2006-09-05

"We Must Not Confuse Dissent with Disloyality"

Keith Olbermann's response to Donald Rumsfeld's tirade last week.
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8 comments:

Paul Hue said...

I agree that objection to a war does not equate with disloyalty, and that presidents of a democracy cannot require or expect citizens to shut up and cheer whenever a president heads off to war. But objecting to war does indeed help the enemy. If you really believe that a war is unjust, then I encourage you to speak out. But one price of this objection is assisting the enemy, for better or worse.

One obligation that I believe a democratic president has is considering domestic support for a war that the president believes is important and vital. Abe Lincoln sold non-confederate states on the civil war initially, by casting it as independant of abolition. When the union started losing, the Union public started turning against him. The terrible toll of the war could not be justified by an effort merely to "preserve the union". This combined with various developments compelled Lincoln to come clean with a clear justification for the war: abolition. He did not think that the public would buy it, and prepared for a failed re-election. But the publis surprised him: union voters switched back to supporting the war and him, and the troops starting winning.

This has not happened for Bush and Iraq. It may be impossible for the US now to win such a war, no matter how noble and constructive people like me believe it is.

12:09 AM
Anonymous said...

"It may be impossible for the US now to win such a war, no matter how noble and constructive people like me believe it is."

Unfortunately, I think you're right on this one. Because of global, digital, instantaneous, slanted, biased media coverage, and because of folks such as our friend Nadir who think America is world's greatest threat and deserves its comeuppance and to have it's collective ass handed to it, and a general public that because of that non-stop, biased media coverage no longer have the stomach for a long, protracted war.

Our enemies have no lengths to which they will go to destroy us, knowing full well, based on recent history, we won't return the favor. That may all change though if the circumstances are dire enough, such as say, an entire major U.S. being vaporized.

That kind of event might wake our useful idiot fellow citizens from their slumber.

Then again, maybe not.

9:52 AM
Anonymous said...

By the way, Keith Olbermann is nimrod and a tool.

9:54 AM
Paul Hue said...

Even Nadir would ultimately fight these guys once bearded retards start beating his wife with a stick for showing her ankles, or buries his niece to her neck and crushes her skull with a big rock for having pre-marital sex.

The problem is, a very large fraction of Americans today do not yet feel this way yet. The Nadirs and Pat Buchanans may be right, though; I concede that. Maybe if the US pulls out all overseas military bases, and simply conducts normal business with whichever various thug-ocracies or theoc-racies jack-stomp their way to power. Funny, though, US military bases did not, and have not, interfered with freedom, independance, and prosperity in Italy, Germany, France, South Korea, etc., in stark contrast to the claims of Nadir and the Muslim Crusaders. Even Cuba has proceded to ruin itself with no US interferance for 50 years, even with a huge military base on that island. There's just no evidence that US military bases inherently deprive nations of independance and freedom.

I'm re-reading some of my Arab history books. It's really amazing the non-colonial behavior of US and European powers in the past century, despite all the cries to the contrary. In WWI, for example, various very rudimentary Arab governments denied British, French, and US military from crossing their territory. Did these mighty powers ignore those decisions by the weak monarchies, or contort their operations to honor them? They contorted.

All successful nations, peoples, and people have excuses for having not conducted themselves productively; hey, we all got touched by our uncles and got pulled too soon from our mother's bosom (in my case, I got pulled too soon from Nadir's mom's bosom, the harlet).

Apparently not enough Iraqis are giving the US plan a chance, and too many USers have lost patience. It also appears that the Bushies have executed and sold their plan poorly and even incompetently.

10:49 AM
Paul Hue said...

Even Nadir would ultimately fight these guys once bearded retards start beating his wife with a stick for showing her ankles, or buries his niece to her neck and crushes her skull with a big rock for having pre-marital sex.

The problem is, a very large fraction of Americans today do not yet feel this way yet. The Nadirs and Pat Buchanans may be right, though; I concede that. Maybe if the US pulls out all overseas military bases, and simply conducts normal business with whichever various thug-ocracies or theoc-racies jack-stomp their way to power. Funny, though, US military bases did not, and have not, interfered with freedom, independance, and prosperity in Italy, Germany, France, South Korea, etc., in stark contrast to the claims of Nadir and the Muslim Crusaders. Even Cuba has proceded to ruin itself with no US interferance for 50 years, even with a huge military base on that island. There's just no evidence that US military bases inherently deprive nations of independance and freedom.

I'm re-reading some of my Arab history books. It's really amazing the non-colonial behavior of US and European powers in the past century, despite all the cries to the contrary. In WWI, for example, various very rudimentary Arab governments denied British, French, and US military from crossing their territory. Did these mighty powers ignore those decisions by the weak monarchies, or contort their operations to honor them? They contorted.

All successful nations, peoples, and people have excuses for having not conducted themselves productively; hey, we all got touched by our uncles and got pulled too soon from our mother's bosom (in my case, I got pulled too soon from Nadir's mom's bosom, the harlet).

Apparently not enough Iraqis are giving the US plan a chance, and too many USers have lost patience. It also appears that the Bushies have executed and sold their plan poorly and even incompetently.

10:50 AM
Nadir said...

This is a war that should never have been fought. It was always unjust. It faced unprecedented protests BEFORE the war began.

There was never popular support for the war in Iraq. The dissent comes because the government acted outside the will of the people. US generals criticized the handling of the war. US diplomats criticized the decision to go to war.

The president has aided the enemy by waging an unjust war against a nation that was crippled by 12 years of war. He has created an environment where terrorists and anti-American sentiment flourishes across the nation.

For Bush and Rumsfeld to sling the "f-word" around without understanding that it applies more to their own politics and tactics is quite ironic.

12:07 AM
Nadir said...

"The president has aided the enemy by waging an unjust war against a nation that was crippled by 12 years of war. He has created an environment where terrorists and anti-American sentiment flourishes across the nation."

Across the world...

12:09 AM
Paul Hue said...

Nadir: I concede that you may prove correct. If US citizens had universally supported the war from the begining, as they did in WWII and even the Civil War, would things have gone differently? Bush still made some military mistakes... but so did FDR and Lincoln.

Lincoln did a better job of initially selling his war: to preserve the union, and few people'll get hurt. Then when things went poorly for 3 years, he did a masterful job of selling a new goal: emancipation.

Bush's initial sell wasn't very clear, but like Lincoln, he shrouded the real cause with a rally cry that he thought people would accept. Only later did he cut to the nut. Lincoln also used a contrived situation to get the war started.

But Lincoln was one of the greatest geniuses, including communicators, who ever lived. And he lived during a time when people accepted "total war" and never saw daily updates of war images.

8:35 AM

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