WP: Crush the Insurgents in Iraq Lehrman/Kristol

[Hand]

"In August 1864 there was a widespread belief in the North that the Civil War could not be won...

(snip)

"But Lincoln pressed forward. He argued that 'no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. . . . He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. . . . Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.'

Then Atlanta fell to Union troops in the late summer of 1864. Lincoln was reelected, with 80 percent of the soldier vote. Shortly thereafter came the 13th Amendment, the abolition of slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and the beginning of a long process of Reconstruction. Lincoln's war aims were ultimately realized."

These stupid bastards didn't read their history books. Emancipation was on Jan. 1, 1863, and the battle of Antietam was the justifying event. The rest of the piece is about as accurate.

So-called conservative intellectuals. A pair of morans!

:dunce: :dunce:

link

[Kagemusha]

1. Morons? Hey, it's working.

Sadr's forces are being crushed. Soon they won't have an army to stand on. Sadr will soon be captured or killed. Then they'll have no choice but to...

...start a guerilla war!

[billhos]

2. actually the 13 th amendment

did abolish slavery. The emancipatoin proclamation simply declared all slaves free in states rebelling from the Union. I know picky-picky-picky.

[Hand]

4. Ah...

My mistake. They actually do mention the emancipation proclamation elsewhere. So... I Was Wrong.
:dunce: :spank:
And they're still morans.
:evilgrin:

[Gman]

3. absolute drivel

I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. "Crush" Lehrman/Kristol....

and do our country a damn favor. :mad:

[ScrewyRabbit]

6. A stupid analogy

The Civil War was fought with organized state armies in the field. This is a guerilla war.

[KG]

7. insurgents? i see an armed resistance fighting to rid their home of

a brutal occupation force.

[T Roosevelt]

8. Reminds me of France during WWII

They're so happy with the WWII analogies - here's the best one - the "insurgents" are the Free French fighting the Nazi occupiers and the Vichy government.

Hmmm, now where does the US fit in that analogy? Not a pretty comparison...

[Wright Patman]

9. So did the Southerners

That's exactly how they saw what they called the "War of Northern Aggression."

What is ironic about today's America is that none of this would be happening were the U.S. not an officious "superpower" meddling in the affairs of 120 nations all over the world.

And it would not be a "superpower" without the stupid cannon fodder from down here in "Deliverance" country signing up for the neocons' "global war on everyone."

Had the Confederacy been allowed to go it own way, those 11 states would now not be a superpower nation, but a Third World backwater of illiteracy, ignorance and grinding poverty. The blacks would have had to endure slavery a little longer, but I believe eventually they would have fought their own insurgency a la Haiti.

The remaining 39 states of the U.S. would probably feel compelled by conscience to send their benighted Celtic brethren foreign aid of some sort, but at least we would not be embroiled in the "global war" to rid the planet of "evildoers."

[ColdWarZoomie]

10. Interesting

I grew up in the South. For some odd reason, most of my fellow rednecks relish being pawns in the hands of Uncle Sam and just want to "kick some Arab and terrorist a$$."

Bush's simplistic us vs. them rhetoric hits right at home down south.

Scary.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Critique

The poor analogy with the civil war is about the least of the authors' sins on display in this piece.

"The United States will lead, or the world will shift into neutral." Wise words from President Bush on May 20 to congressional Republicans. From the beginning, the president has made clear that we must lead and win the war on terror. To win the strategic war, we must of course win tactical battles. The central battle in the war on terror is Iraq. Unless we win that battle, we will see America itself, and the world, shift disastrously into neutral in the broader war.

There no truth in Mr. Bush's statement. The problem is that he is not providing proper leadership. He has used the attacks of September 11 not to lead a war against terrorists, but as a pretext to carry out a nefarious agenda. No matter how the neoconservatives attempt to spin it, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism. Saddam had no ties to al Qaida and in fact brutally repressed Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq; nor did Saddam possess any biochemical arsenal, let alone any that remotely resembled the arsenal that General Powell quantified before the UN Security Council and that Mr. Rumsfeld claimed to be located in Tikrit and Baghdad; nor was Saddam "reconstituting" his nuclear program, as claimed by Mr. Cheney on several occasions and asserted by Mr. Bush himself in the 2003 State of the Union message. The only people who continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified on these grounds are wacky conspiracy theorists like Laurie Mylroie, who is still pushing the Saddam/al Qaida link with evidence that was been long ago debunked, and deliberate obfuscaters like those in the junta, including Bush and Cheney, and their allies such as Mr. Kristol, Mr. Perle and other PNAC think tankers.

What of the war aims of President Bush? He intends passage of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30, and elections in January, followed by the establishment of a representative Iraqi government and the successful reconstruction of Iraqi society.

Horsepucky. The "sovereignty" that Mr. Bush is handing over to the Iraqis on June 30 does not put Iraqi security under Iraqi control nor does it allow Iraqi lawmakers to repeal the imperial decrees of the American colonial government led by Paul Bremer. Of course the June 30 date will be met. Nothing is really supposed to happen on that date.

The provisional Iraqi that will receive power on June 30 is not a sovereign government. It cannot said to be any government at all. It is nothing more than a collection of handpicked colonial puppets that Bush and Bremer and their allies in neoconservative think tanks will call a government. This pseudo-institution will no more be a government than Saddam was a threat.

If a provisional Iraqi sovereign government is to operate effectively from July until the elected government takes power in January, adequate security is necessary. This requires striking a decisive military blow against the armed insurgencies that seek to prevent the Iraqi government from coming into existence . . . . (T)he immediate task is therefore the destruction of the armies and militias of the insurgency -- not taking and holding territory, not winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, not conciliating opponents and critics, not gaining the approval of other nations. All of these can follow after victory over the violent insurrection.

If a real Iraqi government is supposed to take power, then the success of the insurgency is necessary. It is not up to the US government -- even one that holds legitimate power, were there one -- to dictate to the Iraqi people who shall govern them.

It is typical of the PNAC think tankers to assert that the US needs no permission to impose its will on the Iraqi people. Where do Lehrman and Kristol get off saying this has nothing to do with winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? What happened to the principle that government is only legitimate with the consent of the governed? This is just another example of how the neoconservative doctrine is contrary to American democratic principles.

So any armed insurgency opposed to a peaceful transition in Iraq must be destroyed. Fallujah must be conquered and terrorists denied safe haven in Fallujah and other centers of insurrection. Moqtada Sadr's militia must be rendered powerless. This will have to be accomplished primarily by American and British military power -- however useful various political efforts can be, however useful Iraqi and coalition forces can be. Then a sovereign Iraq, with continued U.S. military and other assistance, will be able to move ahead with the task of political and economic reconstruction.

The conclusion drawn by Lehrman and Kristol is simply a logical result of their false premises. If the Iraqi people do not support al-Sadr and his militia, they will destroy it without our help. For now, that militia is serving their interests. It is resisting colonial occupation. The Iraqi people have every right to resist colonial occupation. There is no reason for them to accept a government imposed on them by a foreign power. That is a right Lehrman and Kristol would deny them; that is a right that Bush and Bremer actively seek to deny them.