Their writer, Lynne Duke, clearly thinks more highly of Iraq’s Dynamo than does John Kerry. Good read.
And speaking of good reads, I’m midway through master spy novelist Charles McCarry’s Old Boys. I can tell you already if you like Greene, Ambler, LeCarré, etc., this is right up there. But if you buy it and finish ahead of me, don’t tell me how it turns out!
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Roger:
I liked the article, but I was not quite sure I got that last part.
I was not quite sure I got that last part.
LOL! That’s perfect, Terrye. Just perfect.
For the benefit of those reading along, here’s the “last part” (emphasis added):
After his speeches in Congress and at the White House, Allawi was to meet with congressional leaders, where the closed-door talk was expected to be tougher than what happened in public. The congressional official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the message from some members of Congress would be:
“Look, man. You’ve got a big problem and your success is our success, so we’ve got to help you succeed. So don’t give us this happy talk. Be straight with us. Don’t give us this nonsense about things going well and the insurgency being under control. You tell us everything is fine, then we don’t need to help you, right?”
The point is that the unnamed “congressional leaders” — much like the four Republican senators who appeared on Sunday’s talk shows — know that when Allawi speaks publicly about progress and imminent victory, he is lying. So does the author of the Post article, which is why she makes that her conclusion.
But since Terrye psychologically cannot deal with this possibility, her brain just shuts down rather than process the offending paragraphs — and thus she can’t “get that last part.”
As Orwell explains in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.
Congratulations, Terrye. Your crimestop instinct works perfectly!
Swopa:
You can go to hell.
Actually I thought that if they really knew of such a thing happening they would report it rather than leaving it to some Saddam loving little asshole like you to write a fantasy paragraph about.
I don’t think things are just great in Iraq, but I know there is hope now which is something they would not have had if people like you had your way.
So why don’t you just be honest yourself for a change.
Tsk, tsk, Terrye. Such unpleasant language. Good thing you don’t disagree with Roger politically, or he’d threaten to have you banned.
… I thought that if they really knew of such a thing happening they would report it…
But, Terry, didn’t Roger make clear that anyone who spoke the obvious truth … er, um, “reported” that Allawi lied was rooting for fascism? What sensible congressional leader would want to be accused of that?
It’s interesting, of course, that in his previous Roger doesn’t dispute the obvious truths that Kerry spoke. Instead, he just proclaimed that they were politically incorrect to mention. They were thoughtcrime, one might say.
Take heart Terrye.Sow-Pa lives in the cruelest of Hell’s. Spiritual Alzheimer’s.Sow-Pa,Please respond to me so I may ignore you vigorously.
So Swopa, you are saying that Allawi should have stood in front of congress and used words like “quagmire” “disaster” and “poor planning” rather than words like “hope” “victory” and “thank you”. I think the reasons the democrats are getting their butts kicked all over the place in this election is that they’re just lousy politicians.
They’re getting their asses whipped cos they’ve been taken over by the whack-a-doo commie wing.
Swopa’s problem is, like the dems, it’s not the 60s anymore. We don’t need gatekeepers.
As a non-commie Kerry voter I’d have to say it was a pretty fair article. It gives him the benefit of the doubt when dealing with his Ba’athist background but acknowledges his difficult position regarding the questioning about conditions in Iraq. Also he was having a difficult time painting a rosy picture when Jim Lehrer was interviewing him the other night. Anyway, Ken Layne has a good, if a little negative rundown on Allawiís history over on his site: kenlayne.com:
http://kenlayne.com/2004/09/meet-ayad-allawi.html
It should be made clear however, that the author, like John Kerry acknowledges that Prime Minister Allawi was painting a very different picture of Iraq for his public audience. She concludes the piece with the point that Congress was getting a somewhat contradictory story during their private discussions. This would seem to corroborate Kerry’s statements.
Swopa–I guess we read things as we want them to be. I read the article as highly favorable to the PM.
The last paragraph is, of course, unsourced, and even if true fails to identify which leaders. Fortunately for the republic, the Senate does not have all that significant a role in war fighting having abandoned their power to declare war early in the nation’s history. Their forte, on both sides of the aisle, is bluster and blather: full of sound and fury and signififying nothing.
When you say it is fortunate for the Republic that the Senate abandoned its power to declare war, do you mean historically fortunate or constitutionally fortunate? While you may agree with this war, you can’t mean that you disagree with the system of checks and balances that define our Republic. Can you?
I guess I have a hard time understanding why these two things are contradictory: “yes, things are really difficult and scary in Iraq right now” and “we have hope and happiness that things will eventually grow and change and work out.” (these are my quotes, I’m not quoting anyone else’s words.) I don’t consider Allawi a liar for espousing both of these positions at the same time, and Matt above has a good point about how things must be phrased. Surely FDR and Churchhill did the same during parts of WWII; even when things were darkest, although you didn’t deny that, you concentrated on the hope and talked about that too.
Ed, although you and I would probably disagree about a lot of things, I respect and admire your succinct, dry, civil posts. As opposed to sneering, jeering Swopa, above. People can disagree on Roger’s list, folks–it’s just that so many dissenters deliberately start out being uncivil.
suellen
Ed–I was not at all clear in my post; sorry. I think it is absolutely disastrous that the senate abandonded its authority to declare war: the point I was trying to make that having abandoned its authority, they are now in the position to carp and snipe without bearing any responsibility.
Prime Minister Allawi can espouse both of these positions if he so chooses, but I don’t think it is inappropriate for John Kerry to point out that he Allawi is in fact espousing two positions. The posts on this blog are repeatedly pounding Kerry for doing just that. They claim he is playing desperate politics. I don’t quite see it that way. Both sides are playing this issue. Iraq is the issue that is going to dominate the remainder of the campaign. Bush makes his move by bringing the Prime Minister to Congress to make his point. Kerry responds by pointing out what the linked article makes quite clear to be the case “the closed-door talk was expected to be tougher than what happened in public.” We’re going to have six more weeks of this. Iraq was one of the defining points of the President’s first term. I for one am glad we are having this debate
Oh good, RogerA. Than we definitely agree.
What makes me angry about Kerry’s remarks is that he didn’t just point out the two attitudes; he is taking the stance that one attitude obviously renders the other null and void. When, as I was trying to say above, that is not the case. Again–in wartime, this is just the way it is, two truths side by side: war is hell, and good can come out of it. I’ve always thought that people who say “war never solved anything” are being ridiculous; of course it has. That doesn’t mean a terrible price doesn’t come along with it.
I live in a Southern state, and know something of the history of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It was awful, especially for the newly liberated slaves; they feared for their lives, with the rise of the KKK, and having been thrown out on the streets with no way to make their living, no knowledge of how to take care of themselves, not a lot of sympathy from both Southern and Northern whites, etc. So should we say–and people did at the time–that, because things were so bad for years and years, this shouldn’t have happened? That they should have stayed with their slaveowners because they were at least protected then, and it was all nasty old Abe Lincoln’s fault for throwing everything into such a mess?
Situations like that and like Iraq are contradictory in their very essence, as I think Allawi understands. If all Kerry had done was point that out, I wouldn’t have a problem. But he wants to make one view wrong and one right, and (like he did in his Vietnam era) goes back and forth to whatever suits him at the moment.
I don’t understand the flip-flop dig at the end there, but you make a good point.
ed:
The point is Kerry went out of his way to humiliate Allawi and his aide actually called him a puppet.
We have to deal with the man. It is absurd to expect Allawi to say the same thing all the time to everyone when Kerry is absolutely famous for changing his stance and his story with stunning regularity.
Wait, you’re saying Allawi can filp-flop all he wants because Kerry does the same. You yourself expect better things of Kerry. Why not Allawi?
What did anyone expect the Prime Minister to say? “Gee, there are people who don’t like what’s going on so I guess we ought to throw up our hands and surrender.” Rubbish. No one needs Prime Minister Allawi to tell us that there are problems or that there have been mistakes. It’s a war and problems and mistakes are a part of the nature of war whether. It is only in a child’s fantasy that things are nice and clean and simple.
Nothing in the P.M.’s speech gave reason for Mr. J. Kwisling and Co. to call the man a liar. These are the same people who would give Iran nuclear material and pow-wow with North Korea. They have no problem with tyrants and dictators, it’s only America’s allies that they spit at.
The fact that they can do nothing but sneer at Mr. Allawi only confirms that these are dangerously frivolous people. Kerry’s opportunistic rhetoric is killing people as sure as if he held the knife in his own hands.
Had Kerry been around during WWII, we would have brought everybody home after Operation Torch, conceded Europe to the Nazies, pulled all troops out of Asia after Pearl Harbor, and then sat down with Hitler and Tojo to chat. Then we would never have had the kind of death toll we had in WWII.
They wring their hands over 1000 dead in Iraq? What about the 8,000 who died on Iwo Jima (to name just one battle)? Did American yell about an “exit strategy” after their husbands, brothers, and fathers were cut to ribbons at Normandy? Was there a call to surrender after the Battle of the Bulge? Only from the Germans. I answer with the Bulge’s CO: NUTS.
Why is he talking about an exit strategy (surrender)? Because there are problems. Well, HELLO! It’s a war. If we refuse to go to war until we can fight a pristine battle with no bad after-effects, we may as well hand the keys to government over to the thugs right now.
John Kerry has been perfectly consistent in one thing, from Viet Nam to the WOT: He’s a seditious SOB who will sell his country down the river so fast he will make Jimmy Carter look like George Washington.
I am normally a nice little old lady. I’ve lived long enough to have seen plenty of politicking and I learned a long time ago not to take any of it too seriously. Both parties have much to be ashamed of — especially the overt government censorship of political speech which was perpetrated by Congress, signed by Bush, and allowed a pass by the Supreme Court (who obviously needs remedial work in reading comprehension — what part of “Congress shall make no law. . . do they not understand?). But John Kerry is beneath contempt. He’s had his head up his backside for so long that nothing issues from his mouth but excrement. I can do nothing these days but wrinkle my nose at the smell. So, I apologize for ranting like a lunatic. It isn’t directed at anything but my utter frustration and fear.
Dee: excellent rant! and by a quirk of history the 101st commander at Bastogne was one Brigadier General McCauliffe (I think that spelling is correct). While the current DNC chairman bears the same name, the resemblance stops there.
And worse yet, what if Kerry had been president during the civil war? The Battle of Antietam results in 25,000 deaths in a single day. In fact the civil war offers an excellent analogy with President Bush as Lincoln and Kerry playing McClellan. One reason why Iraq is so important is that it will disprove the impression the terrorists have that the US cuts and runs when the going gets tough. We really have to stay the course for that reason alone.
I think it is absolutely disastrous that the senate abandonded its authority to declare war: the point I was trying to make that having abandoned its authority, they are now in the position to carp and snipe without bearing any responsibility.
RogerA, I’m not buying it. Not that the Congress isn’t trying to shuffle off responsibility, but I don’t see any evidence that the Congress has given up its authority to declare war — they have, after all, authorized hostilities in both Gulf Wars, in Afghanistan, and in Viet Nam.
If anything, their contention that by authorizing hostilities they were not exercising their power to declare war strikes me as part of the attempt to avoid responsibility.
ed:
Well for one thing Kerry is running for President of the United states and not Allawi. And for another Allawi did not lie. His remarks were not mutually exclusive unless you are a snotty little staffer working for Kerry whose positions have been entirely mutually exclusive time and again. Everybody contradicts themselves sometimes but Kerry is a study in confusion.
I heard His speech today. yawn. At least I hope this is the final edit.
Dee:
I know just what you mean.
Charlie(C): Damn–I’m starting to feel like john kerry–I think we are in fundamental agreement: The senate is a craven bunch of politicians without the courage to stand by a declaration of war–they have abandoned their responsibility to declare war in favor of sitting back and criticize.
Ok Terrye, but you do equate Kerry and Allawi’s alleged flip-flopping with this sentance:
“It is absurd to expect Allawi to say the same thing all the time to everyone when Kerry is absolutely famous for changing his stance and his story with stunning regularity.”
Hence my comment.
Also, regarding Dee Bates comment above, Kerry has also been consistant in saying we will not leave Iraq until the job is finished. So I’m not sure I get the gist of what’s beeing said. As a Kerry voter, if he does win and does throw up his hands and say hell with Iraq, I would feel betrayed.
ed:
Come on.
Allawi did not say there is violence, there is no violence. His remarks were not mutually exclusive to one another . One can question degrees, but Kerry has taken stands that were completely contradictory of each other time and again.
And that can enbolden the enemy. Besides Kerry went out of his way to humiliate a man he may need someday and that is stupid.
Terrye, I was not commenting at all on Allawi’s staements. I was mearly pointing out that as you say here:
“It is absurd to expect Allawi to say the same thing all the time to everyone when Kerry is absolutely famous for changing his stance and his story with stunning regularity.”
You would hold Allawi to a much lower standard than you would Kerry.