Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (DailyKos) gained a large measure of unflattering notoriety last spring for his “screw them” comments on the death of U.S. citizens in Fallujah. To my mind the headline at DailyKos on today’s tragedy ranks right up there in callousness as his previous infamous remark. What does Zuniga have to say about the tragic mortar attack in Mosul?
Bush destroys another 22 families.
Much more worthy of you time is Jeremy Redmon’s onsite reporting. Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, was at Forward Operating Base Marez with Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion. He witnessed and reported on devistation in the blood-soaked mess hall. It’s raw and full of the emotion.
Update: I meant to mention this OpinionJournal piece about who we’re actually fighting.
Washington must seem like a very strange place from the vantage point of Baghdad. While the world’s so-called power capital debates whether Donald Rumsfeld has been solicitous enough of U.S. Senators, on the front lines of the war on terror three Iraqi election workers are dragged from their car in Baghdad and murdered in front of the world’s cameras.
Do we need any clearer picture of the stakes, and the nature of our enemy, in Iraq than the photo of those assassinations that appeared on yesterday’s front pages? The dead Iraqis were targeted precisely because they are trying to build a new, democratic Iraq. Their killers can’t abide a free election, or a newly legitimate Iraqi government, because they know it will make it less likely that they can ever return to power. The car bombs targeting Shiite Muslims in Karbala and Najaf are sending the same brutal message.
These events ought to put to rest the canard that what we are facing in Iraq is some kind of “nationalist” uprising opposed to U.S. occupation. The genuine Iraqi patriots are those risking their lives to rebuild their country and prepare for elections. They are being threatened, and murdered, by members and allies of the old regime who want to restore Sunni Baathist political domination. Or to put it more bluntly, we haven’t yet defeated Saddam Hussein’s regime.
[More] Though it addressed the cold-blooded assassination of Iraqi election workers over the weekend, their point applies equally to today’s tragedy.
Your title should be “DailyKos pisses on 22 people’s graves. Tells mourning families ‘Screw You, I’m using your dead loved ones as political fodder'”.
I hardly think his commentary today is anywhere near the “screw em’ ” comment.
KOS is beneath worms. He and his site (those ‘regulars’ that are supposedly responsible for attempting to tip the Weblog Awards, while KOS got a pass because he didn’t directly author the information, despite the fact that he didn’t remove the information from his site and is responsible for publishing the information, in my perspective, making KOS responsible for the information) are one of those liberal meeting places that foment and malign and really do their best to reaffirm their own delusions to a terribly destructive extent.
Yes, the article is awful. It’s beneath awful, it’s hideous, cowardly, it’s…beneath awful…the beauty of our free society is that we have people like KOS who take up air and webspace and the energy and patience of everyone else, and give many of us causes and persons about whom to pray. KOS needs salvation, he really needs healing.
It just goes to show the callousness of Kos and his readers. Eager to blame the Bush administration for anything and everything. While other sites are claiming this as the tradgedy it is, his post and readers almost appear to take joy in pinning this on Bush.
I don’t know how anyone can read, much less agree, with anything KOS writes. I won’t even go on his site because I know it would infuriate me.
Cindy
My thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers and their families.
Of course, Koz will probably complain that Rumsfeld isn’t doing enough to armor the mess halls and that delays caused by Halliburton were to blame for the deaths. /knowing that my sarcasm will be translated into righteous postings by Koz/DU types as factual assessments of the situation.
Who will be the last to die for Bush’s mistakes and his administration’s incompetence?
If we’re taking votes, I’ve got a nomination I’d like to make ***cough***Kos***cough***
Nonsense; this time isn’t nearly as bad as that “screw ’em” low.
At least Kos is acknowledging that something tragic happened.
Thats why I stopped going to his site. He obviously hates Americans. Im sure he thinks Rathergate was all a big distraction from the truth as well. I will let you fill me in on his “hate speech”.
Rod Stanton
Cerritos
Great point Rod, because he obviously hates Americans. Way to be rational about the topic.
I think it’s just as appropriate to blame this on liberals.
The insurgents know they can’t beat America militarily; that’s a lost cause. The whole point of these attacks is to discourage American public opinion. Thanks to liberal cowardice in Somalia and Vietnam, they believe if they kill enough of our soldiers, the public will demand we surrender and retreat back home.
I remember the excitment among the left with the prospect of kia reaching 1000, either during the convention, or on 9/11. So, if the perception is that Koz and company get a stiffie everytime an American soldier is killed, it’s their problem, not ours. Of course, if they even see it as a problem.
Is anyone else tired of these people blaming Bush for everything that goes wrong in the Middle East, Iraq, Afganistan, US, etc? When are they going to wise up and start laying blame where it belongs? On the Islamofacist Radicals??!! It’s not as if Bush just woke up one morning and decided, “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to be a wartime president?”
I think people would be far less aggresive in blaming Bush for all of the problems caused from these wars if he would at least admit that his own poor planning and lack of foresight has something to do with it. When he continually states that he has done absolutely nothing wrong, people want to point out all the problems. If he would admit mistakes were made, people would be far more willing to let things go.
if he would at least admit that his own poor planning and lack of foresight has something to do with it
Bill K: I take issue with your statement. War is hell and it always has been. It is not a “warm and fuzzy” affair and I cannot even imagine what posture it would reveal for the Pres. to go on television and “admit” mistakes. What the hell good would that do? Make you feel warm and fuzzy. We as a public should stop asking the president to take a kindler and gentler stance. We all know how much he cares and it’s a darned lot. We don’t need a kissy-huggy war. We need to kick butt and don’t look back. There has never been a war where mistakes were not made. For crying out loud. Go read a little history. Were people demanding that FDR apologize? You gotta think this through.
Bill K: Everybody has 20/20 hindsight.
Douglas Kern says it better than I ever could.
Ahh isn’t it nice and cosy, with all the like-minded people on the same blog, criticising others who have different views to your own.
GET OUT OF IRAQ…….THERE WERE NO WMDs.
Fine, BillK. War is bad. Without war, as bad as it is, just think if the alternative history timelines that would exist in our world.
It’s not a war response that is questionable, but the causes that make that level of assertion necessary. Think about it: KOS’ perspective and yours, too, I regret to write here, indicate either a disconnect from lucidity or a clear method to undermine those who are trying with their very lives to provide you with time to write at your leisure on your computer in your own home and/or office. Some things are necessary — bad, yes, as is military force — but still necessary.
And, about “bad planning” theories, please share with us how and when the Bush Administration and the American people ever had a period of planning for the war in Iraq, Afghanistan…seems like Clinton did a horrible job of lulling a lot of people into a false sense of security in America while doing nothing, or close to that, of dealing with known threats, and, certainly reducing American defenses while in that process.
Bush is elected, OBL strikes, America responded. When, again, was that “planning” opportunity for that war response? Oh, yeah, while Bill Clinton was the President.
So -S-….You summed it up pretty well at the end of your post……..So no WMDs, which was the reason your government said why it needed to go into Iraq. It was out of pure revenge for 9/11, as you have already stated….THIS WAS AN ILLEAGAL WAR, BASED ON WMDs, AND AS -S- HAS ALREADY POINTED OUT “OBL STRIKES, AMERICA RESPONDED” Thankyou.
“. . .if he would at least admit . . .”
It’s funny how the left is always demanding “admissions” and “apologies.” It’s like a throwback to those show trials in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Block, and Red China. Just confess, Comrade, it doesn’t matter if it is true or not. If you don’t confess, we will shoot you. If you confess, you will feel better and help your country. We will still have to shoot you, of course. . .
Steadfastly denying any complicity in an absolute cluster f of a situation when you are ths sitting president is absolutely asinine. It is hard not to blame Bush for things when he seems to care not about the result, but about getting what he wants; damn the soldiers; damn the people.
I hardly think his commentary today is anywhere near the “screw em’ ” comment.
Of course you don’t Bill because you are a hopeless political hack.
PATHETIC
kev said: “So no WMDs, which was the reason your government said why it needed to go into Iraq.”
Amazing how the antiwar crowd has such tunnel vision.
The reasons we went to war
I never fail to be amazed by the intellectual dishonesty of the left.
Bill K,
An absolute cluster f? Hardly. The insurgents can’t hold an inch of ground and we’re holding elections in a month. Military, the resistance is nuisance-level. Yes people are dying, and that’s tragic on a personal level, but at a strategic level this is still one of the most successful wars in the history of the world.
If Bush admitted mistakes, that would NOT ease the pressure. That would just lead the press to repeatedly harp on them. Look at their obsession with Abu Ghraib, which, if compared to the reality of pretty much every prison in history, should have been a total non-story.
It is hard not to blame Bush for things . . .
Who are you trying to fool? The left will always find fault no matter what the man does. The only hard thing is finding credibilty in any thing the left says these days. I think you better read Paul’s article about people who cry wolf all the time.
Opinionated Vogen…..even your mate -S- says so, and he’s pro-war. Why was Charles Duelfer(CIA weapons inspector) sent to Iraq? Why did my prime minister Tony Blair tell parliment “that the reasons we had to go into Iraq, was because Saddam had WMD?” and they could be launched in 45minutes, he said. That was the reason our parliment said yes. They were fooled and so were we. Everyone knows the reason for going into Iraq, and it was pure REVENGE for 9/11. I do find that people who disagree with your views are vilified, why is this?
Kev, you left out the part where S says people with views like yours are not lucid and where she observes that others sacrifice their lives so you can sit on your ass in front of your computer. If you think the reason was revenge, so be it. I won’t argue with a delusional person. And, no, those who disagree with the views here do not get vilified. People are sick of the same old, kneejerk arguments that you and your kind are always spouting.
key,
If you’re going to talk about WMD, you have to talk about what we knew at the time and what the circumstances were.
Saddam had WMD in the past, had used them in the past, had kicked inspectors out, the sanctions regime was collapsing, and he continued to hinder the work of the inspectors who were only allowed in the country after US troops massed on Iraq’s border. And while stockpiles of WMD were not found, it’s possible they were moved to Syria, and even if they never existed we DID find a vast netowrk of labs ready to restart the programs as soon as sanctions were lifted.
So unless you’re going to argue Saddam did not have intent to produce WMD again (in which case you’re in a very lonely crowd), the war was justified on WMD grounds alone, never mind the numerous humanitarian, strategic, and moral grounds for bringing democracy to Iraq.
“Opinionated Vogen…..even your mate -S- says so, and he’s pro-war.”
I don’t see what part of -S-‘s post leads you to your conclusions, but that would be HIS opinion and not mine so your comment in this regard is moot. (I will ignore your guilt by association contention)
“Why was Charles Duelfer(CIA weapons inspector) sent to Iraq? Why did my prime minister Tony Blair tell parliment “that the reasons we had to go into Iraq, was because Saddam had WMD?” and they could be launched in 45minutes, he said.”
My response to you was the complete text of the Congressional Resolution that was passed by the U.S. to authorize the war in Iraq. It contained more than ONE reason. You can fixate on the WMD (which all of the west’s collective intelligence agencies supported) but it was not the ONLY reason.
Duelfer’s report did say that no stockpile of weapons were found, but that doesn’t prove Iraq had none prior to the war. Iraq had months to hide/move/bury any evidence. If you read the entire report you will also se he shows that Saddam never gave up his DESIRE to have them, and given the opportunity he would quickly reconstitute his programs.
“That was the reason our parliment said yes. They were fooled and so were we.”
I never spoke for the motivations of the U.K.
“Everyone knows the reason for going into Iraq, and it was pure REVENGE for 9/11. “
That is YOUR conclusion, not “everyone’s”, or have you asked everyone?
“I do find that people who disagree with your views are vilified, why is this?”
And once again we see the left cry victim. I read a LLL blog post the other week that compared the left to an abused spouse. Pointing out the lack of support in your arguments is not vilification. I welcome honest dialog with others.
I do find that people who disagree with your views are vilified, why is this?
Because when we merely ignore your vapid attempts to pick fights on other people’s blogs, you don’t take the hint.
Yes, I am the one crying wolf. Instead of looking at a situation that is obviously going way worse that it should be, you are spending your time lampooning a liberal blogger? Granted the autopen my be a superficial issue, but at least it has to do with, ya know, people’s lives. You are wasting time debating if some guy, who has nothing to do with the government, is out of line for making a post but refusing to think about if the president has made any mistakes.
Headlines if Kos were blogging then:
12/7/1941: Roosevelt destroys 2,388 families
6/25/1996: Clinton destroys 19 US families
10/12/2000: Clinton destroys 17 families
2003: Mayor Daley destroys 599 families (number of murders in Chicago that year)
If the above look stupid, well…
We thought about it. We disagree with you. And do you ever think why the left gets so excited every time an American soldier is killed?
You can think what you want about my views, but as a member of the “left” it is annoying for you to think I am excited about the death of an American.
We may disagree on certain subjects, but we are equally saddened by the loss of any American; in war or not.
Just because I think it was poor planning, ineffective diplomacy and failed leadership that got us here doesn’t mean I am okay with with the death of soldiers. I am just plainly stating that this sadness could have been avoided.
You disagree, fine, but don’t try to say you care more just because you think the death was part of a flawless war administered by a perfect leader.
So, Kos’s “Screw ’em” never happened? All the drooling by the left when they thought they would have 1000 coffins to parade around the RNC convention never happened? All the wishing by the left for 1000 dead by 9/11 never happened? I asked you what you thought about it. You didn’t answer the question. You rather debate the significance of automatic pens. And if not gloating about dead soldiers for propaganda purposes is caring more, yeah, I care more.
So, by that logic if Bush was just randomly shooting people in the head on the streets of Washington, DC it would be imprudent for me to point out the mistake? As I would be using the deaths of the innocents to make a point that Bush was doing the wrong thing?
It doesn’t lessen the sadness of the death or the heroicness of the soldier to question the person that put them in harms way. In fact, if you believe that they were put in harms way needlessly, one could say you are far less sympathetic and caring if you DON’T question.
Once again, you refuse to answer the question.
kev: you and you’re bizare misperceptions are quite welcome.
However, war and use of American military, American defense actions, aren’t so anally retentive as you attempt to conclude in that anally retentive strain of mislogic you just wrote there, on this thread.
O/UBL *IS* a weapon of mass destruction. The threat existed as per intelligence at that time that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had possession of WMD –AND– that there was a terrorist network between O/UBL and Saddam Hussein/Iraq.
But, if you want to wander around the internet and try to push together random statements that are targeted to and about COMPLEX ISSUES into an anally retentive, compulsively reorganized neat and tidy tiny world of your quite liberal perspectives, go ahead. No one is stopping you other than I have to write here that what you attempted to pigeon hole as my earlier statements meaning, indicates one of the saddest absences of intelligence and reasoning I think I’ve yet to ever read anywhere.
Yes, O/UBL attacked the United States and America responded. But responded upon A NETWORK OF TERRORISM and not upon one single target in one single location in one single cave using one single megaphone…but UPON A COMPLEX INTELLIGENCE SITUATION, among which was a pinnacle of aggressive action taken by terrorists funded by other terrorists and further up the chain of terrorism…all the way to terrorists heading those terrorist chains and that was Saddam Hussein and O/UBL and minions.
PART of that network/chain of terrorism was Saddam Hussein and a lot of money finding it’s way to him and his and funding a lot of terrorism and especially a dozen or so crazed people who actually flew the planes on 09/11. But, if you think that that was the beginning and end of the events, you’re very mistaken.
And, if ever there was a WMD, 09/11 was it. Enough of WMD to meet the standard of massive offense and lives lost for anyone, except, of course, impaired liberals such as yourself. Honestly, is that just your attempt to be entertaining, or, is America among your targets?
Something about your snarly “your country” remark sets me to thinking that you really, really have resentments about the U.S. If not oppose it, me, the concept of democracy, free enterprise.
The U.S. used defensive measures to respond to the 09/11 attacks and should have, and began the military process that Clinton refused to address and that was that O/UBL and Saddam Hussein were two terrorists fronting terrorist networks, among others. You have to start somewhere. AND, last thing here, the WMD issue, there have been found more than enough materials by this date in Iraq alone to suffice as to defining the presence of WMD in Iraq while under Saddam Hussein. Among other places. Again, I urge you to think of how that term is identified (“WMD”) and then make a list as to what events do and would meet that identification. 09/11 qualifies to me as a WMD, among other things.
If you’re really interested, there’s information outside the liberal media that provides a lot of specifics about WMD, presence of materials and where, since identified, also suspected.
kev:
I am a female, not a male and am not “pro war,” but I also recognize the need to respond with military, defense actions when situations require that defense.
Best defense is a good offense, and so it is. Unfortunately, most purely socialized countries, such as I am sure you reside in based upon your limited perspective written on this thread, have raised you to promote a system based upon reliance on the system, a distrust of individual assertion, such that you seem quite emotionally affected toward the negative by the very idea that some other country — the United States — at the behest of a President, would take aggressive actions to secure a situation that was/is threatening to our nation.
Other countries have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a false sense of social provisions and welfare because the U.S. has fronted the defense measures and needs of most. Perhaps gratitude would be in order, instead of how you respond here.
Socialized governments depend upon the U.S. for the majority of defense and leadership. Look at the situations in the Middle East, parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, South America even, and think about those situations in which the U.S. did not intervene, and look at the consequences.
I can’t figure out what your objective is, however. You assume mistakenly that anyone who engages in or defends a use of military is someone who “loves war” or thereabouts, when, in fact, it’s usually quite the opposite. However, citizens in a democracy have a responsibility to defend the country. It’s a case of honor and service and civic obligation. Doesn’t mean that citizens who respond to those calls are lovers of war, but that they respond by doing the objectionable, because of a response to a call to service.
I wonder what would have happened to the U.K., the Netherlands, Europe, had not us Americans come to the rescue not so long ago, and even now. Think about it.
BillK: offer a hypothetical that is realistic, rather than one that is insane and insanely motivated as you have here, and maybe someone from among us conservatives can and will respond.
But, writing what you just hypothesized there only makes you appear to be a lunatic.
Other countries have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a false sense of social provisions and welfare because the U.S. . . .
They spend all their money on socialized medicine and very little on R&D. Instead, they expect us to do it for them. It is a bit insulting when Michael J. Fox, lobbys our congress for medical research funding instead of his own.
I wasn’t trying to offer up a realistic situation. I was using hyperbole in an analogy to simplify the point I was trying to make.
If you need to focus on the analogy instead of the point, then so be it.
Bill K,
No war is flawless, but if you predicted on 9/12/01 that we’d be in the position we are today, with the Taliban overthrown in “the graveyard of empires” Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein not just overthrown but on trial, and elections being held in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and Palestine), Libya giving up its WMD, with no terrorist attacks on the U.S., I think you’d have been called a wild optimist to say this could have been done at all, let alone at a cost of less than 2000 lives. Remember, that’s still quite a lot fewer than we lost on one day in 2001. I have yet to hear any serious alternative plan for ending terrorism other than democratizing the Mideast.
Incidents like this are tragic, but they shouldn’t overshadow the tremendous successes we’ve had.
Thanks, TallDave!
Hee hee – you can always tell when there’s a new leftie on the blog: (1) they use generalities and attack the wrong target, (2) they can’t tell the gender of long-time commenters we’ve all come to know and appreciate, and (3) they don’t know they’ll be demolished with (a) telephone books with lots of prepositions, (b) TallDave’s laser logic based on facts, and (c) Sean’s humor!
“You lookin’ for trouble, you came to the right place” !
ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY.
In recent months, moderate Muslims have begun to challenge W.B Yeat’s lament that “the best lack all conviction” by calling on influential clerics who have so far reacted equivocally to Islamic terrorism to condemn it out of hand; and by noting that a 7th-century text, having survived so long, deserves better than a 7th-century interpretation. At the same time, non-Muslims across Western Europe have abandoned the silence about Islamic fundamentalism once required by political correctness. Plain speaking to denouce bigotry and intolerance is never wrong. But Europe must beware those, like the Dutch European Commissioner, Fritze Bolkestein, who offer sweeping judgments on Islam on the basis of isolated crimes. On such spurious grounds, Mr Bolkestein and others seek to delay indefinitely Turkey’s accession to the EU, yet democracy and Islam already co-exsist, not only throughout Europe and in Turkey herself, but also in parts of India, Indonesia and elsewhere.
Democracy’s failure to take root in key Arab Muslim countries is a sign not of incompatibility but of work still to be done and the durability of dictatorships. Europe should seize the Turkish opportunity to show the world the true depth of its tolerance – and it should ask itself tough questions about why Washington rather than Brussels conceived of last months conference in Rabat.
Just thought I’d share with you a snippet of my Xmas card I got sent from Laura Bush…..”Hi Kev, ever since we saw that poor man in Ukraine, George has been completely off his food. At last we have found a food taster. He is a whale of a man who just loves to eat, and frankly he could probably do with a little bit of dioxin in the soup. Michael Moore starts next week.
For those of you who wondered, Uncle Dick and Uncle Rummy are in fine form. Dick still tucks us into bed most nights with stories of impending nuclear annihilation and the urgent need for pre-emptive strikes. Rummy is still working hard on transformation over at the Pentagon, which seems to involve bolting missing pieces on to Humvees before they go off to battle.
Next year promises to bring new faces and new places. We have got some big plans that we can’t talk too much about right now, but we can say that they involve travel to intresting spots. Think Iran and North Korea!
Well, must run. Karl’s got another load of wealthy friends for us to meet before the big party next month.
Wishing you a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a democratic new year.”
Solid: We don’t check homework.
Kev: Don’t quit your day job.
Why would ANYONE read Kos’s site? The man is a moron. Leave him out of this blog, too.
Cindy
BillK: your hypothetical description was lunacy and was your point. As in, you writing your quite awful hypothetical situation, that you come upon the United States President ‘shooting’ people and that that would empower you and yours to be righteous in protesting…
Was there any point in that hypothetical that was NOT intended to be either or both the lunatic statement of liberalism by a liberal for the mere effort to project lunacy onto discourse?
Not being one who follows along with paranoid delusions too eagerly, I’d say that you were quite aware that your lunatic “concept” there was inflammatory to nearly everyone else and reinforcing to liberal paranoia and the “I Hate Bush” center of today’s liberalism. Such that, your point was made, and your point was lunacy, made with a lunatic hypothetical.
Focus on the hypothetical instead of the point? Oh, yeah, as if that adds some sense icing to the lunacy.
Errr, I just read the *last few comments* on the thread by *the visitors from KOS and other “progressive” rehabs* and, umm, hey, MERRY CHRISTMAS. Go share on KOS that I wrote MERRY CHRISTMAS to ya’all.
I can’t believe people are trying to now include Christmas CARDS in their reaming of the Holy Holiday. Very sad, verry, very sad to read.