Posted by
JDComments on Friday, January 12, 2007 1:22:15 PM
Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski proves that the Carter administration's ineptness extends way beyond it's fearless leader in a
piece in the WaPo criticizing the President's speech. After reading this my only thought was "How did we ever survive the years these fools were in office"?
The article is short and bitter, and yet manages to succinctly capture so much of the Liberal propaganda that you have to give ZB an "A" for concise writing. Unfortunately this is balanced out by the "F" it deserves for total lack of truthfulness or facts.
Its language was less Islamophobic than has been customary with President Bush's rhetoric since Sept. 11, though the president still could not resist the temptation to engage in a demagogic oversimplification of the challenge the United States faces in Iraq, calling it a struggle to safeguard "a young democracy" against extremists and an effort to protect American society from terrorists. Both propositions are more than dubious.
Yes, we wouldn't want to appear
Islamophobic when talking about the enemy trying to kill us, would we? War is war, but political correctness trumps all. I am glad to see Brzezinski's priorities are straight.
As for the complexity of the situation, this is the usual Liberal obfuscation which seeks to hide the true issues while making them feel smart while we are all obviously stupid. Well, count me stupid, because I do believe we are trying to protect that democracy while defending the US against terrorism. But then again I believe WWII was about defeating fascism while I am sure ZB sees it in a much more sophisticated, complicated geopolitical prospective that I would never understand.
The commitment of 21,500 more troops is a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit. It is insufficient to win the war militarily.
Gee, this isn't too politically partisan, is it? I mean, this is the man who help handle the Iran hostage crisis so adeptly that I really trust his military acumen as I am sure you do. Besides, I was never really fooled by that 21,500 number anyway- I can recognize a photo op when I see one.
But I do admit a small part of me wishes he would explain why the commitment of a major increase in our military strength committed to securing Baghdad, a tactic many
real military experts are advocating, is not significant. Must be that Liberal complexity thing again.
The speech did not explore even the possibility of developing a framework for an eventual political solution. The search for a political solution would require a serious dialogue about a joint American-Iraqi decision regarding the eventual date of a U.S. withdrawal ...The U.S. refusal to explore the possibility of talks with Iran and Syria is a policy of self-ostracism that fits well into the administration's diplomatic style of relying on sloganeering as a substitute for strategizing.
Surprise, cut and run combined with negotiations with those two stalwarts of the area, the always reasonable and humane Iran and Syria. He should have just tipped his hat to the ISG for this whole paragraph, but I guess sharing the spotlight is not his strong point.
The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy.
Here we just have a flagrant untruth casually pawned off on us. In the lexicon of the used car salesman, he is "assuming the sale" and hoping to intimidate us into buying it without looking under the hood. The reason is simple- this statement is just a lie.
Colonial wars were not fought to free people and set them up in their own sovereign governments. Rather, they were aggressive actions to obtain strategic goals and resources and extend the power and influence of the country waging it.
Now try as I might, I see
nothing colonialistic [or imperialistic, basically the same thing] about this war. In fact, to some degree I feel that our basic problem in waging it is our refusal to project our full power and take complete responsibility instead of deferring so soon to the local power structures.
We can be accused of many things, but as far as this being a an exercise in colonialism, even the complicated and complex mindset of Brzezinski cannot truly believe or justify that, and he doesn't , just stating it as a fact.
To use that car sale analogy one last time, when the salesman hesitates to let you take it for a ride, its time to go home. In this case, he couldn't even get the thing to start.
In reading this article it struck me how similar the tactics of the Liberals are to terrorists. They throw random bombs which scare the onlookers, but when they are confronted they meld back into the protective coloration of the population, talking about "supporting our troops" and "achieving real security" and even "being in favor of a troop surge".
Like the Terrorists, they use our own strengths against us, knowing we cannot silence their propaganda and lies without compromising our principles, and steadily wear away at our will. And like the Terrorists they can only win if we allow them to demoralize us. Unfortunately it seems to be working.