Newsweek: The Empire’s New Clothes (US public - "return to common sense")

[Pirate Smile]

The Empire’s New Clothes
The cost of the war in Iraq is almost beyond imagining. But as it comes into focus, it’s no wonder that the public is turning against it.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Updated: 12:33 p.m. ET June 25, 2005
June 24 - So the polls show most Americans don’t “think it was worth going to war in Iraq.” An even bigger majority, almost six in 10, are dissatisfied with the Global War on Terror or, as the inside-the-Beltway types call it, the GWOT. This may seem a little contrary, even ungrateful, given that the same Americans are increasingly confident they won’t have to face another terrorist attack like 9/11 anytime real soon. (Only 4 percent thought one might happen in the next few weeks.) Something seems to be keeping the terrorists at bay. President George W. Bush says it’s the war in Iraq. So is the public just churlish? Or stupid? I don’t think so. What we’re seeing with these recent polls, in fact, is a return to common sense.

The more that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims he’s not worried about public opinion, the more obvious it is that he is. During hours of grilling by suddenly emboldened congressional skeptics yesterday, he claimed, lamely, that popular support would swing back behind the Iraq war because Americans have “a good center of gravity.” But he’s smart enough to know that is precisely why they’re growing immune to the administration’s spin.

A clear head and a calculator will tell you very quickly that the costs of this conflict in Iraq are on a scale far beyond whatever benefits it was supposed to bring. If Saddam had been behind 9/11, OK. But he wasn’t. If he’d really posed a clear and present danger to the United States with weapons of mass destruction, then the invasion would have been justifiable. But he didn’t, and it wasn’t. Bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people is a laudable goal, but not one for which the administration made any worthwhile preparations—which is why the occupation has been so ugly, bloody and costly. Tabloids may amuse their readers with snapshots of Saddam in his skivvies, but it’s the Bush administration’s threadbare rationales for postmodern imperialism that have been exposed.

-snip-
Wait a minute. Who disagreed about Saddam? Do you know anybody anywhere, who said, “Hey, the Butcher of Baghdad is a stand-up guy, let’s keep him around”? The problem was always what or who might come after. What skeptics said was, “Occupying Iraq is a dangerous idea because 1) it will cost an enormous amount of blood and money, 2) it’s an open-ended commitment that has no defining moment of victory or scenario for departure and 3) zealous terrorists will thrive there under foreign occupation, then spread anti-American violence far and wide.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8347538/site/newsweek/

[KoKo]

1. And in the last paragraph Dickey Alerts us for another Mass "Terra" Attack

I don't know whether he's "pre-empting" or "warning." :shrug:

So the Bush administration will continue waving the flag, spinning the facts, playing with images of hope and fear as it tries to distract the public from the responsibility that Washington bears for what is happening. But there has been so much of that; fewer and fewer people are convinced anymore. At the end of the day, there’s probably only one thing that can unite this country behind the Iraq war again, and that would be a return to fear: a new, massive attack on the United States.

Have the terrorists themselves thought of that? Are they holding back just now, biding their time, and using the Iraqi training ground to hone their skills at slaughter? Are the terrorists fighting in Iraq precisely because they’re getting ready to face us here at home? We’ll look at those questions next week.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Why would nuking a major American city make Iraq War okay?

Is Bush going to claim that Iraqi insurgents, who obviously have their hands full fighting the foreign occupiers, had a hand in nuking or using WMD in an American city? Only the Jesuslanders would believe such nonsense (if one can believe that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, one can believe anything)!

Bush could claim that Iran was responsible, but he won't have the troops to do anything about it. The only option open to Bush, and one that we all know he will use, is to nuke several countries on his list of "evildoers" regardless of a lack of evidence linking them to a nuke attack on US. So the deaths of thousands of innocents in an America city will be avenged by the deaths of millions of innocents elsewhere. And the carnage and the brutality will go on, but no one can ever claim that Bush is not Hitler, for Bush would have slaughtered more people than Hitler ever dreamed about.

[deacon2]

3. The reference to another massive attack is chilling

It echoes Wolfowitz and the "Pearl Harbor" statement and makes too much sense at this apex in neo-con history. Their ship is about to sink rapidly if the MSM is any indication and we know people in a panic reach for the fast and the familiar. The Red Staters were easily led to conflate 9/11 and Hussein. It is reasonable to assume they would do the same - and then some - after a dirty bomb attack. The level of visceral fear and mindless vengeance directly afterward would shock even Jerry Springer. If this horror should come to pass, we would all do well to hide in our homes for weeks afterward. Not in fear of further attacks, but in fear of our countrymen who will be rampaging through the streets in flag adorned SUVs shooting at anyone who looks "foreign" in a Mad Maxian orgy of blood and gore. Just writing this gives me the willies. It is all so plausible and "sensible" in an Alice Through the Looking Glass sort of way.

[mom cat]

4. The instant I heard about the attack on the Twin Towers, I blurted out

Bush is behind this. Now 60% of the people in New York City agree as do the best 9/11 scholars that the attacks were not what they seemed at the time. If the administration is at all logical, they will wait for the next attack until closer to the 06 elections. However, if the plunging polls scare them enough, anything could happen. I live in a major city in a blue state, so this does worry me, but not enough to move to a red state.

[yurbud]

6. it won't be a dirty bomb and it won't just be foreigners

They've got to top 9/11 or people won't care or go along with the draft.

Also, it will be a good time to take out domestic opposition.

When Hitler took power, there was still a period that kept the form of democracy before the Reichstag fire.

Our fire is coming in two parts, one for Iraq, and a bigger one for Iran.

I just hope this time, enough people realize who really did it.

Hillbilly Hitler art:



Blog:


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[Tamyrlin79]

8. uhh... dude. chill.

Those SUV people will settle down once you get your own gun a fire back and ruin their SUV's windows and paint job.

[ailsagirl]

5. So what's the deal with Newsweek? I thought they were just

another fake news magazine that propagates bushco's BS.

To be honest, I haven't even looked at it or Time or
US News and World Report since before the 2004 "election,"
but I assumed they all spout the same crap.

Has something changed within Newsweek?

:shrug:

[nostalgicaboutmyfutr]

7. Stem Cells...

Could it be that they are using stem cells to grow a spine?