During the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) explained that success against terrorism will occur when terrorist acts, such as those in Iraq, are reduced to the level that "they're a nuisance." Kerry explained gains can be made against terrorism when "it isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."
Kerry got these responses from these Republicans:
BUSH: Just this weekend we saw new evidence that the Senator fundamentally misunderstands the war against terror. ... Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying the networks, and spreading freedom and liberty. [10/12/04]
CHENEY: Nor can we think of our goal in this war in the way Senator Kerry described it yesterday in The New York Times. Quote: "We have to get back to the place," he said, where terrorism is "a nuisance," sort of like -- and these are his comparisons -- sort of like gambling and prostitution. This is naive and dangerous. [10/11/04]
GIULIANI: "In a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, mocked Mr. Kerry for comparing terrorism to gambling and prostitution. 'The idea that you can have an acceptable level of terrorism is frightening,' Mr. Giuliani said." [NYT, 10/12/04]
Yet Bush explained his veto of the Iraq Accountability Act by saying that success isn't a complete absence of violence. Rather, "Success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives."
What a crazy moonbat liberal.
What this says to me is that I've been right all along -- the president is a really slow learner. It took him over two years to realize that terrorism is a criminal activity and, like all criminal activity, you're never going to be completely free of it. That it took him that long to realize the obvious is depressing -- at this rate, he'll finally realize Iraq's more trouble than it's worth by 2009.
But this war has always been supported by shifting logic. First, Saddam Hussein caused 9/11. That wasn't exactly true, so then it became WMD. There were none of those, so it became ties to al Qaeda. Those turned out to be BS. Now, we have to fight terrorists in Iraq or they'll follow us back here. Apparently, they don't know where the US is and we have to keep them from finding out.
Maybe with should withdraw to someplace that sucks and kill two birds with one stone. We can withdraw to China. Al Qaeda will follow us there and we can keep the location of the US a state secret.
That's actually not the craziest idea out there. The winner of that contest would be this:
Political Insider:
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) said "that his idea to classify plans to withdraw from Iraq could be a compromise for the war-funding bill that was rejected by President Bush because of its public timetable," reports the Pine Bluff Commercial. Pryor introduced his "idea to make withdrawal plans secret" earlier this year and believes that his "secret withdrawal proposal could be brought up as an alternative" to the public timeline.
I kind of like this idea, because it points out the screwiness of another Bush argument -- that if we decide to pull out by a 'date certain,' insurgents will just wait us out. I can't figure out why they have to know how long they'll have to wait. It seems to me that strategy would work even with complete ignorance. Bush's argument only works if fighters in Iraq believe we're not ever going to leave. Bush may think that, but no one else does.
How screwy does this whole 'victory' thing have to be before Bush accepts it? We can have a secret withdrawal to China, so that al Qaeda won't know how long they have to wait. I'm being deliberately absurd here, but how far away from that is the White House line? Not very.
It's beyond incomprehensible to me that there are people who actually buy this crap. How stupid does the whole thing have to be before everyone realizes it's all crap? How often can Bush and all the other pro-war Republican morons contradict themselves before everyone realizes that it's all spin? There is no solid argument in favor of this war and everything keeps moving around.
I've got the most serious case of writer's block I've ever had in my life. And a big, big part of it is my inabilty to express just how unreal life in America has become. It's surreal. What was true yesterday isn't true today. Seriously, you get too close to this stuff and it's gonna make you freakin' nuts. There aren't words for how effed up things are. Not pretty words, anyway.
But I've got this post in the air and I have to land it, somehow. So let me end this way -- we can't keep doing this. We can't keep waking up every damned morning and seeing the same damned crap from the same damned people. We have to start standing for democracy again, not nihilism. Bush never appeals to our bravery; I don't think he believes we're brave. He's a leader best suited to a nation of cowards. I'm not a coward and I don't think you are -- but all George W. Bush ever does is play cowards for suckers. And if you find that statement offensive, then you're already a coward, a sucker, or both. Sorry, not my fault. The lies are so obvious that the only people who believe them are those who choose to believe them. And they're lies designed to appeal to cowards.
We have to start being who we are again. We have to start being brave.
--Wisco
Technorati tags: politics; war; Iraq; The only people who still support Bush are crazy people, cowards, and maybe drunks -- everyone else is pretty much sick of the guy
