Matt Taibbi writes: "It's been interesting, watching the seamless transition many conservatives seem to be making now, from brainless war-drum-beating to Randian isolationism. Six or seven or eight years ago, I seem to remember, anyone who even hinted that not using military force to resolve any foreign policy dispute, no matter how trivial or how imaginary the justification, was to be considered a traitor."
Ross Douthat, conservative columnist of The New York Times. (photo: file, unspecified)
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There ought to be some punishment for journalists who drank the Dick Cheney Kook Aid about Iraq. Really, it was not hard to tell that we were being lied to and that the case against Saddam was crafted by a PR team, just like the Incubator Baby story was 12 years earlier by the same people. Journalists (editorial columnists, too) are supposed to have a "sixth sense" for telling when they are being lied to. Douthat just seems to have sense at all -- and yet he writes for the NYTimes. Most journalists now have no sense at all. Taibbi has it just right for today's mainstream journalists -- "just another jingoistic twit doing the “Gooble, gooble, one of us!” chant on the march to war." That's really about all that the NY Times, WPost, and most other big newspapers or broadcast TV news organizations do. "Do That, -- their editors or advertisers say. I'm sure being a jingoistic twit pays very well and pseudo-journalists like Douthat are really in it for the money and career. Maybe someday he will win a Pulitzer. "Done that."
The US could easily negotiate temporary autonomy for Kabul and hope local tempers cool down with time.
Actually a more creative less temporary peace is possible,
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/307-11/6319-us-said-to-be-in-peace-talks-with-taliban
RichardKane
R-O-N P-A-U-L!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
,,,and the destruction of countless innocent lives.
all the while we ignore the real slaughterhouses like the Sudan.
The top 50 pundits on the right and left are all performing in this media circus all the time, and most of them have more or less successfully embedded their viewpoints right smack into the central core memory dump of the American public, at least the ones who actually pay attention to this stuff.
From this vantage point, moral or intellectual consistency, social justice, personal integrity, principle: at the end of the day, they don't make a small hill of beans. Ratings, book sales, TV "face time", publicity, awards...right or left, this is where the rubber meets the road!
Tom Fox went to Iraq to declare peace, but some he met equally blamed the west and civilization itself for destroying the beautiful world they once know. Some in Afghanistan wonder if women without berkas has something to do with their traditionally world no longer seeming to make sense anymore as a Doctors Without Borders medic came into their neighborhood to preach modern hygiene.
Vietnam things made things simple as Jane Fonda received a royal welcome. The war started when Dgo Diem and his friends decided they would fight to death if need be to stop Ho Chi Ming and the Commies from being in charge, making enemies of the majority Buddhist population. To me the following link is fascinating history,
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNngo.htm
In the end some feared punishment if they didn’t leave, others joining the flight to make money.
Those who promise the war just ending right after the US leaves know how to raise money.
It's like they're saying..."Oh well, too bad, so sad. Now get us out!".
I think I need another glass of Kool-Aid!
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