Disgusting liars
Victor Davis Hanson today:
While few would believe there is any good news from Iraq, in fact, there is. Finally, we are mastering counter-insurgency, partly due to trial-and-error, partly due to the sheer exhaustion of the Iraqis who went through the embraces of Arab nationalism, ex-Baathism, and al-Qaedism that at various times fueled the insurgency. On occasion now, Sunni tribesmen for the first time are helping Americans and want a cessation of random violence. Kurdistan is by all accounts a success. The south will be infiltrated by Iran, given its Shiite population and proximity, but Iran itself is tottering and may be as destabilized by Iraq as it can destabilize Iraq.
In short, Gen. Petreus has gone right to the cancer in the Sunni Triangle, and for the first time we are starting to see real results.
“For the first time we are starting to see real results!” he writes. I guess he must have been insincere back when he wrote this in February 2006 (my emphasis):
The insurgency in Iraq has no military capability either to drive the United States military from Iraq or to stop the American training of Iraqi police and security forces — or, for that matter, to derail the formation of a new government. The United States air base at Balad is one of the busiest airports in the world. Camp Victory near Baghdad is impenetrable to serious attack. And even forward smaller bases at Kirkuk, Mosul, and Ramadi are entirely secure. […]
During this sort of waiting game in Iraq, the American military silently is training tens of thousands of Iraqis to do the daily patrols, protect construction projects, and assure the public that security is on the way, while an elected government reminds the people that they are at last in charge. […]
Who will win? The Americans I talked to this week in Iraq — in Baghdad, Balad, Kirkuk, and Taji — believe that a government will emerge that is seen as legitimate and will appear as authentic to the people. Soon, ten divisions of Iraqi soldiers, and over 100,000 police, should be able to crush the insurgency, with the help of a public tired of violence and assured that the future of Iraq is their own — not the Husseins’, the Americans’, or the terrorists’. The military has learned enough about the tactics of the enemy that it can lessen casualties, and nevertheless, through the use of Iraqi forces, secure more of the country with far less troops. Like it or not, the American presence in Iraq will not grow, and will probably lessen considerably in 2006, before reaching Korea-like levels and responsibilities in 2007. […]
It is an odd war, because the side that I think is losing garners all the press, whether by blowing up the great golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, or blowing up an American each day. Yet we hear nothing of the other side that is ever so slowly, shrewdly undermining the enemy.
While progress in reestablishing the infrastructure necessary for increased electricity and oil production seems dismal, in fact, much has been finished that awaits only the completion of pipelines and transmission lines — the components most vulnerable to sabotage.
Hey neocons: do you know why people of every political stripe- from Jim Henley to George Will to Bill Buckley to Matthew Yglesias to Glenn Greenwald to Paul Krugman to Noam Chomsky- hate your guts? It’s because you lie about everything. You are literally incapable of telling the truth. And when you get caught in your lies, you merely invent new ones and pretend that your past falsehoods never existed.
For the life of me, I have never seen members of any political ideology who are so immersed in dishonesty and deceit. What the hell is wrong with these people?
But lying is patriotic!
And Jesus lied too, didn’t he?
And Jesus lied too, didn’t he?
Only when he said he loved us WPE, only when he said he loved us.
No, no, no, we were winning then too, it’s just we are winning HARDER now.
It’s not lying.
It’s every.single.day begins a new year zero.
Subtle difference.
No, no, no, we were winning then too, it’s just we are winning HARDER now.
And much more awesomer! Instead of trying to kill Americans, Iraqis are now leaving Improvised Explosive Greeting Cards–some even with Improvised Explosive Teddy Bears! They fucking love us!
We are winning because despite the fact the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Iraqi government is incapable of projecting anything resembling legitimacy, SOON the Iraqi government will be in charge*!
Further, even though it looks like the average Iraqi will not enjoy even rudimentary security, employment, a functioning economy, medical service, education, basic civil services and infrastructure, or access to energy like gasoline and electricity, all we have to do is wait for those things to be in place, which is proof that we are winning!!
Using exclamation points after every point, no matter how bat-shit st00pid serves to make that point even more manly, and illustrative of how much courage, honor, resolve, will, etc. the writer is currently displaying!!!
I have a gut feeling about all of this…
Hang on. I think I found the awesomest lie of all. I believe it’s actually the rarely-deployed Triple Eydie Gorme:
The Americans I talked to this week in Iraq — in Baghdad, Balad, Kirkuk, and Taji — believe that a government will emerge that is seen as legitimate and will appear as authentic to the people.
Lemme try to unpack it. VDH would like to say:
A legitimate and authentic government will emerge in Iraq.
But he can’t, of course, because even David Broder might laugh at him. So he has to qualify it just a smidge by saying the “Americans I talked to . . . believe” — what? That Iraq will have such a government? No no no. That a government will be manufactured that will appear to some people to be legitimate.
And the best part? It’s still a lie!
Gawd, he’s good.
al-Qaedism? al-FUCKING-Qaedism???
Y’know, it’s been the hottest day in 50 years, but I got through it (mostly on cold beer). But this … this … this paragon of wankery fucking makes me wanna lie down and die.
and dont forget when the wingnut meme changes over from “Democratcy-Whiskey-Sexy” to “Wipe them out. All of them.” and back again- the Freedman Unit resets to zero and we start all over again.
Chomsky in The Nation (1977):
“…there are many other sources on recent events in Cambodia that have not been brought to the attention of the American reading public. Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing.”
At most?
At most?
Maybe he meant 999,000. That’s in the thousands somewhere.
executions have numbered at most in the thousands
Big deal. First Cav killed that many one weekend in May. And didn’t even need resupply…
mikey
Kurdistan is by all accounts a success.
Is it now, Victor meboyo?
Must be ANOTHER “Kurdistan” in Northern Iraq where 80-some-odd people got blown up today:
Attacks on civilians in northern Iraq have increased since U.S. and Iraqi forces initiated a security crackdown in Baghdad and neighboring Diyala province.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNTT!
Thank you for playing, Johnny will tell you about your gee-swell consolation prizes now.
Hey, what do they think those Sunni tribesmen we are currently arming in Anbar are going to do when there ain’t no Al-Qaeda left? Play Bingo?
My favorite, um, sentence, is this:
Meanwhile, we in the West bicker whether Islam, radical Islam, or Islamism is at the heart of this—that is, those of the sane fringe at least argue, who don’t, Jimmy Carter-like, indict the US for bringing it all on ourselves by not talking to Iran, snubbing Syria, forsaking Hamas, marginalizing Hezbollah, being in Iraq, supporting the Jews, etc.
This passage is a model of clarity and still (I think) slags Carter, VD’s personal marker for When It All Went Wrong With America.
I just don’t get it. When the Emir (or whatever he is) of Kuwait outsourced getting Iraq out of his little country to G. H. W. Bush & the armed forces of the U. S., wasn’t the Iraqi army the sixth or eighth largest in the world, and while most of them were looked on as punks, it was widely propagandized that at least the Republican Guard was not to be trifled with. And Hussein’s security apparatus was pretty much widely feared. So where did all these people and their organizations go? I realize the army was disbanded & the Ba’athists were de-Ba’athicised, but why in hell do we have to train Iraqis to do these same jobs again? Perhaps the Iraqi people can see that the current gov’t. is far from legitimate & most of them just don’t want to waste the time (let alone their lives).
And since, according to Fresno’s finest (must be quite a competition there, what w/ C. Johnson, Free Republic & VDH all fighting over who can most mistreat the “Meskins”): “[f]inally, we are mastering counter-insurgency” just what can we teach them, if we’re just getting around to “mastering” the concept four yrs. later? Let alone that every “war” the U. S. has fought since Korea has been against insurgents (Viet-Nam) or just invasion & occupation of a significantly weaker nation. You’d think we would know something about “counter-insurgency” by now. Could it be that the American military is just butt-stupid, wilfully ignorant, & mostly a bunch of impoverished unfortunates who volunteered to “protect” a nation that can’t/won’t provide its military volunteers w/ employment sufficient to live on? Talk about voting against your best interests, enlisting to perpetuate the system that gives you no option but to enlist.
[…] True! “Disgusting Liars” For Sure! Posted by John O under Political Why these people still retain citizenship, much less a “respected” (among the 30% dead enders, anyway) place in the public […]
June, 2,003
Fourth, for all the doom and gloom we are making amazing progress.
http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/were_making_progress.htm
September, ‘04
Finally, for all the media-inspired pessimism, progress continues in Iraq.
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson091704.html
January ‘05
Yet the insurgency in Iraq — costing more than 1,300 American combat dead — has rightly cast a pall over this remarkable progress.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/06/EDGOQAL6VC1.DTL
March, ‘06
Despite steady U.S. military progress against jihadists, and the bold endorsement of peaceful self-rule by 11 million Iraqis.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:OtFbz84xLwgJ:taemag.com/docLib/20060128_M06Hanson.pdf+victor+davis+hanson,+iraq,+progress&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=28&gl=us
July, ‘06
What progress we have made since 9/11 — thousands of terrorists killed, al Qaeda scattered, Europe galvanized about Islamism and sobered about the consequences of its cheap U.S. rhetoric, Iran’s nuclear antics revealed, democracy birthed in the Middle East, Palestinian radicals exposed for their fraud, the United Nations under overdue scrutiny, America much better defended at home —
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzc1NGI3M2YzMTdhNjJmY2QzMjc5MGEzZDg3ZTM2MDY=
You can just taste the hatred for America. What the Left fears most of all is success in Iraq.
So, you’re basically saying the “Left” has nothing to fear?
like the locrians toward the phocians riiight about 395 bc…i still hate vdh.
I took two semesters of pathogenic microbiology. I mean, I know what V.D. looks like. I think we’re dealing with an entirely new strain here, Neisseria hansonus. If the antibiotics fail…well, there’s always the Valentine treatment.
You can just taste the hatred for America
Well, that’s a bit of hyperbole there, but yes, Jose Chung, you can certainly sense how badly George Bush has damaged the image of the US in the eys of the rest of the world.
You can just taste the hatred for America.
And it tastes like hippy-fart-juice-soaked horse fly maggots baked in a big, steaming dung pie with bacon and play-do on top.
“What the Left fears most of all is success in Iraq.”
Not exactly a whole lot to fear there, if the last four years are any indication.
You can just taste the hatred for America. What the Left fears most of all is success in Iraq.
OK, i’m still trying to figure out how these cheeto-dust-huffing clowns can reconcile their own bullshit…lemme see: somehow, in order to be free of the threat of fanatical foreign cobags who “hate us for our freedom” we must yield to our own brand of fanatical right-wing cobags who similarly hate us for our freedom…ooookay, if you say so, sparky.
and success in Iraq? considering the tragically idiotic figures running the show from the White House and the various neocon think-tanks (hah!) it is more likely that ponies will rain from the skies, because this thing has been one giant clusterfuck from the word “Go.”
we have met the enema, and it is Jose…i’m just saying
What the Left fears most of all is success in Iraq.
Yep – it’s right up there with gravity suddenly reversing, spontenous human combustion, and not being able to get it up when Scarlett Johanson arrives naked on my doorstep in my list of fears.