Strange Bedfellows
I see that Rush Limbaugh has started calling for America to treat the Iraq War like World War II. Why do I suddenly feel so . . . dirty?
Actually, Limbaugh's position and mine are quite different. Rush is laboring under the illusion that if we treat this like WWII, we can still win. As I've said, I don't think victory (in any very meaningful sense) is possible. I think we should treat this like WWII simply to demonstrate to our enemies that we're still capable of that kind of commitment. (And to bring home to the voters what it means to go to war.) My argument is: do that long enough to prove our mettle, then get the heck out.
Also, Limbaugh seems to have seized on the WWII argument simply as an excuse to fulminate; as a weapon for bashing the Iraq Study Group because they put a crimp in the dream world he lives in. I have my doubts about their recommendations, but I don't think they're cowards, defeatists, or "surrender monkeys," as the New York Post labeled them. Unlike Limbaugh, they are at least realists.
Q: How far out in right field do you have to be in order to consider Alan Simpson too soft, and Ed Meese too liberal?
Actually, Limbaugh's position and mine are quite different. Rush is laboring under the illusion that if we treat this like WWII, we can still win. As I've said, I don't think victory (in any very meaningful sense) is possible. I think we should treat this like WWII simply to demonstrate to our enemies that we're still capable of that kind of commitment. (And to bring home to the voters what it means to go to war.) My argument is: do that long enough to prove our mettle, then get the heck out.
Also, Limbaugh seems to have seized on the WWII argument simply as an excuse to fulminate; as a weapon for bashing the Iraq Study Group because they put a crimp in the dream world he lives in. I have my doubts about their recommendations, but I don't think they're cowards, defeatists, or "surrender monkeys," as the New York Post labeled them. Unlike Limbaugh, they are at least realists.
Q: How far out in right field do you have to be in order to consider Alan Simpson too soft, and Ed Meese too liberal?
posted by juvenal_urbino | 10:00 AM
3 Comments:
Q: How far out in right field do you have to be in order to consider Alan Simpson too soft, and Ed Meese too liberal?
A: You're not in the Ball Park, or even in the Bleachers. i.e. "Out of it."
Being finals week, I've not had a chance to keep up with much. How has the advisory boards' advice been received? I saw the leader of Iraq didn't seem to like it. What's been the Bush response.
For serious, I'm drowning in essays, so I don't know what's going on in the world.
The White House response has been . . . tepid, let's say, and getting tepider all the time.
Meanwhile, the Saudis have weighed in and said that if we do withdraw from Iraq, they're going to throw their support behind the Iraqi Sunni minority, to help them defend themselves from the Shi'ites. Which means Iran would probably throw even more support to the Shi'ites. In which case, Egypt might well weigh in on the Sunnis' side, and so forth, ad nauseum.
Our Iraq adventure could end up transforming the Middle East, after all. We could see a Muslim equivalent of Europe's "world" wars, with Iran playing the role of Germany, but all the players getting in on the genocide.
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