Sullivan's Soft War

Sullivan doesn't get the war. He has illusions that this war can be fought inoffensively.

Sullivan has great empathy for Ali the Syrian who MP Granger got rough with at Abu Ghraib. I don't.

Ali the Syrian went to Iraq on a jihadist mission to kill Americans, Brits, Kurds and any Iraqis interested in helping create a democratic Iraq. He shouldn't be Mirandized and the Geneva Conventions don't apply to him-- if Sullivan doesn't get that by now, he wants us to fight a war we can't win.

Comments

[rock city]

Seems to me we tortured the fuck out of them but we're still losing. And by the way, you don't think we can win either.

Perhaps you recall this beauty:

[I actually do believe that the ME is pretty much unsavable. So don't assume that I think the people of Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi can self govern. I don't. As time goes by, I think they deserve a Saddam.]

Your President, when the captured US soldiers were paraded on Al Jazeera during the start of the war, made a statement to the effect: "they should treat our soldiers like we treat theirs..." and then he said the geneva conventions should apply.

Suddenly they shouldn't? Or should the united states simply decide when other countries should adhere to them but disregard them at their own fancy? Like just about every other international agreement.

Remember, quite a few of the Iraqis tortured were not even soldiers or terrorists, they were men picked up off the street for questioning.

The worst part is, it reinforced to the Arabs that the United States is malevolent. It no doubt contributed to the growth of the insurgency.

You may get a kick out of Syrian Ali getting hung, hard-ass, but your precious war is now all but lost.

[Cdash]

I remain unconvinced of the potential for pluralism and responsible self governance in the ME, but I get that fellas like Ali the Syrian are the reasons why the prospects are so dim in the ME.

What must be understood is that the autocrats of the region (Especially Mr. Assad of Syria-- who Mr. Kerry had tea with in Damascus recently) sent their bad boys to Iraq to cause trouble.

It's hard to build something in a region where so many young men from other failed, neighboring states have been exhorted by their crazy Imams to go on jihad.

We build and build and they kick down our sand castles-- leaving Iraqis of good will and us totally demoralized. The only recourse we have is to find the Baathist holdouts and jihadis on holiday and kill them or incarcerate them. And during their incarceration it is proper that we bring terror upon them. It's not neat. It's not pleasant, but its the war we have and we must win it.

The ME is a region of playa haters. We have Syrians and some local thugs who have no stake in a free Iraq. They don't want Iraq to be stable or pluralistic or livable. They are nihilists-- you shouldn't cheer their daily victories. If you want to surrender to them, it'll be a clear victory for extremist Islam.

Sullivan has joined the war against the war. It is a poisonous thing he's done. He's clenching his power glutes and posting to his increasingly useless site from his pad in Provincetown while serious people are out fighting a war. A war he says he believes in. His decision to out-carp the permanent war carpers is most unfortunate. In World War II, there were a lot of people who thought Patton should have been sacked. We know that that would have been a disaster. I suspect much of what the carpers want us to do now is just as mission-damaging.

[rock city]

[They are nihilists-- you shouldn't cheer their daily victories. If you want to surrender to them, it'll be a clear victory for extremist Islam.]

Cheer their daily victories? Give me a break. You honestly think that of me?

Please.

[Cdash]

Here's what I think...

I think the Left wants Bush to get his in Iraq. I think they hate Rummy, Bush and the neocons so much that American prestige, Iraqi aspirations and our troops are collateral damage to that hate.

[rock city]

I think some do. But it's such a tired tactic to throw that out in this context. Nowhere have I ever cheered Iraqi insurgent victories. You've been reading my blog and we've been debating long enough for you to know that much. So it's just weak. I really don't know what you're thinking when you do it.

[MartiniPundit]

It's been pretty clear to me for a while that Andrew Sullivan has jumped the shark. At one time, he was a daily must read for me, but now he's not even on my blogroll. He became a one-issue blogger who refused to acknowledge that he had become a one-issue blogger. It colored everything he wrote, and suddenly he had gone from a perceptive, objective commentator to someone who always had a hidden agenda. Shame really, but nothing the man says can be taken seriously anymore. And others seem to be noticing as well since his standing in the TTLB Ecosystem is way down.

[Cdash]

I'm not suprised that Sully is becoming less and less of an uberblogger with evey post. I suspect his problem is that he is Kerry-like. On Real Time With Bill Maher he scolded the Lefties on Bill's panel and told them they deserved to lose the election. Now he just had a post saying that the American people lost on election day-- that had it gone the other way-- a Kerry win-- it would have been a victory for accountability and such. He needs to make up his mind. And his fixation with his sexuality and gay Left issues is getting tedious.

[rock city]

[He became a one-issue blogger who refused to acknowledge that he had become a one-issue blogger. It colored everything he wrote, and suddenly he had gone from a perceptive, objective commentator to someone who always had a hidden agenda.]

That's ridiculous. Objective? OMG! His agenda has never been hidden. He's always been straightforward about his stance on gay marriage. He wrote a book about for Christsake. That it dominates his blog, well, it should, shouldn't it? He's an activist. As the issue becomes more prominent in the national discourse, so, naturally, has his commentary. It's too bad you don't like it, but certainly not a fault to be fixed. Perhaps your issue with him is simply that you don't agree with him or are uncomfortable with his criticisms of Bush. That's not jumping the shark, that's facing reality. He should be critical, and so should you.

I'm not at all surprised by either of your responses to him, though. To a strict partisan he would appear "gay left", or hypocritical or whatever. He's never, however, contradicted his support for the war or his criticisms of partisan liberals.

[On Real Time With Bill Maher he scolded the Lefties on Bill's panel and told them they deserved to lose the election. Now he just had a post saying that the American people lost on election day-- that had it gone the other way-- a Kerry win-- it would have been a victory for accountability and such.]

A Kerry win would have been a victory for accountability under Bush's own definition. That point seemed clear to me in the post. I didn't see the Bill Maher, but based on what I know of Andrew, he was probably criticizing liberal lefties for such a weak campaign, for not being more anti Islamist, etc. He's never changed that opinion. That hardly contradicts his view that Bush fucked up the war in Iraq, which, incidentally, isn't just his view. It's also the view of a number of other people on the right who supported the invasion. Though, of course, it's certainly not the view of the it's-never-Bush's-fault-only-the-left's-fault-ever cabal of right wing bloggers.

[Cdash]

"That's ridiculous. Objective? OMG! His agenda has never been hidden. He's always been straightforward about his stance on gay marriage. He wrote a book about for Christsake. That it dominates his blog, well, it should, shouldn't it? He's an activist. As the issue becomes more prominent in the national discourse, so, naturally, has his commentary. It's too bad you don't like it, but certainly not a fault to be fixed."

I don't think anybody minds that Sullivan is a passionate advocate for gay marriage. I think Sullivan's tendency to allow his passion for gay marriage to crowd out all of his other thoughts makes him a bore.

"Perhaps your issue with him is simply that you don't agree with him or are uncomfortable with his criticisms of Bush. That's not jumping the shark, that's facing reality. He should be critical, and so should you."

The problem with Sullivan's criticisms of Bush is that all of them seem to emanate from his dissatisfaction with Bush's stance on gay marriage. It's easy to imagine
Sullivan not saying a cross word about Bush if Bush was for homosexual marriage. It really comes down to Sully's
evaporating credibility.

"I'm not at all surprised by either of your responses to him, though. To a strict partisan he would appear "gay left", or hypocritical or whatever. He's never, however, contradicted his support for the war or his criticisms of partisan liberals."

I think he's involved himself in the tangential
obssessions of the antiwar Left. As far as I'm concerned, Abu Ghraib was not systemic and the hyping of it is poison to our mission over there-- I think it costs American lives. Sullivan's decision to sign on to the Left's anti-Bush and antiwar jihads shows that he is
unfaithful to the American mission in Iraq.

"A Kerry win would have been a victory for accountability under Bush's own definition. That point seemed clear to me in the post."

No, that's not at all what that meant. Bush's position was that the he stood before the people and they said soldier on. They had looked at his record and rewarded him with 4 more years. We gave Bush a passing grade-- Sullivan, it seems to me, is arguing that America lost because they said Bush deserved to be reelected. Bush stood before the electorate and won-- deal with it.

"I didn't see the Bill Maher, but based on what I know of Andrew, he was probably criticizing liberal lefties for such a weak campaign, for not being more anti Islamist, etc. He's never changed that opinion. That hardly contradicts his view that Bush fucked up the war in Iraq, which, incidentally, isn't just his view. It's also the view of a number of other people on the right who supported the invasion. Though, of course, it's certainly not the view of the it's-never-Bush's-fault-only-the-left's-fault-ever cabal of right wing bloggers."

Sullivan cannot say that the Democrats should have lost (because they are out to lunch on issues of war and peace) and then say that those same clueless Democrats should have beat Bush. Face it, that's a total contradiction.