WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY ON IRAQ

This might disappear from the NRO site because it only seems to archive for only about a year, so I'll reprint it here.


NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
February 24, 2006 2:51 PM

It Didn't Work

By William F. Buckley Jr.

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes—it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted—to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others' throats.

A problem for American policymakers—for President Bush, ultimately—is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.

One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom.

The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence.

This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail—in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn't work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

(c) 2006 Universal Press Syndicate

HANNITY IS A LOUSY AMERICAN

(Via ThinkProgress)

Hannity the Whore almost exploded about the CBS story on the U.S. soldiers who oppose the Iraq War.

This is what Lexis-Nexis had as the transcript of the exchange between Whore and Colmes:

COLMES: Finally tonight, we will give you a sneak peek of what investigative peace "Hannity's America" is working on for the next show on March 4.

Sean, I understand you're going to have some reaction to a piece that "60 Minutes" is planning to run this Sunday night.

HANNITY: Alan, not even a piece worth watching, to be honest with you. This Sunday "60 Minutes" will run a hit piece. About 1,000 or so active duty servicemen and women sign what's being called a redress saying that they think the U.S. troops should leave Iraq.

Now, since we want to give both sides of the story, what we'd like to hear from active duty reserve and National Guard members, those that think that we need to stay in Iraq until victory is achieved.

Now, if you're one of these great Americans serving our country and think that we need to stay until the job is done, well, you can e-mail us at VictoryInIraq@FOXNews.com.

We're going to have the full explosive report. It's one week from this Sunday in our next edition of "Hannity's America".

By the way, we should note this is the same network, Alan, that you know, forged documents 40 some odd days before an election. And this is a hit piece. It is designed to, as far as I'm concerned, work with the Democrats in congress, embolden the enemy, undermine the troops.

COLMES: Well, I haven't seen the piece yet. I don't necessarily believe that because you object to the war, you're undermining the troops.

HANNITY: They never told the good story. They've never taken the time to tell the other side of that story, about all the good things that have happened because they have a bias.

COLMES: We'll be following it.

HANNITY: We don't.

SOURCE: FOX HANNITY & CO 9:58 PM EST

February 23, 2007 Friday

Hannity's delusions are obvious here and I'm glad that he is more openly showing his craziness. I'll be glad to help push him over the edge by sending excerpts of William F. Buckley's National Review column from last February to VictoryInIraq@FOXNEWS.com.

MORE REVELATIONS ABOUT A SECRETIVE GROUP

I've read that the Council for National Policy is the conservative analogue to the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals and that seems to be an accurate assessment:

Christian Right Labors to Find ’08 Candidate
by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 25, 2007
NEW YORK TIMES

(excerpts)

The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.


“There is great anxiety,” said Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and an elder statesman of the conservative movement. “There is no outstanding conservative, and they are all looking for that." Mr. Weyrich, a longtime member of the council, declined to discuss the group or its meetings.

The conservative concern may also be an ominous sign for the Republican Party about the morale of a core element of its political base.

The Council for National Policy was founded 25 years ago by the Rev. Tim LaHaye as a forum for conservative Christians to strategize about turning the country to the right. Its secrecy was intended to insulate the group from what its members considered the liberal bias of the news media. In recent years the group has brought together a cross-section of the right from Edwin J. Feulner to Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.

RADIO TIDBITS

Shammity has gotten into the habit of playing quotes from Democrats that leave relevant context. As I noted, he did this with Murtha and he did the same with Hilary Clinton a few days ago. This time, I couldn't find the full quote from Hilary because I didn't note the date but Shammity was attempting to prove that she was a hypocrite about the Iraq War based upon an incomplete sound bite.

ONE MORE TIME

My last post to PowerLine on AOL was also removed so I tried leaving out the "wanker" stuff and just left this simple question:

Please activate your comments by clicking this URL: http://newsbloggers.aol.com/confirm/19d3574349b3eef6e19e63cd219f6ddf/ The comments below will be added to the post titled "Introducing Power Line AOL": ---------------------------------------------- Your comments:

I'd like to know if Mr. Hinderaker still believes this:"It must bevery strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision andbrilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. Heis like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and whounveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when notbored, ishostile."http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011183.php#011183

---------------------------------------------- Weblogs Inc. Customer Service service@weblogsinc.comP.S.: For future reference, you may avoid these confirmations by using your e-mail and password:

LIEBERMAN IS A WHORE

Holy Joe appeared on Shammity's radio show yesterday and called Sean "a great American." I almost barfed.

VIRUS UPDATE

AOL either deleted or never posted my comment about PowerLine. Just in case "AssRocket" was too harsh for AOL, I re-posted and substituted "Hinderaker." Let's see if this one makes it.

Once again, here's the confirmation that AOL got my post:


Date:
Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:07:22 -0500
To:
radamisto99@yahoo.com
Subject:
News Bloggers: Please confirm your comment
From:
service@weblogsinc.com Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert

Please activate your comments by clicking this URL:
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/confirm/47677764f1338325b54828ac5e911727/
The comments below will be added to the post titled "Introducing Power
Line AOL":
----------------------------------------------
Your comments: Wednesday, December 07, 2005HINDERAKER ON PRES. FREDO I
had forgotten
about this until I went to The Poorman to look at the Wanker of the
Year nominations."It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man
of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't
get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is
ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a
reception that, when not bored, is hostile."I realize that one has to
consider an entire year of insane drivel but surely there could be a
special award for this gem from HINDERAKER.
----------------------------------------------
Weblogs Inc. Customer Service
service@weblogsinc.com
P.S.: For future reference, you may avoid these confirmations by using
your e-mail and password:

THE VIRUS SPREADS!!!

Ass Rocket and the other crazies at PowerLine are now featured on AOL. This calls for a repeat post:


Wednesday, December 07, 2005

ASSROCKET ON PRES. FREDO
I had forgotten about this until I went to The Poorman to look at the Wanker of the Year nominations.

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

I realize that one has to consider an entire year of insane drivel but surely there could be a special award for this gem from AssRocket.



I also posted this on the AOL blog entry about PowerLine. I wonder if it will stay up?

UPDATE:

This is the confirmation that AOL got the post:


Date:
Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:55:55 -0500
To:
radamisto99@yahoo.com
Subject:
News Bloggers: Please confirm your comment
From:
service@weblogsinc.com Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert

Please activate your comments by clicking this URL:
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/confirm/c747428d268d2f54734b77b17482e8f7/
The comments below will be added to the post titled "Introducing Power
Line AOL":
----------------------------------------------
Your comments: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 ASSROCKET ON PRES. FREDOI
had forgotten
about this until I went to The Poorman to look at the Wanker of the
Year nominations."It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man
of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't
get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is
ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a
reception that, when not bored, is hostile."I realize that one has to
consider an entire year of insane drivel but surely there could be a
special award for this gem from AssRocket.
----------------------------------------------
Weblogs Inc. Customer Service
service@weblogsinc.com
P.S.: For future reference, you may avoid these confirmations by using
your e-mail and password:
E-mail: radamisto99@yahoo.com

RADIO TIDBITS

Foamer "Annie" Levin was more delusional than usual last night. He tried to make us believe that Dick Cheney wasn't extremely unpopular: "Too bad he doesn't run - he'd win." Foamer was referring to the 2008 Presidential election. Here's a bit of reality from a recent Harris Poll:

Vice President Dick Cheney sees his lowest job performance numbers since the beginning of the administration in 2001 – only 29 percent have a positive view of his job performance, while 67 percent have a negative view. This is the first time that the Vice President’s numbers have gone below 30 percent. (2/8/07)

TWO GREAT QUOTES

Of course, they are great for vastly different reasons. One is reality-based (via Atrios):

TPM Election Central -

"If Fergus Cullen has the courage of his convictions, he should go enlist, because they're having trouble meeting their quota. He's young, he's single and he's healthy. If he needs to know where the recruiters are, call me."

— Representative Carol Shea-Porter, D-NH, quoted in The Concord Monitor, responding to state GOP chair Fergus Cullen, who had criticized her vote for the anti-escalation resolution.


The other is based on psychosis (from ABC News)

Cheney: I think Don's [Rumsfeld]a great secretary [sic]. I know a little bit about the job. I've watched what he's done over there for six years. I think he did a superb job in terms of managing the Pentagon under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

BS FROM TS

Last night, Tammy the Shrill claimed that the South had more deaths in Iraq than any part of the country. (This factoid was wrapped up in an attack on Hilary Clinton) I thought this might be wrong so I went to Iraq Coalition Casualties Count and found a state-by-state breakdown.

Although it is no surprise, TS is wrong.

Here are the numbers to date (deaths, total population):

Alabama 52 4,599,030
Arkansas 40 2,810,872
Florida 130 18,089,888
Georgia 90 9,363,941
Louisiana 71 4,287,768
Mississippi 40 2,910,540
South Carolina 42 4,321,249
Tennessee 68 6,038,803
TOTALS 533 52,422,091


TOTAL AMERICAN DEATHS: 3143

So, the South accounts for about 1/6th of all American deaths. In fact, 5 Northern states have more deaths than the entire South:

New York 143 19,306,183
Pennsylvania 151 12,440,621
Michigan 124 10,095,643
Illinois 117 12,831,970
Ohio 138 11,478,006


TOTALS 673 66,152,423


The Northern states here do have more people than the Southern states, 66,152,423 versus 52,422,091, so we need to correct for total population. After dividing the deaths by the population and multiplying by 100,000 we find that the RATE of the 5 Northern states exceeeds that of the 8 Southern states, 1.017347 versus 1.016747. It's not much of a difference but this minor exercise shows once again that the wingnuts lie easily and often.

IRAQ VETS IN BUSHWORLD

(Hat-tip to Atrios) Glenn Greenwald of Salon points out two searing articles about Walter Reed Hospital by Dana Priest of the Washington Post. Both deserve reading.

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; Page A01

(excerpt)

Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

The Hotel Aftermath
Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War
Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons
By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff WritersMonday, February 19, 2007; Page A01

(excerpts)

The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post.

Some soldiers and Marines have been here for 18 months or longer. Doctor's appointments and evaluations are routinely dragged out and difficult to get.

HOT AIR ON HOT AIR

Thomas Sowell is in the global warming denialist camp. In a recent ClownHall article, he warned about those who "are prepared to ruin the economy, sacrificing jobs and the national standard of living" to help mitigate global warming. He neglected to mention the VAST cost of doing nothing.

In this article, Sowell cites Prof. Richard F. Lindzen of MIT as a prominent and believable critic of global warming. Prof. Lindzen is a contributor to the book Encyclopedia of Global Change, Environmental Change and Human Society, Volume 1, Oxford University Press, New York,710 pp, and the introduction to his paper on the greenhouse effect states:

The carbon dioxide of the atmosphere has been increasing since the early nineteenth century, owing to our consumption of fossil fuels and deforestation, and is expected to reach twice its natural post-glacial value sometime in the twenty-first century. (op. cit., pp. 562)

Lindzen can't be considered a critic of global warming, at least in his scholarly work. His popular work is a different story. Both of his opinon pieces in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) cast doubt on global warming and its proponents.

RADIO TIDBITS

Slots Bennett had on a UPENN wingnut, Professor Al Felzenberg (?), who's preposterous claim caught my attention: Raygun ranks with FDR as a great President. The good professor repeated the lie that Raygun defeated the USSR. That logic is similar to claiming that Noxin put a man on the moon.

ON GAMBLING

I caught some of Fox News Sunday and the notion that the Democrats are "gambling" on what will happen in Iraq was mentioned by Wallace, Hume and Kristol. I think this was first mentioned by Press Secretary Tony Snow(job) last Friday:

MR. SNOW: The question is what the margin is; does it matter. I don't know. Again, members -- it's going to be interesting, because members of Congress have taken their own gamble here. They're gambling on failure -- some members, at least.

When I think about this, my head starts to hurt because the worst that could happen to the Dems who oppose escalation is that they would have to admit they were wrong. As Snow puts it:

MR. SNOW: I mean because all of a sudden, it's -- suppose suddenly that you start to see signs of success. Then are these members going to come out and say, you know what, we were wrong -- they're going to have another resolution?

The worst that happens with Fredo's plan is that we get more American soldiers killed. Chris Wallace has a view similar to Snow's:

WALLACE: Senator, aren't some Democrats in effect gambling that the surge will fail? And won't you end up looking foolish if it should actually succeed?

Let's see, what's worse:

Looking foolish OR more dead Americans?

SLOUCHING TOWARD HEALTHCARE REFORM

I've noted previously that some "non-liberal" players are beginning to call for comprehensive healthcare reform and Paul Krugman's latest column has more on what's wrong:

McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, recently released an important report dissecting the reasons America spends so much more on health care than other wealthy nations. One major factor is that we spend $98 billion a year in excess administrative costs, with more than half of the total accounted for by marketing and underwriting — costs that don’t exist in single-payer systems.And this is just part of the story. McKinsey’s estimate of excess administrative costs counts only the costs of insurers. It doesn’t, as the report concedes, include other “important consequences of the multipayor system,” like the extra costs imposed on providers.

[SNIP]

McKinsey estimates that the United States pays $66 billion a year in excess drug costs, and overpays for medical devices like knee and hip implants, too.

An earlier article from the NY Times provides some more information about how expensive healthcare is becoming and what major U.S. companies are thinking:

“There is more frustration and less acceptance of the current system among employers than we have ever seen in my 30 years in this field,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, an organization made up of large companies.

... the head of another representative of large corporations said that not taking action was no longer an option for American companies as they compete with foreign businesses whose governments shouldered medical and hospital costs.

“Health costs are the single largest cost pressure that employers face — far exceeding energy, labor, material, even litigation,” said John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, an association of 165 of the largest companies.

The national grocery chain Safeway, for example, says the $1 billion it spent on employee health care last year exceeded its net income. By next year, that will be true for most large businesses, according to Safeway’s chairman and chief executive, Steven A. Burd, who cited a McKinsey & Company study.