Rebutting this nihilism is one of the main reasons why I blog, frankly. I literally get angry sometimes at what passes for respectable foreign policy analysis among the mindless hordes of the anti-Bush far-left opposition.
So it's nice to actually hear that I'm not the only one! Gabriel Malor, over at the Ace of Spades, says that Eric Martin's slanderous post on the Iraq war "is really going to make you mad":
What follows is the type of thinking that you will see in the White House should the Democrats win in November. WARNING: it is a concentrated example of the half-truths, distortions, and outright lies that passes for foreign policy discussion on the Left. And if you're anything like me, it's really going to make you mad.So let's recap the scene: the US military and its Iraqi "allies" are laying siege to a sprawling neighborhood in Baghdad housing roughly 2.5 million Iraqis, launching air strikes, artillery attacks, tank shells and other assorted ordnance, shutting down hospitals and bombing others, cutting off the supply of food and walling off entire sectors of the embattled region, causing a refugee crisis by their actions - and now actually pursuing a policy with the intent of creating a larger refugee crisis!Witness the liar's casual blend of truth and falsity, used to imply malicious intent that doesn't exist. It's true that U.S. and Iraqi forces are fighting to take and keep control of portions of Sadr City and that one hospital was shut down and another damaged in a bombing. It is also true that the U.S. is building a concrete barrier through the city.
It is absolutely false that the hospital was bombed intentionally--as the liar implies--or that the U.S. has cut off food to the city. In fact, the article he links to (which we will, for now, assume is accurate) notes that the U.S. military is distributing food and medical supplies. This is curiously omitted from the liar's post, given how concerned he is about the residents of Sadr City. According to the article, the Red Crescent estimates that only 6% of the city's population have experienced food, water, or medical shortages during the weeks of fighting. More than that, it also notes that the "refugee crisis" which he blames on the U.S. and Iraqi forces hasn't actually materialized.
It is also manifestly untrue that the intent of the U.S./Iraqi operation is to create a "larger refugee crisis." In fact, the idea is to put an end to mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, U.S. military bases, and civilian areas which are coming out of parts of Sadr City.
Confusion about the difference between purposeful goals and regrettable, unintended, but unavoidable consequences is not unusual on the Left. The twisted morality that disregards intent makes claims of moral equivalence so much easier.
The liar's most pernicious distortion comes next:
For what reason: because a majority of residents in these regions support a political movement, and militia, that oppose our presence. Can't have that. Because we have to keep 150,000 troops in Iraq to safeguard the Iraqi people. After all, whose gonna set up the tents in the refugee catch basins we so magnanimously helped set up to receive the overflow from our relentless assault on political movements that would make it harder for us to stay in Iraq. To safeguard the Iraqi people.He thinks that the U.S. is targeting Sadr City merely because a "political movement, a militia" that opposes the U.S. hides in its slums. He makes no mention of the roadside, car, and market bombings, and rocket and mortar attacks that the Mahdi Army has committed. He ignores the Mahdi Army's attacks on Sunni mosques and attempts to "cleanse" a portion of the city of Sunni Arabs. Conveniently forgotten is journalist Steven Vincent who was killed almost certainly by members of that "political movement."
This distortion, wherein the Left imputes political animus to the U.S. government, is shameful, dreadful stuff. It is a mild flavor of conspiracy theory. The obvious purpose--American and Iraqi authorities want the Madhi Army to stop killing people--is disregarded in favor of a dubious, but oh-so-satisfyingly nefarious one: the Americans and their Iraqi stooges are "relentlessly attacking political groups." Another Leftist recently in the news, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, would no doubt agree. He's also fond of malicious government conspiracies.
This is the type of person you are inviting to enter the center ring when you say "we can wait 'til 2012." Democratic voters, Democratic thinkers, Obama's staff and advisers--these are the people you are flirting with when you say "McCain will do so much damage to the Republican Party." Consider for a minute how much damage these people will do to the United States.
This is why the Left must lose in November. I'm not asking you to vote for John McCain. I'm asking you to vote against having a Leftist in the White House.
Well, as my readers know, this is precisely why I've supported McCain since he declared his bid for the nomination back in 2007.
But let me add a little more background on why the left-wing retreatists can be so frustrating.
Eric Martin's a co-blogger at the radical left-wing group blog, Newshoggers, where I've had a long-running feud the publisher, Cernig, and another of the blog's regulars, Libby Spencer.
I provided a decisive take down of Cernig's inane rambings in my post, "Blogging Foreign Policy: Bereft of Credentials, Left Strains to Shift Debate," where I argue that many of the prominent and widely-cited left-wing foreign policy bloggers are indeed ignorant hacks who don't what they're talking about.
Cernig, in a recent post on John McCain's proposal for a "league of democracies" cited Ilan Goldenberg and Max Bergmann's recent piece at the New Republic, "Multilateral Like Bush," where they offer this attack on McCain's pledge to support the "collective will" of the Western democracies:
Only a press corps so enamored with McCain could imagine that one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq War would be capable of breaking with the current administration's unilateral adventurism. Despite his conciliatory rhetoric, McCain's hawkish views, and his long history of castigating allies who do not agree with him, leave little reason to believe that when it comes to restoring America 's image, credibility, and alliances, he would be much different than George W. Bush.
For those who're hip with the radicals, this line's an extension of the claim that a McCain presidency will be "four more years of George W. Bush."
When I commented at the Newshoggers' post, suggesting that the "collective will" of the European democracies led to the Srebrenica massacre, Cernig refused to debate the issue and deleted my comments, replacing them with this:
This was posted by a banned commenter using a new IP, and the management have deleted it.
If this commenter wants to post he should be polite enough to email the site owners asking permission to do so and apologising for past infractions, rather than rudely and obsessively persisting in trying to circumvent the ban.
Until then, all his comments under any IP or alias will be deleted as soon as they are discovered.
What are those past infractions? Well, calling Cernig out for his continual assualts on reason with his routinely inflammatory hard-left attacks on the Bush administration, neoconservatives, the Iraq war, and the U.S. military.
These folks are afraid of debate, especially with those who'll hold their feet to the fire.
Libby Spencer's long been my nemesis. I've previously taken her to task for applauding Down's syndrome suicide attacks in Iraq and her fawning support of Central American terrorist-enabler and left-wing Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez.
Spencer recently aligned herself with revolutionary socialism in a blog post backing Senator Bernie Sanders for president.
So I can see why Malor at Ace of Spades might get a little peeved.
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