I can't let our discussion of last night's escalation speech slip into the past without some mention of Dick Durbin's humiliating Democratic response, which exemplified the kind of toadying that (sometimes) makes me ashamed to vote Democratic.
Durbin accepted as factual most or all of Bush's hallucinated pseudofacts, as though any insistence on reality would have been considered bad taste. The Democrat conceded that the war began on just terms. He conceded Bush's framework -- "terrarists" vs. democracy, not Shi'ite vs. Sunni. He conceded that Iran and Syria were the problem.
Instead of challenging these false premises, Durbin went for the "tough love" gambit: We've coddled the Iraqis by over-protecting them, and now we must force them to stand on their own two feet. When Durbin described Iraqis calling 911 -- that is, depending on the U.S. -- every time they got into a jam, my jaw dropped and my eyes bulged nearly to the popping point. Not only is any reference to that number in poor taste, Durbin seems genuinely oblivious to the fact that 90 percent of the Iraqi population wants to see our collective behind go scurrying out their front door.
If I had written that speech, I would have hit these notes:
"Mr. President, we want to work with you. But you insist on substituting fantasy for reality. When we entered that nation, Al Qaeda had no presence, because Saddam Hussein despised them. If anyone in Iraq now feels any sympathy for Al Qaeda's ideology, that situation came about only because you created chaos.
"The real problem in that nation is sectarian strife between Sunni Muslims and Shi'ite Muslims. Their conflict began centuries before the founding of our country, and we have no interest in that dispute.
"We are the United States of America. We have our own history, our own glories, and our own problems. You say you are fighting terror, when in fact you have chosen sides in a civil war -- a religious war -- fought in a faraway land.
"We want to work with you, Mr. President. But we must first beg you to remove those distorting lenses and see the world as it really is. See it as we see it, as many of your military leaders see it, as many within the intelligence community see it, as an increasing number of people within your own party see it.
"Here's what really happened: You recklessly disbanded the Iraqi military and disrupted the entire Iraqi civil structure. You told the Iraqis how to run their business affairs and health care system. You sold their resources to foreign concerns. You made their quality of life unbearable. In short, you gave the citizens of that nation good reason to hate the United States.
"And then you allowed religious violence to take hold in Iraq. You lost the battle for peace. Your failed the Iraqi people, you failed your country, and you failed the cause of democracy.
"Until you recognize that these facts are facts, you and I cannot do business."
5 comments:
sofla said...
Durbin is not making debating points in a rational environment of impartial judges (which might indeed call for the brutal truth, unadorned).
Rather, Durbin is trying an intervention in a hostage situation.
Now, of course, sometimes the hostage negotiator might best try explaining the actual facts to the hostage taker. You are surrounded, we have 3 swat teams, give up, etc.
But often, the hostage taker is delusional and homicidal, and the negotiator doesn't try to change their world view to that of reality, but instead strings them along and humors them, the better with which to avoid the brittle breaking point where most of his goals are lost when people start getting shot.
So, if Durbin in arguendo seems to accept the Bush premises, that should be seen as a ploy and a reframing-- 'even given your (delusional) world view, this is why this makes sense (or no sense).'
This would be aimed at the president's dwindling corps of the deluded who continue to take his positions seriously. Honestly, how effective is it supposed to be in pealing off Bush's diehard 23% (i.e., the really hard core GOP base) so that he will lose his remaining support in the GOP elected officials, to just go after the man rhetorically with hammers and tongs?
Not much at all. Their natural reaction would be to get their backs up, hear nothing else, and not be persuaded of anything but the bad faith and bad character of whomever would attack their guy that way.
That would have been a better speech but unfortunately the media would have gone nuts over it and we would have no one paying attention to Bush. For some reason the media likes to 'protect' Bush when someone confronts him.
yup, that would be about right. both the speech and the response the commenters have predicted.
but at some point we really do just have to stand up and speak truth to power. if there was ever a time, it is now. the dems may be letting ted kennedy do that, but it would be far better to do this in unity. strong unity.
what i fear is that mcconnell will filibuster ted's bill, and we'll do this really nasty deed as bush wants, and we'll start to see repeats of the 60s, with riots in the streets and worse, terrorist attacks at home.
in fact, mcconnell's comments following the speech were chilling. he essentially said that ok, iraq isn't working, but it isn't working there, though it IS working here because we haven't been attacked.
not only is that just the most absurd argument, completely empty of logic, but it seems to me it serves as something of an invitation to insurgents to attack us here so that maybe THEN we'll leave iraq.
none of it makes any sense. bush is now using the line that we'll get out when maliki gets his act together, and durbin did second that, but we all know there is no plan to EVER leave. what of all those permanent bases that cost fortunes of our tax dollars? what of all that oil?
the more we pansy about fretting over the media and the public response, we deeper we dig ourselves into this godforsaken hole. the sooner we really stand up, in unity, and tell truth to this heinous and brutal power, the sooner we can start making real corrections.
I read a while back that the sole intent was to draw the USA deeper and deeper into the Middle East for annilation. So far, Bush is playing the cards right into the hands of the terrorists. He did by the way mention that the terrorists want to change our way of life. He forgot to mention how much he has changed our way of life, like listening to our phone calls, reading our mail, flying unmarked airplanes over our homes all day long......
The "terrorists" are winning.
Joseph, thank you for the bald truth. That speech was just a "we build a better widget" approach.
By ignoring what most everyone knows by know, the fact that we were "lied into" the war, Durbin did a huge disservice to his party. You can't make an absurd statement like that in front of tens of millions without looking like a fool. Obama, the IL twin, was equally conciliatory.
Isn't there one democrat who will state that: a) this man is a lunatic and that he's destroying the country; b) he lied to get us to war, and c) that the deaths are his responsibility.
Apparently not.
But what can we expect. The majority of Democrats are complicit; they voted this monster a blank check and they did so knowing that there was no real WMD threat. If they admit that the war was a fraud, they admit that they collaborated what has to be the greatest crime in this country other than two consecutive stolen elections.
They are not the solution, they are a part of the problem; the medication, so to speak, that makes us think that there really is a solution to the current problems within the status quo.
There is not. We need a completely new approach from someone who is distanced or never a part of this pathetic, totally incompetent, miserable excuse for a ruling class.
MC
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