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March 20, 2006

Disconnected?

On the one hand, anti-war rallies over the weekend around the US and world fizzled:

The protests, like those held to mark each of the two previous anniversaries of the March 2003 invasion, were vigorous and peaceful but far smaller than the large-scale marches that preceded the war, despite polls showing lower public support for the war than in years past and anemic approval ratings for President Bush, himself a focus of many of the protesters.
Meaning what?

That while the president's approval numbers are no doubt way off, that perhaps the polls are just as badly jiggered as some of us have been saying? Perhaps. Time will tell.

That the insurgency's goal - of winning unwitting dupes in the US over to their side, as the North Vietnamese did 35 years ago - is failing? Again, time will tell.

In Times Square, about 1,000 anti-war protesters rallied outside a military recruiting station, demanding that troops be withdrawn from Iraq.
Police in London said 15,000 people joined a march from Parliament and Big Ben to a rally in Trafalgar Square. The anniversary last year attracted 45,000 protesters in the city.
People who attended the Minneapolis march on Saturday - that in a mong the bluest of the blue cities - said that while it was large, it was much smaller than last year's march. In the meantime, the left's shills are working their PR magic:
On March 17th's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, actor and comedian Richard Belzer claimed he is more educated about the war in Iraq than our troops who have been there. And claiming that our troops don't really know anything about the war in Iraq was not the only insult Belzer cast at the troops. (See Newsbusters.org)

"You think everyone over there is a college graduate? They're 19 and 20-year-old kids who couldn't get a job," he said disparaging the troops, to Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R Fla) on Maher's show.

In a condescending way, Belzer claimed he was much more informed than any US soldier because they don't read "twenty newspapers a day" like he apparently claims to do.

He told Representative Ros-Lehtinen that her step-son, currently serving in Iraq, isn't a "brilliant scholar about the war because he's there."

So let me get this straight: conservatives who didn't, for whatever reason, serve in the military but support the troops are "chickenhawks"...

...so then, what is an actor that never served, insults the troops, and assumes he knows more about the war than they or their families do?

I'm taking nominations for terms, here.

Boy, I bet the left just rips on Belzer...

Posted by Mitch at March 20, 2006 07:46 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I saw Belzer's comments, and frankly, he was out of line. The experience of the troops on the ground is certainly among the most expert of opinions.

Having said that, it's hardly expert to the point that it should be considered the ONLY opinion, or even the most likely to be able to predict the future.

Again, we have opinion; his, yours, and others, most of which are meaningless.

The facts are that Iraq is now worse off (economically) this year than last, last year than the year before, despite our having sunk some 80+ billion into "rebuilding" it.

The facts are that the situation on the ground is pretty well precisely where it was predicted by people on Belzer's side of the aisle said it would be.

So while you spend your vitriol on Belzer, save a little for those in charge who put us into this mess, on culled intelligence, ignoring the best intelligence provided. You know, save some for the reality.

Your rants against opinions are legion, perhaps you could spend some time discussing the reality of Iraq.

PB

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 08:01 AM

Btw, the "his" in his, yours, and others of opinion's is Belzers, not Rep Lehtinen's son's. I think his opinion has merit. I may not think he knows everything.

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 08:03 AM

There were a few protesters down on Lake Street in MPLS on Saturday, but not many -- I've seen bigger campus parties.

Belzer is a great example of Lefty advocacy these days. He's got all of Ann Coulter's acerbic wit without any of the wit, but with a huge case of self-aggrandizement to make up for it.

Posted by: nerdbert at March 20, 2006 08:45 AM

"The facts are that Iraq is now worse off (economically) this year than last, last year than the year before, despite our having sunk some 80+ billion into "rebuilding" it."

Peeb, these are only "facts" in your BDS fogged mind. Prior to the invasion 5000+ children were starving to death EVERY MONTH. We aren't rebuilding infrastructure, we are building it. It didn't exist for non-military use.
Mitch spent endless space below showing that you offer zero substantiation for your claims, then you come right back and do it again.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
You need revision.

Posted by: Kermit at March 20, 2006 08:55 AM

Well Kerm

Since they came from George Will's column and David Brook's column over the past weekend, and were, as I recall, based upon interviews with military commanders in the field.. hmmmm, whatever.

PB

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 09:14 AM

Btw Kerm,

As far as substantiation goes, your comments regarding building infrastructure are unsubstantiated, and flatly, wrong.

Their access to power and water is FAR below what it was 2 years ago, and WAY less than 4. Thier roads, oil shipping, and jobs, are FAR below what they were 4 years ago. Now that's no defense of Saddam, just that your comments are totally incorrect, and, unsubstantiated.

Mitch has yet to substantiate anything meaningful on this blog, so using his rants as points for your post, is probably frought with peril.

PB

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 09:35 AM

That's it. Enough. Link up or shut up.

I googled for this one:

http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/

but I don't care about it and I don't want your opinion on it. I DO want links that have informed the opinion(s) you are presenting and nothing more. I hope you don't find that an unreasonable request.

Troy

Posted by: Troy at March 20, 2006 09:44 AM

From CBS

"The decline in U.S. deaths comes as Iraqi casualties are the highest since the U.S. military began tracking them in 2004.

In the past month, nearly five times as many Iraqi forces and civilians were killed as troops in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, U.S. military data show."

The reality is, I provide a fair amount of substantiation, and this runs rather counter to the idea that we are successfully rebuilding.
PB

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 09:45 AM

Huh, what do you know?

PB believes he's here to provide a service.

Posted by: badda-blogger at March 20, 2006 09:50 AM

The military excels in building leaders. In the Iraqi exercise, much of the immediate decision making was moved way down the chain. Those 19 and 20 year-olds demonstrated a lot of smarts even if they don't have a degree.

The hard issues are the ones that extend beyond military victory: the political and social isses. It still has to be done. It makes no sense to remove Saddam and leave Iraq in the same shape but under a different dictator. But since we can't/won't destroy lives indiscriminately, a lot of bad guys are still around to create problems. Still, we have great soldiers, smart and dedicated.

The issue of a college education is usually raised by a critic who has a degree and wants to impress everyone. Smarts and wisdom are not necessarily the result of a college education. I believe that education is a great thing, but it doesn't guarantee anything. It certainly does not guarantee that a person will develop the best philosophical base for life, either individually or the life of a nation. And it has no guarantees that it will develop leadership or good decision making processes.

Also ignored is the fact that the military does a lot, as in a lot, of education. It's not history or calculus, but talk to anyone who worked on getting an E6 or higher. The military does a lot of work to insure that the brightest are in charge. Per a family member who went through the training, decision-making is the goal of the training, and it's very good.

Seems to be working very well.

Posted by: Scott at March 20, 2006 09:55 AM

Re: badda-blogger at March 20, 2006 09:50 AM

> PB believes he's here to provide a service.

There's another thing he's wrong about.

Posted by: RBMN at March 20, 2006 09:55 AM

A quote with no context is only a little better than stating your personal opinion alone. Links provide context, and are the main reason the Internet is so valuable. Make use of them please.

Troy

Posted by: Troy at March 20, 2006 09:57 AM

I would like to formally denounce the comments of Richard Belzer, an important spokesman for the Democratic Party. I would also like to repudiate recent comments made by Gallagher on nuclear proliferation and by Carrot Top on the subject of the Dubai ports deal. In addition, pleas note that the 1980s-era joke about Nancy Reagan and Bubba Smith is not at all funny and does not represent the viewpoint of the Democratic Party on the subjects of interracial relationships or the size of the late president's penis.

Posted by: angryclown at March 20, 2006 10:02 AM

PB: "Their access to power and water is FAR below what it was 2 years ago, and WAY less than 4."

Wrong again. Read the article on power generation in Iraq from the IEEE: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb06/2831. Since you won't bother to check facts, I'll summarize. There's more power in Iraq now than before the war. Less of it goes to Baghdad because of politics (Saddam isn't there to demand his palaces be lit) and terrorist attacks because the terrorists know that if they allow the power to go there life will be better for the inhabitants and thus worse for them.

I guess that reading newspaper reports will give you the wrong impression, since few newspaper reporters will risk their necks outside Baghdad, unlike those engineers who are actually doing the work of reworking the infrastructure.

Posted by: nerdbert at March 20, 2006 10:40 AM

"...so then, what is an actor that never served, insults the troops, and assumes he knows more about the war than they or their families do?

I'm taking nominations for terms, here."

My submission:
"Thespianpotamian"


Posted by: Nancy at March 20, 2006 11:12 AM

Merciful Christ you are an idiot, nerdbert.
Baghdad is actually kind of dangerous, to reporters, military and civilians alike. Which you'd know if you'd been paying even cursory attention to the news.

Of the 67 journalists killed in action in the Iraq War, 33 - about half - died in Baghdad province, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Baghdad province also accounts for the second-highest number of coalition combat deaths, after Anbar province.

Please do not pollute the Internet with your foolishness!

Posted by: angryclown at March 20, 2006 11:18 AM

Hooray! The Return of Angryclown. I was personally opposed to Carrot Top's postion on DPW, but then I was racially profiling him as a fallen Irish-Catholic child molester.

Posted by: Kermit at March 20, 2006 11:20 AM
Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 11:38 AM

Whoa, best PB post ever. I even read it in its entirety.

Posted by: Ryan at March 20, 2006 11:45 AM

My nomination for the term describing the liberal analog to "Chickenhawk": Chickenshit

Belzer claims to read twenty newspapers a day? That doesn't mean he understands them.

Posted by: Dan S. at March 20, 2006 12:07 PM

AC: "Baghdad is actually kind of dangerous, to reporters, military and civilians alike. Which you'd know if you'd been paying even cursory attention to the news."

Yes, many reporters have died there, but few get out to see what's really happening, few present unvarnished analysis of the actual situation, and fewer still leave the safer areas now.

You might try reading what the gent from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers for those who don't know, so it's actually a very technical organization, even if the article is at the Popular Science level) actually spent 10 days wandering about the country and actually went with the crews that were repairing the towers under fire. His analysis is pretty withering as far as the Iraqi component goes, and he doesn't hold back very valid critisism from the contractors and the US. That's actual reporting, unlike what we're getting from the mainstream press.

Mr. Clown, you're a blindered, blithering idiot as far as the press is concerned. It's understandable that you've got that view given your business, but not everybody shares your respect for what you do and how you do it.

Posted by: nerdbert at March 20, 2006 12:28 PM

"Please do not pollute the Internet with your foolishness!"

Heh, don't sweat it assclown, there's plenty of bandwidth out here, enough to accomodate every tidbit of moronic wisdom that makes it's way from the greasy wet spot that serves as your brain, out your gob, down the front of your shirt and thence to your keyboard.


Posted by: swiftee at March 20, 2006 12:31 PM

Nerd, I didn't say anything about the IEEE, the NFL or AA, to which you should clearly belong, from the evidence of your posts. I pointed out the idiocy of your assumption that Baghdad is a place where anyone - reporters, military or civilians - sits around safely sipping mai tais. Your failure to understand the war at this rudimentary level undercuts everything else you say.

Posted by: angryclown at March 20, 2006 12:40 PM

Now, AC - just as John Edwards asserted there were two Americas, there are (as far as reporters are concerned) Two Baghdads.

There's the place of dusty shiite hovels and sunni neighborhoods, where US and Iraqi troops patrol looking for terrs and dodge IEDs...

...and there's the place in and around the Green Zone, which is fairly secure (but for the odd rocket attack). The kind of place from which Knight Ridder's Hannah Allam wrote about her boredom at not being able to get a decent manicure of find a karaoke joint...

...which is the part so many soldiers criticize the media for never leaving.

The Green Zone and Saddam City; very different places.

Posted by: mitch at March 20, 2006 12:51 PM

AC: "I pointed out the idiocy of your assumption that Baghdad is a place where anyone - reporters, military or civilians - sits around safely sipping mai tais. Your failure to understand the war at this rudimentary level undercuts everything else you say."

How many of those reporters died in the Green Zone in the last few years? How many of them actually leave the Green Zone now? Other than when they go out and hire stringers who are cooperating with the ins*rgents.

I've got far more respect for the guy who actually crawled around the country giving a balanced look at successes and failures, who actually gave a detailed and reasoned critique of what was going on than I do for most of the "mainstream" reporters who sit in the Green Zone and only come out when they're told its going to be safe by folks cooperating with the enemy.

Yeah, I'm an IEEE member. So what? What are you, besides a member of two of the most disreputable professions in the US, and an incompetent analyst to boot? You might try looking at actual DATA from folks who know what they're talking about rather than listening to the blithering, biased reporters that form the bulk of the media.

(Mitch, do I get points for trolling the Clown yet? This is the second time I've got him going. All it really takes it to insult reporters or lawyers and you can get him going, and both groups are _such_ easy targets.)

Posted by: nerdbert at March 20, 2006 01:15 PM

AC: "I pointed out the idiocy of your assumption that Baghdad is a place where anyone - reporters, military or civilians - sits around safely sipping mai tais. Your failure to understand the war at this rudimentary level undercuts everything else you say."

Silly Clown! Iraq is a Muslim country (you know that whole religious conservative thing). Mai tais are not permitted. We must be sensitive...

Posted by: Kermit at March 20, 2006 01:36 PM

Dan S., I think Belzer is a smart enough guy, as far as intelligence goes. However, reading 20 newspapers about Iraq only reinforces the liberal views that he brings to the argument. Actually, the more he understands, the more it reinforces his philosophical foundations, so based on his understanding of the viewpoint of those 20 liberal papers, he probably understands all too well. Too bad. No amount of smarts can overcome the wrong world view. Not that Belzer wants another world view

Angryclown, maybe you missed something in nerdbert's post, like the point he made:

"...and terrorist attacks because the terrorists know that if they allow the power to go there life will be better for the inhabitants and thus worse for them."

It looks like he recognizes the dangers of downtown Baghdad. If you can't work in Baghdad, you won't get power to the folks that live there. Nerdbert has a pretty good read on the situation in Baghdad. None of that negates what he said about the quality of life in the rest of the country. And the IEEE is a very responsible organization, so I'm not sure what the point of your post was.

Posted by: Scott at March 20, 2006 02:27 PM

Nerdbert boasted: "Yeah, I'm an IEEE member. So what?"

So you have a closetful of short-sleeve, polyester-blend dress shirts and a really cool pocket protector.

Posted by: angryclown at March 20, 2006 02:48 PM

Kermit, Can't let this comment slip by:

"Prior to the invasion 5000+ children were starving to death EVERY MONTH."

So the US is to be credited with saving those children that were dying b/c of the sanctions we imposed and oversaw?

Fulcrum

Posted by: Fulcrum at March 20, 2006 03:12 PM

Fulcrum,

The "Oil For Food" program was supposed to provide money for food and medicine for things like, y'know, Iraq children. It was something the US allowed Hussein after Gulf War I. Hussein diverted much of the money to himself and his military.

So yes, we are to be credited with saving lots of Iraqi lives. Whole plastic-shredders full of 'em, actually.

Posted by: mitch at March 20, 2006 03:19 PM

AC: "So you have a closetful of short-sleeve, polyester-blend dress shirts and a really cool pocket protector."

Better that than the empty suits of bloviating apparatchiks that form the bulk of your crowd. I assume your fedora is well pressed, with your card sticking out of it, the cigarette dangling from your mouth as you guzzle bourbon at your dingy desk in the bullpen?

Gee, aren't stereotypes fun? At least we're exchanging them from the same era. The empty suit look of reporters is much more current than your idea of what engineers dress like. It was always fun watching the FBI guys come in for background checks trying to dress as engineers and showing up like sore thumbs. No real engineer dressed that fancy, and nobody from the government could dress casually enough to pass through an engineering department without raising eyebrows. The Air Marshalls have much the same problem these days.

Posted by: nerdbert at March 20, 2006 04:24 PM

Mitch you said, "Hussein diverted much of the money to himself and his military."

In the period from 1997 until the invasion in 2003, Iraq sold oil worth $64 billion pursuant to the program. In that period the combined total of Saddam’s schemes -- kickbacks, illegal surcharges, overcharges for supplies, and undercharges for oil -- was 2.8% of the oil sales, about $1.8 billion Thus 97.2% of the money collected went for its intended purpose.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2005/11/putting-oil-for-food-in-perspective.php

Its intended purpose?

Proceeds from such oil sales are banked in New York…. Thirty-four percent is skimmed off for disbursement to outside parties with claims on Iraq, such as the Kuwaitis, as well as to meet the costs of the UN effort in Iraq. A further thirteen percent goes to meet the needs of the Kurdish autonomous area in the north.

With the remaining limited amount of money the Iraqi government could order “food, medicine, medical equipment, infrastructure equipment to repair water and sanitation” and other things. But — and here’s the rub — the U.S. government could veto or delay any items ordered.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2004/01sanctionsworth.htm

And from what i understand, veto and delay they did....

Fulcrum


Posted by: Fulcrum at March 20, 2006 05:03 PM

Fulcrum-
"So the US is to be credited with saving those children that were dying b/c of the sanctions we imposed and oversaw?"

Missing a little bit of context, aren't we?

Posted by: Fulcrum at March 20, 2006 05:12 PM

Gee, Fulcrum, you left this paragraph out of your http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2005/11/putting-oil-for-food-in-perspective.php
citations:
"The level of corruption would have been less had the UN not made an egregious error at the inception. For 5 years from 1990 Saddam obstinately refused to let the UN help feed Iraq’s children with this program hoping that the misery would drive the UN into lifting the sanctions."

Posted by: Terry at March 20, 2006 06:46 PM

Little known fact (outside the MOB)#1: Swiftee is a member of IEEE..also the ISA.

Little known fact #2:

I keep my pocket protector filled with interesting little bits of lawyer trivia. For instance, number of google hits for "scumbag lawyer":

http://www.google">http://www.google">http://www.google (dot) com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=scumbag+lawyer+&btnG=Search

Results 1 - 10 of about 196,000 for scumbag lawyer .

Time to find 196 thousand references to "scumbag lawyers":

(0.41 seconds)

Sweet!


Number of google hits for "scumbag engineer":

http://www.google(dot)com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22scumbag+engineer%22&btnG=Search

Your search - "scumbag engineer" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try searching "scumbag lawyer"

Alright, I added that last suggestion, but you get the picture..right assclown? Right?

Isn't science fun? Heh.

Posted by: swiftee at March 20, 2006 08:38 PM

Just an FYI - Belzer did serve a short time in the Army in his early years. He didn't like it and tried to get out, but he did serve.

Posted by: DiscordianStooge at March 21, 2006 06:31 AM

Fulcrum asked:
So the US is to be credited with saving those children that were dying b/c of the sanctions we imposed and oversaw?

No, So the US is to be credited with saving those children that were dying b/c of the sanctions THE UN imposed and oversaw?

A minr point? I don't think so.

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