as being more karmically appropriate.
Qetesh, “I wonder if those tyrants meet in a secret lair built in an extinct volcano? Are they led by a man dressed in black and wearing an artificial hand? Is there, I must ask, an alligator pool?”
Step this way, sir, your underground lair awaits. I regret it’s just in a normal mountain, but it is satisfyingly over 1,000 ft tall. I hope you like the similarity to The Hood’s secret temple hideaway from Thunderbirds.
And the first link shows that Donald Rumsfeld told the American public there were several of these underground fortresses in Afghanistan. It also gives the sordid story of how the cave grew in the telling, from a hole in the ground to the equivalent of Barad-Dûr.
Anyone have a link to/know more about the Ledeen statement (alledgedly quoted by goateed sack of pudge Jonah Goldberg) that “every ten years or so we have to pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall” to prove how manly & macho the U. S. of A. is?
You must admit, Ledeen (HEY!! IS THAT SOME KIND OF FRENCH NAME?) is about the most obnoxious loudmouthed asswipe of sooo many obnoxious loumouthed asswipes. Personally, I’d like to go a couple rounds w/ the S. O. B., you know, just to see how his personal macho is. Sissy gloves, headgear, a ref, in a ring, Marquess of Queensbury rules, fine. (Not as much fun as seeing his blood spilled on the sidewalk, but I’d still whip the crap outta him, in or out of the ring!)
Ah, “excessive prudence”. That’s a big problem with us isn’t it?