Look, let’s start with a little honesty. Ayad Allawi is no saint. Totalitarian societies don’t normally breed saints. Survival is Hell. Allawi was once a Baathist and doesn’t bear too many resemblances to Mother Teresa. But, it’s worth noting, as some will recall, Mother Teresa may not have been a Mother Teresa either.
Nevertheless The New York Times editorial this morning does its best to debunk the interim Prime Minister at all costs. My God, he’s even committed the “sin” of reinstituting “capital punishment” in a society where civilians are being beheaded right and left. He must be a real thug.
Okay, here’s my second bit of honesty. That NYT editorial is appalling. I almost never use profanity on here but whoever wrote that (Gail Collins?) could give less of a shit about the Iraqi people. All he/she cares about is the defeat of George Bush. It is a perfect example of what Victor Davis Hanson wrote about in the article linked below.
UPDATE: Of course we now have a new Mother Teresa.
I too was appalled by this blatantly partisan editorial. The NYT, like the U.N., seems to sink lower and lower into irrelavance. I find myself anticipating exactly what they will say editorially, and exactly how they will “play” the news, and I am seldom disappointed. They stil occasionally have reat reporting (John Burns, et al.) but their shrill defense of paleoliberal positions bores the hell out of me. Like CBS and Rather, and in contrast to the likes of the Washington Post, which worked with the Rathergate stroy and added what only a great newspaper can–balance, multiple sourcing, complexity, and a sense of the story’s “arc”–tne NYT seems insensible to the fact that they are not exclusively setting the news agenda anymore. This overweening arrogance, coupled with the sneering condescension that has taken over the editoral page by degrees, makes them no longer a “must’read” but an “I’ll read it if I can get around to it.”
I was, however, even more appalled by Kerry’s smearing of Allawi–Kerry’s remarks yesterday tacked perilously close to calling Allawi a liar and a GWB apologist. Is this the Kerry who as Presidnet will be a superior diplomat to the allegedly ham-fisted and unsublte GWB? Kerry is a disaster even in facing the mild pressure of a Presidential candidate. What the hell would happen were he to go toe-to-toe witht he mullahs or Kim Jong Il? I’m not really willing to risk the future of the world on a successful resolution to JFK’s psychodrama.
Daniel:
It gets worse. Joe “memo” Lockhart issue a statement where he said:
ìThe last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips,î said Joe Lockhart, a senior Kerry adviser. [Courtesy of LGF]
It looks like my original take from yesterday in jest has become more serious. To Kerry and his supporters Allawi is no better then Diem or Thiu, i.e., mere puppets of the imperialist US who should be displaced by the legitimate Viet Cong. The implication of their remarks is that the like of Sadr and Zarqawi represent the will of the Iraqi people.
And this, via RantingProfs, from a June WaPo article detailing an Iraqi poll:
“But 73 percent of Iraqis polled approved of Allawi to lead the new government, 84 percent approved of President Ghazi Yawar and almost two-thirds backed the new Cabinet. These impressive showings indicate that the new leaders have support spanning ethnic and religious groups, U.S. officials said.”
Still, in denouncing Allawi as somehow unrepresentative or lacking bona fides because he is unelected, the Kerry campaign, the NYT, Salon and other MSM/political sources are, however inadvertently, supporting democracy in Iraq. Nice to know they’ve changed since early 2003 and prior. Oh wait, prior to that Kerry was supporting regime change, and then he wasn’t, but then was again; well, maybe we can more simply say he was/wasn’t in steadfast, Kerryesque mode.
What Kerry is doing is starting to make sense to me. Not the message. His plan.
Kerry has a plan to “win” the WOT that would, he probably truly believes, not leave smoking holes where American cities used to be. He will not come out and define his plan in detail because it would not be acceptable to the majority of Americans. He must therefore use his “superior” intellect to nuance his plan so that security minded Americans will not run away from him.
Kerry is not concerned about alienating Great Britian, Australia and our other hard, gun-toting allies because those hard allies will be replaced with soft Allies like France and socialist Spain who will help Kerry bridge the cultural gap to the Arab/Muslim world. Kerry’s Temple University speech provided some clues. He spoke of ending American isolationism and creating a sharing environment.
Kerry would use the US military to hunt down bin Laden because he’d be tarred and feathered if he didn’t. He says that he will hunt down al Qaeda too but other than a few other high profile cohorts I suspect that the ranks of al Qaeda will escape retribution by simply melting into organizations not named al Qaeda. I would have to assume that kissing ass in Syria and Iran would be key elements of Kerry’s plan because Kerry has made it clear that Allawi is horse dung and Iraq a worthless diversion. Under the Kerry Plan Syria and Iran will determine the future of Iraq, not the USA and Allawi. The flip side of seeking an Iranian alliance is to trash Saudi Arabia. There can only be one hegemon in the Gulf and Kerry is siding with the mullahs.
In payment to Kerry the mullahs and Assad will reign in Hizb’allah and other Arab militants not under Saudi control complete with public assertions from Muslim clerics that the use of terrorism must be examined or something else that sounded enough like a cease fire to appease Americans. Iran will have to give up something visible on its nuclear program. Israeli newspapers suggest that Kerry is Israel-friendly so I don’t know how long he could play both sides of that relationship.
Only by giving up American wealth, liberty and soverignty, and ending American arrogance can we rejoin the international community and “win” the WOT. So sayeth Prince Kerry.
Allawi and Dubya could’ve co-created cures for AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s and acne, and they’d STILL be labelled “…scumbags…liars…most crooked bunch…unpatriotic…unAmerican…idiots…” You get the point.
There is absolutely no benefit to Kerry or his partisans in saying anything positive about Dubya, certainly not 5 weeks before the election. I doubt Kerry would even have enough class a few years after the election to grant the grudging respect Carter eventually gave Reagan.
Kerry may be one of the purest examples of “asshole” we’ve ever had on the national stage–nudging out Al Gore and Howie Dean is some accomplishment.
Many have disparaged Kerry’s judgment.
I beg to differ. In at least one aspect, his judgment was excellent.
He didn’t resign his Senate seat.
Indulge me to continue my crazy Kerry screed.
The unintended end result for our children or grandchildren of Kerry’s “win” in the WOT would be the Greater Islamic Caliphate of the former Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. 150 million well regulated Muslims and nuclear weapons too.
Yeah. Iraq is a diversion.
I’ll agree with the “mother” part.
Oh, Barbara, bless you.
Kerry is a disaster.
But I don’t expect the NYT editorial staff to come to grips with that. I heard that Chirac was accused of war crimes himself in his younger days. Not that the Times will do a piece on his alleged atrocities or bribery charges. No, he is the good kind of national leader, the kind that hates Bush.
I heard part of Kerry’s speech today. Rambling, bizarre and above all accusatory. We had too many allies in Afghanistan, too few in Iraq which was by and large a happy place until George came up with the crazy idea that Saddam had wmds. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Bush is a liar, Allawi is a liar, Rumsfeld is a liar. etc.
And unlike Bush who ruined a perfectly good plan with NK that was working just fine, Kerry would get tough with the NK and the Russians.
That is right, he dragged the Russians into it. Their old weapons must be accounted for and Kerry will not take no for an answer. The NK will put the cameras back in their reactors go back to pretending they are doing what they promised the peanut farmer they would do, or face the consequences. The mullahs will not mess with Kerry, nosiree. And we will make good buddies and fix all the ills of the world and bring world peace and cure Aids and end hunger and kill Osama and make everyone everywhere love us. and on and on.
I could not decide if he was trying to go to the right of Bush or what. But I got the impression he was on drugs for most of the nineties and therefor has but dim memory of them. I also got the impression that he will nuke a large portion of the human race if they don’t shape up.
All the world needs now is love sweet love…
Christ on a crutch, there are sane Democrats out there, how did this guy ever get the nomination?
Terrye – “Christ on a crutch, there are sane Democrats out there, how did this guy ever get the nomination?”
Simple, all those sane Democrats are voting Republican.
The irony of the Dem’s approach is that they’re attacking the wrong part of Allawi’s speech. It’s not the statements about current violence that matter, it’s Allawi’s conveying the message that Iraqis want freedom, are glad to have help, and are determined to make things work. Not all Americans believe that – my wife, for example, is prone to saying things like “they don’t want us there anyway”. Impressing freedom on the unwilling is depressing – helping willing people win it is far more satisfying.
Watch for a bump in the “the war is worth it” numbers.
Via Bros. Judd:
OR WE THOUGHT WE KNEW:
Kerry out attack (John McCaslin, 9/24/04, Washington Times)
During a 1997 debate on CNN’s “Crossfire,” Sen. John Kerry, now the Democratic presidential nominee, made the case for launching a pre-emptive attack against Iraq.
So reveals Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, who appeared with Mr. Kerry on the program.
Mr. King says the U.N. Security Council had just adopted a resolution against Iraq that was watered down at the behest of the French and the Russians. Yet the candidate who now criticizes President Bush for ignoring French and Russian objections to the Iraq war blasted the two countries, claiming that they were compromised by their business dealings with Baghdad.
“We know we can’t count on the French. We know we can’t count on the Russians,” said Mr. Kerry. “We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it’s in our national interest.”
Sandy:
See what I mean? He was stoned through the nineties and it is all so blurry now…..
I enjoy your blog. But I would strongly prefer that you leave Mother Teresa out of this. May she rest in peace. Thank you.
‘I also got the impression that he will nuke a large portion of the human race if they don’t shape up.’–Terrye
Now that is one impression I have never gotten from waffles.Frankly,the way things are going,that possibility concerns me much less than the likelihood that his policies would lead to HAVING to bring out the big stuff because he was doing nothing else to solve the problems.
The reason that I support the Bush plan for Iraq is that I have become convinced that either the Arab world changes /is changed ,or nuclear weapons move from the category of unthinkable to mandatory(at some point in the future).
Every day Kerry is revealing more of his 1971 based belief system. Now that he, through Lockhard, has denounced Allawi as American puppet he has now elevated Saddam Hussein to anti-terrorist bulwark. Ignoring both the Senate intelligence comnittee and the 9-11 Commision Report he campaigns on the big lie that Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism. Kerry has thrown in his lot with Zarqawi and Sadr. He is quite willing to abandon the region to the terrorists and terrorist sponsors just the way he was proud of his part in abandoning the people of SE Asia to their fate. After all they deserved it because they weren’t progressive. The problem now is that it won’t be just Arabs and Israelis who die if he is elected. It will be Americans.
doug:
The speech I heard today was different.
I think Kerry was trying to bring a lot of stuff into the speech, maybe too much and was trying to sound tough and thoughtful.
I also think that Kerry is all about reacting. He does not have an original thought. People like this tend to be unrealistic and testy when they don’t get their way.
I don’t know what he would do if he were in a bad and scarey situation. That is what bothers me. So I would not rule out extremes of behavior.
Saturday’s Daily Telegraph (free registration required) includes a superbly written and pertinent leader :
“The man with blood on his hands is not Blair but Zarqawi”
An excerpt from the leader:
There is a terrible illusion in the Western mind that somehow, if only we ourselves behaved a bit better, the situation would come under our control. People ignore the fact that victims will be kidnapped and killed whether they come from America, which prosecuted the war, or from France, which opposed it. It makes little practical and no moral difference to Zarqawi whether he kills a Christian or a Muslim (he has done plenty of the latter), a Turk, a Nepali, an Italian, an Egyptian or Mr Bigley. What he is trying to do is to internationalise the Iraqi question, picking subjects (such as the fate of Muslim women) which touch strong emotion in the Islamic world, and offering the most violent possible solutions. He makes videos of his atrocities for propaganda, being both utterly barbaric and yet alarmingly modern. The media should ask themselves whether they’re helping Zarqawi’s strategy, and therefore inflicting worse suffering on the family, by showing whatever the terrorists want.
What is it about the MSM that it works so assiduously to infantilize its viewers and readers?
Kerry and his MSM enablers are worse, far worse, than useless. Zarqawi plays them like a fiddle – and thousands die.
Correction: The linked Daily Telegraph opinion piece isn’t a leader but a signed column crafted by the redoubtable Charles Moore
mrp:
He is right whoever he is. On one hand I think the press needs to inform people, but on the other there is no point in catering to the likes of Zarqawi.
It would be better to spend that time talking about the fact that women in fundamentalist Islamic societies are treated little better than livestock.
Terrye ó Sane democrats? I’m not sure, anymore. I am coming to the opinion that the Kos forums and DU are the Democratic party when it thinks no one is looking…
Warthog – nice points and frightening to consider. In this route Kerry achieves – on the surface – the end goals (peace or whatever he considers them to be) that he/his folks want for the US. What a teetering future that would be.
Terryre – “He does not have an original thought” – not that this is the only thing I got out of your post, but was just talking about this with my wife tonight. Everything is an attack against Bush – no plans at all, just attacks.
Anyone – One of the questions bothering my mind and hoping someone here can help – of our friends who are Jewish (devout at least from my perspective) they all support Kerry and strongly Dems and Left.. how can this be so? Is Isreal not important to them- given the Left’s seeming readiness to favor Palestine over Isreal? Perhaps I should ask but not really have the nerve to do so. And it hurts my head to think about it too much.
Jonathan:
If devout from your perspective is Reformed then there is a solution to your dilemma. The modern reformed movement is about as faithful to Jewish religious concepts as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterians and Methodists are to Christian concepts. You could say that reformed Jews are truly “Progressive” because they reinterpreted Mosaic Law as a call for Socialism long before the Mainline Churches adopted Marxist Liberation Theology. Socialists are loyal to the cause regardless of how it effects the individual socialist. Many Soviet era writers remark on how purged Party members kept the faith even as they were shipped off to concentration camps always beliving that the party would realize they made a mistake and rescue them.
The Jews that you speak of believe that if they are zealous not for the Lord, but for socialism, they will remain in good standing with the Socialist World. They adhere to the Party line more strongly then their non-Jewish brothers to show that they really, really are on the right side of history and will therefore find favor within an intrinsically anti-Semitic community. These Jews delude themselves by thinking that the Socialist community will only allow genocide in the Middle East, but will stand up for Jew at home.
Judaism has a basic problem. By rely entirely on blood rather then belief for identification, Jewish traditionalists lack the means to “excommunicate” or otherwise declare the socialist or for that matter Randian rationalists to be no longer part of the community. The Jewish community needs to offer these people a choice. You can either be a Jew or you can be something else but you can’t be both.
Post -Script: I read an article in the Saturday Washington Times about a poll conducted by the AJC on what the Jewish community thought the greatest threat to American Jews is. 2/3 said anti-Semitism and 1/3 said assimilation. Anybody want to bet the kind of anti-Semitism that most of the 2/3 were talking about comes from ìright wingî Christian fundamentalists and not from pro-PLO socialists?
Note to Roger: I have a lot of problems with typekey. Is there a more reliable security system out there?
Another reason Kerry will lose ó The Freaking Embarrassment Factor…
jerry – thanks for the thoughtful response – chewing on it now and would have replied sooner except I couldn’t get the reply to work from the Mac.