11/15: Genghis Can't
D.L.: Why is W. going to Mongolia for 10 days?
A.C.: More anti-Bush revisionism. W's going for there for a day, and Altangerel Batbaatar is estatic! You'll get an idea of what America still represents when you see its president (reglardless of who it is) so warmly received by new, aspiring democracies.
P.M.: Then let's start calling him Genghis Can't!
A.C.: That is so wrong in so many ways, but it sounds like a great blog title for today.
P.M.: Is there still a region called Outer Mongolia? Is it like West Virginia?
D.L.: Is there really such a thing as Mongolian beef barbeque?
P.M.: The only thing I know about Mongolia is yurt, and I love a good yurt!
CitizenU. wants to know the buzz that you're hearing in your circles about the war in Iraq. Thanks for your input!
posted by CitizenU @ 2:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
First of all, that political cartoon is hilarious. That said, here at UW-Madison I'm in a political economy class, and just yesterday we were discussing Bush's all-time-low approval ratings, and how the administration refuses to change policy based on polls and whatnot. While it was almost universally recognized in the class that we were misled into Iraq, most people also agreed that the troops should remain there until the Iraqi government deems them no longer essential to the security and stability of Iraq. Additionally, it was also agreed that if President Bush would publicly admit to misleading us into Iraq and state other goals, such as removing Saddam Hussein and ending the torture camps and whatnot, many more people would accept his plea to keep the troops in Iraq. Finally, in the class we discussed the changing political and economic cycles (hence a political economy class) over the past 150 years. The emerging GOP leadership in 1860, 1920, and 1968 were the beginning of GOP-dominant eras, the one beginning in 1968 stretching all the way to this current day. It was suggested that with the war in Iraq and the deteriorating image of America across the world, the time has finally come for the Democrats to retake control, and unless Bush admits to his mistakes, maybe starting in 2006 it'll happen.
A.C/D.L---
Since you expect a comment from me, I'll give you one, even though I don't have much to say. I try to avoid the news in NYC as much as possible.
I can tell you though that 85% liberal Manhattan loves watching W's poll numbers drop. Here's the problem though: The Democrats can't capatalize on it at all. There was a great parody of Hardball on SNL Saturday where Nancy Pelosi said the Democrats were just going to say nothing because every time they do, they dig themselves a bigger hole. So true.
Also, this Iraq stuff is so frustrating and seemingly never-ending(like Israel v. Palestineans) that I've almost given up and stopped paying attention.
First off, I agree with Mr. Perlow in saying that we were mislead into Iraq and that our troops should stay there. But for a different reason altogether. We were lead into Iraq on the basis of an Idea that Mr. Larsen lectured us on in class a few weeks ago. The Monroe doctrine says that the United states will help any country that wants its own freedom. Originally the doctrine was meant for the Americas. But since then, it has been exercised in many military operations. (Kuwait, Isreal, and Iraq to name a few.) So you see, its quite simple really, This was our reason for going to war. The Iraqi people wanted freedom from opression and so we came to their aid. Mr. Perlow was right when he said that Bush should "admit to misleading us into Iraq and state other goals". Bush should replace his reasons with mine. Presumably his ratings would rise because people would understand that the war is a mission of democracy.
My circle seems to stick to the complaint that musicians shouldn't be politicians.
However:
We shouldn't have gone to war in the first place. Why not spend the money on NCLB, or keeping music in the schools, or puttting it away for a later time? But now that we're in this mess, we can't pull out. The Iraqi security forces are still not trained well enough to keep even relative peace in the country. It's our responsibilty to see it through, even though Americans are dying every day.
Did Bush mislead us deliberately? Somewhat. I think he told the intelligence agencies to dig up something to make a case for war. He needed to play the terrorism card, and linking Saddam to bin Laden was the key. Because really, if the only reason was WMDs, then people would have asked why not North Korea? Because North Korea has no known links with Al Qaeda. Saddam does: he's a Muslim, and bin Laden's a Muslim. Now, I'm not saying that's a legitimate link (cause it's not), but in the eyes of many Americans, it is. It was a lot easier to make a case against a Muslim country after 9/11 than a communist one. The Cold War was over: the War on Terrorism was beginning. Plus there's the fact that Iraq has lots of oil. So, instead of carefully checking over the evidence to make sure it wasn't fabricated, Bush just said, "Thanks" and spun it to gain support for invading Iraq. He probably didn't realize that when he asked the intelligence agencies to jump, they went off a cliff. Or he did know and covered their bloody bodies with an American flag. I think it's more of the latter, although, this is a guy who supports taking away funding from failing schools so they have to fire teachers, make class sizes bigger, and thus provide less individual instruction for the failing students.
"Schadenfreude" is the word I think of immediately. My circle could not be more thrilled at Bush's plummeting numbers -- CNN/Usa Today/Gallup puts him at 37% approval -- though there isn't much talk about Iraq. Most of the people I know think the war was a bad idea right from the start, so there's been less of a need to talk about what's going on in Iraq. The sentiment is sort of "well, we told you so, no need to discuss it further." Focus is more on the 2006 election (mostly PA Senate, RI Senate, and MA governor) and issues here on campus. There's a pretty big campaign going on to raise Harvard janitors' wages but no news on Larry's response.
I found myself really annoyed with an anti-Bush protest happening in the Yard last week. My sentiment was "Well, okay, why protest if things are already really bad for Bush? What are you fighting against?"
Being surrounded by liberals can do wonders for one's conservatism, I'll tell you that much.
My crowd is a generally pro military one. If memory serves, there was more than one reason we went to war: Saddam flouted 11 years of UN resolutions ordering him to comply with inspections, stop killing Kurds, stop shooting at planes in the No-Fly zone, etc. Another reasons was the intelligence that reflected Iraq had chemical / bio WMDs and was actively pursuing nukes (intelligence, incidentally, that was confirmed by the Brits and was universally accepted as accurate until well after major combat operations were completed). One should also recall that the 1991 war was never ended by treaty or other means. Rather, military operations were suspended for as long as Saddam continued to cooperate with the UN.
Bush has completely fumbled the PR end of maintaining support for the war. With that said, Big Media - NYT, CNN, Wash Post, A/NBC, CBS, etc - could cover the war in a manner that supports the administration by focusing on the good that the Iraqis and US military are achieving working together in a Post Saddam Iraq. That is not the tact Big Media has chosen to pursue: instead, by focusing on the negative - the body count, the IEDs, etc - they have done their collective best to cast the war in the minds of the consuming public as a disaster waiting to happen.
Leave Iraq? No - let's finish the job we began and continue to support democracy throughout the world. Remember that sixty years after the end of WWII and 51 years after the Korean war ended, we still have troops in Japan, Germany (finally leaving!)and South Korea. How long will a US military presence remain in Iraq? Will one soldier remaining be one too many to the "bring the troops home" crowd?
I would encourage Mr. Brask to expand his education and look into US covert involvement in a variety of countries during the Cold War. Chile, Brazil, the banana republics of Central America, old Zaire, Iran, etc. are the first ones that come to mind. I think US involvement in Iraq is more complicated than 'spreading democracy.' Our actions over the last 60 odd years clearly shows that we could care less about democracy and human rights if it meant it furthered our economic or security interests. Heck, I just fininished an article on the BBC website that discussed how the former leader of Chad is being sent to Belgium to face crimes against humanity. He was our #1 guy in the region because we saw him as a counterweight to Qhadaffi in the 80's.
B
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