Tip O' The Hat
I thought I'd do a little media post in the style of Stephen Colbert.
Tip o' the hat to Chris Matthews who went off on a 5 minute rant on the Imus show on Tuesday against the Bush administration:
I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history.
Every mistake we’re making in the Middle East right now, was made years and years ago by the British, by the French, but the mistakes they made in Vietnam were made by the French before. In Algeria the French made all the mistakes we’re making now. If you engage in an invasion you will face resistance from the local people based upon religion, and that, and nationalism. You will then have to put down that insurgency, and you’re going to have to use cruelty and torture to get information, because it’s the only way to get intel in a counter insurgency. Every single thing that’s happened to Iraq was predicted by history. It’s a standard pattern. Ten, twenty years from now, when kids are reading this in high school–They are going to say, ‘Why were the Americans so dumb?’
They committed the same mistakes that all the Europeans had done before. And it’s like these guys, everything is a surprise. The insurgency was a surprise. The no WMD was a surprise. Everything that happens, now he’s out there now, taking the Arabs side against this, that’s a surprise. Some of these guys are anti-Semitic... That’s a surprise? Everything is known, and the big thing about this crowd that came in around Bush’s.. they must have known it, but they didn’t want to know it, and Bush didn’t have the academic background to challenge them.
Every time we get involved we’re just building up notches on their gun to come after us. And look, all I know is that if we’re supposedly helping Israel out, but what we did in the last four years is we created–We took the number one threat in the world. Back in the old days the number one threat was Egypt, and Jimmy Carter cut that deal. Then their number one threat strategically is Iran. Now look where Iran was when we came in when this administration came in. Iran was a problem. But it wasn’t a country that dominated its neighbor Iraq. Hezbollah, has now been unleashed, so you’ve got Israel fighting this three-headed dragon of Beirut. And they’ve got Baghdad. The guy talking already like one of them. And you’ve got, of course, Ahmadinejad in Tehran. So Israel’s now facing a much enlarged, more dangerous enemy then it faced back in 2001. So you’ve got to wonder if the bottom of line of our foreign policy hasn’t been to enlarge the threat to Israel dramatically. I mean that makes sense to me. I don’t know why we’ve done it, but we’ve done it."
--Welcome to the world of rational thought Chris... You're late.
Watch the clip on crooksandliars.com: Chris on Imus
posted by Matt @ 10:32 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history.
You're kidding, right? This is just silly.
If you engage in an invasion you will face resistance from the local people based upon religion, and that, and nationalism. You will then have to put down that insurgency
Good thing Chris Matthews knows that we're largely not fighting the locals in Iraq! Has he seriously forgotten about the HUGE influx of foreign terrorists in Iraq? One of the biggest frauds in this whole situation is the renaming of the terrorists to "insurgents" by the MSM. We're not fighting counter-insurgency. We're fighting a foreign group of guerillas that are holding the local population hostage. Not the same thing.
...and you’re going to have to use cruelty and torture to get information, because it’s the only way to get intel in a counter insurgency
Do I really even...need...to touch this? You're quoting this drivel? How is this statement even remotely based in reality or fact?
Every time we get involved we’re just building up notches on their gun to come after us.
I think I've sufficiently established in previous posts that it takes no incentive for these people to hate us. They are going to come after us no matter what. They are willing to die to kill us -- this doesn't take anything on our part. In this sense, we're a lot like Israel. To them, we exist, therefore we must die.
So Israel’s now facing a much enlarged, more dangerous enemy then it faced back in 2001. So you’ve got to wonder if the bottom of line of our foreign policy hasn’t been to enlarge the threat to Israel dramatically.
If you really want to start pointing fingers here, all of this mess really started getting bad under Carter. What's enlarged the threat to Israel has been the calls for cease fires. Every cease fire in the Middle East guarantees the terrorists time time recuperate, rearm, refund, and reignite the situation.
Israel was going to fight this "three headed dragon in Beirut" no matter what. No one could do anything about it. The longer we put it off, the longer we let this Iranian foreign legion that is Hezbollah grow, the worse its going to be.
Chris Matthews needs to get a clue. Nobody in the world has been able to solve the problems in the Middle East. The best anyone's managed to do is to shove it off on the next guy (Clinton mastered this). To somehow link the things that are happening to Bush, and then to take the next step and imply that this sort of thing wouldn't be going on under Gore (I mean, really....Gore??) because he spent his life "reading books"?
I'm kind of disappointed in you, Matt. There's really nothing there worth repeating, other than the fact that Israel is fighting Syria and Iran right now, via Hezbollah.
NO!!!... Matt, you're disappointed in me? That hurts.
You talk as if everything that you say is based entirely in fact, when really you're just repeating every single talking point that has been perpetuated by the administration in the past two weeks. "Sustainable cease-fire" my ass.
Find the fact-based article that shows that there is a HUGE influx of foreign terrorists in Iraq... then I will believe you. I'm not saying that it isn't true, but once again you're completely over-exaggerating your point. (once you find that article, i'll find another that refutes your claims, so there really isn't a point)
How is the statement about using cruelty and torture to put down an insurgency not even remotely based in fact? Are we living in the same country?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4718999.stm
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4070722.html
Where have you been for the last 4 years? Remember the torture memo? Come on now matt, you disappoint me.
I don't think that you've sufficiently established that it takes no incentive for these people to hate us. True, but as I said in my comment last night, there is a FINITE group of these extremists. Not all arabs and muslims feel that way. The number of islamic extremists in the region decreases and increases depending on many factors. The number of terrorists doesn't remain constant as you assume. I think military aggressiveness enflames passions and recruitment for terrorist organizations goes up. You think we should go kill them, I think killing them breeds more terrorists. The reality of the situation so far is on my side, as recruitment has been shown to be increasing exponentially since we invaded Iraq. Al Qaeda came out today, once again, declaring war on the western world.
Let's point fingers. I point my finger at the current President of the United States and the people (like condi) who are suppose to be in charge of foreign operations. Is it any coincidence that the middle-east has erupted with violence now and not in the clinton years? Sure, blame the democrats, it's all their fault. Don't think about the person who is ACTUALLY IN CHARGE RIGHT NOW.
My biggest problem with you is that you preach about the need to use aggressive military force in the middle-east, speaking as if it's a well known fact that military power is the only thing that works with these people. Where is your evidence for this? Chris Matthews has the evidence... it's called history. Military aggressiveness hasn't been shown to solve anything there in the context of recent history. I don't see how you can make a legitimate argument against that. I'm sure you'll try though, and you'll make a convincing argument as usual. As usual, I will try my best to pick it apart.
This situation deals with opinions more than anything. There is no perfect solution to this chaotic crisis. There are a million ideas out there as to how we should solve this. Don't tell me you're dissappointed in my opinion because my opinion is just as legitimate as yours.
Violence has solved more regional conflicts in history than any other tool, including diplomacy. See Carthage, the original Israeli invasion of Palestine, eventual destruction of the Temple in A.D. 64, et cetera. To say that for Israel to completely dismantle Hezbollah, Hamas, and any or all takers won't work is to fly in the face of history.
To say that the only method of putting down an insurgency (or gathering information) is cruelty and torture is silly and not based in reality. Like you said, most muslims aren't extremists. Ergo, most Iraqis aren't insurgents. Then I guess all we need to do is finish finding all the extremists in Iraq and kill them or prevent them from waging war on us (like turning them into security forces for their own nation). Voila, the insurgency goes away. Torture and brutality are not the only ways to end insurgencies. Attrition is probably the best tool against a guerilla army, if done properly.
The problem with the whole "its only the extremists" argument, however, is that its not supported by fact. We didn't invite the Iranians to storm our embassy. We weren't really involved over there until the late seventies, and then only because we got punched in the nose. For the most part, we've stayed out; we've been reactionary, and its cost us. See the bombing of the USS Cole in October, 2000 that claimed 17 lives; the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which hundreds were killed; the 1996 car-bomb attack on a U.S. barracks in Dharahan, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans; the 1995 car-bomb attack on an American National Guard Training center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that took 4 lives and, of course, the 1993 World Trade Center truck-bombing that killed 6 people and injured over a thousand others. Now we're abroad, and we've had no major terrorist attacks since.
That's a decent track record.
The middle east did erupt with violence during the Clinton years. As well as Bosnia, and other places. The middle east has been a hotbed since the 1900's, as Matthews points out (the Ottomans and the British both got their fingers burnt there).
All I'm saying is that there is the potential for lasting peace. Unfortunately, the only way to assure a lasting piece is for one side to win. Had we simply stopped pushing after the battle of Midway, we would have had no lasting peace with Japan. If Israel stops short of completely dismantling Hezbollah, there will be no end to the fighting this round.
I say let Israel win -- or, more accurately, let Hezbollah lose.
PS. Can you really stand by the assertion that who is in the White House matters one hill of beans to Nasrallah et al? I would think the PM of Israel to be much more important in that game. If anything, the knowledge that Bush won't hesitate to the pull the trigger seems like it would deter attacks, no?
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