Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal neocon's Journal: By popular demand, Neocon looks back 51

Journal by neocon
NeMon'ess asks:

It's been two years. Last I remember you were quite a Bush defender. Any political stuff you'd care to talk about that didn't turn out quite like you expected?

Without limiting my comments to Mr. Bush's performance, which I'm generally quite happy with (certainly more than enough that I voted for him again in 2004), let me comment on what has pleased and displeased me in the last year

Things that have pleased me, from Mr. Bush and elsewhere:

  • Great progress in Iraq -- the last time I posted in this journal, the anti-war camp here on /. was still smarting from the collapse of their wild predictions that the US drive on Baghdad would collapse, and we would go home with our national tail between our legs. It didn't take long for the left to regroup, of course (that one needs a very short memory to follow the left's general thread of logic on this and other wars is something I've commented on before, of course). Since then, the left has gravely predicted certain doom in Iraq because:
    • We would never hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi government -- we did, of course, even doing so early
    • Iraqis would never vote on an interim government, because Muslims `don't want democracy'. -- needless to say, they turned out in massive numbers
    • Iraqis would never approve a constitution, because there are two many factions involved -- Iraq's constitution, calling for coalition government, free elections, and protection of fundamental human rights was, of course, overwhelmingly approved by the Iraqi people
    • The insurgency would only grow stronger, since Iraqis don't want to be free -- this always seemed laughable, but as the insurgents grow more and more desperate, and more and more lash out at exactly the people the left claims support them, this one looks worse by the day
    • Iraqis don't support the new government, and won't fight to protect it -- as Iraqi units increasingly take the lead in all levels of Iraqi security operations, from anti-insurgency raids down to every-day policing, this one seems to have died an early death.

    These days, as a duly elected non-interim government of a free and democratic Iraq prepares to take office, as Saddam Hussein sits in the dock for his crimes against his own people, and as US troops begin to draw down, I'm prouder of the US war in Iraq than ever before.

  • A rising tide of democracy in the Arab world -- with Syrian troops having high-tailed it out of Lebanon in response to popular demand, and with popular movements from Morocco to Iran looking at the success of democratic elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and demanding the same for themselves, the old lefty trope that ``Arabs(/Muslims) don't want democracy'' is looking deader than a doornail right now, revealed for the racist drivel that it always was
  • Two great nominations to the Supreme Court -- we'll just forget about Harriet Miers, m'kay?
  • Bush steps up to the plate -- for a long, painful year after the last election, even as events in Iraq went from victory to victory, and a series of quiet victories at home and abroad boosted US progress in the War on Terror, the Bush administration seemed surprisingly reluctant to defend itself against a stream of lefty critiques. This `strategy', which led to an empty center stage quickly being occupied by a string of absurdly comic figures (Valerie Plame anyone? Cindy Sheehan?) finally came to an end this past fall, with a quintet of remarkably direct and well-argued foreign policy addresses by the President and others in the administration. That many of the more ridiculous figures of the `summer of silence' melted away promptly (when was the last time you heard from Cindy Sheehan or Jack Murtha, if you don't read lefty fever swamp sites like Kos?), and Bush's ratings promptly recovered when he rejoined the debate confirms my basic idea that Bush's ratings drop in Summer '05 was much more of an own-goal than any harm done by the opposition.

Things that have displeased me, from Mr. Bush and elsewhere:

  • Social what reform? -- perhaps the most painful result of the `summer of silence' from the Bush administration was the collapse of Social Security reform, the scaling back of Tax Reform, and the general floundering of the `Bush agenda' -- the agenda I voted for in 2000 and 2004. It's time to get back in the fight, but this hasn't happened yet.
  • Harriet who? -- as I said, let's just forget that any names were mentioned between Roberts and Alito, m'kay?
  • Border? We don't need no steeenkin' border! -- yes, it's a paraphrase of a misquote, which is mildly annoying. The fact that a nation of our size is unwilling to maintain even a basic level of immigration enforcement is worse than annoying, and what's more, a slap in the face of millions of legal immigrants who have come here, played by the rules, and worked hard, only to see people who shortcut the system or bypass it entirely cash in again and again.

Things which don't really show up on my radar:

  • Katrina -- let's be honest. Anyone who thought FEMA, a tiny federal agency whose only real job or authority is to hand people checks was going to be much help here was already playing with only half a deck. In any case, contrasting New Orleans (particularly now that most of the Urban Legends about `hundreds of deaths at the SuperDome' and so on have cleared) with the neighboring areas in Mississippi, one state over, shows what a difference state and local government make.
  • `Domestic spying' -- trying to frame one President for activities which have been repeatedly upheld by the courts, and have been a vital anti-terrorism tool of the last half-dozen administrations from both parties is just silliness, a manufactured scandal for a slow news day -- and poll after poll shows that the American people agree.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

By popular demand, Neocon looks back More

By popular demand, Neocon looks back

Comments Filter:
  • I see that the slashbots have already sic'ed the mods on ya. :-P

    So where ya been?
    • `Around'. :-)

      Moved. Switched jobs. Had another child (our fourth). It's been a while since I had much free time, but I have a little more at the moment, and thought I'd see how y'all had fared in my absence. ;-)

      Yup -- the mods seem up to be up to their old tricks. Oddly, my absence seems to have been good for my karma (sitting back and letting M2 do it's work seems to have that effect, for whatever its worth), so I can afford to let them bluster for a while. :-)

      It's good to be back!

  • Some other thing slipped by your radar, like the cost of the war, the duration, torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, the deficit spending while the tax cuts for the wealthy continue, the number of American soldiers dead and disabled, and Afghanistan returning to an opium state run mostly by warlords. No regrets on those?

    About the wiretapping, it's unjustifiable and illegal because the NSA could have gone to the secret court up to 72 hours after the wiretap and gotten a warrant. If the court w

    • Some other thing slipped by your radar, like the cost of the war,

      A non-issue. Either the war is the right thing to do (as I believe) or it is not (as you seem to believe). In lives, in money, or in resources, this war has cost a fraction of any other war the US has ever fought, while yielding results far greater and more promising than wars (Korea, VietNam) which have cost much more. In general, I would say you dishonor your own argument by pretending that the cost of this war is what bothers you

      • It's insulting however that the Administration told Americans the war would cost 50 billion or some other tiny fraction of it's true cost. The public got behind the war in part because it wasn't going to cost much, and soldiers would be greeted with open arms, i.e. few American deaths. The public would not have supported the war if they knew soldiers would have to do two or three tours of duty and a huge amount of National Guard members would be pulled into this. The Guard is for domestic defence, and se

        • It's insulting however that the Administration told Americans the war would cost 50 billion or some other tiny fraction of it's true cost.

          With due respect, the administration's initial appropriations request for the war in Iraq was for 87 billion dollars, and this was always presented as support for the first year of the fight. Wars cost money. One considers this when deciding whether to go to war. One does not go to war and then turn around and whine that the war was okay, but only if we didn't spe

          • Am I only allowed to have a certain number of reasons for opposing the war? Cut through the BS and you can remember plenty of reasons. Iraq isn't the real threat. Iraq was a distraction for the incompetence of the Administration. Why only Iraq and not other countries that violate human rights? Why not Burma? Either tell the American public we're going to be at war for the next two decades going from country to country, or don't go to war at all. For paying for it, I don't want to pay for a war with d
            • NeMon'Ess -- you do yourself no favors by rushing to respond so quickly that your posts become scattered and a bit incoherent. Slow down, marshall your arguments, and above all, use that preview button.

              Now, as far as I can tell, the points you are trying to make here are these:

              For paying for it, I don't want to pay for a war with deficit spending. If we're going to deficit spend, the money could be better spent at home.

              Now, given that you have just said that we shouldn't have gone to war at all (

              • I'm going to respond to the wiretaps here, and the rest in another post.

                Read Clinton's order, and you'll see it only is regarding physical searches, and does not mention wiretaps.

                As for USSID 18:

                According to itself: [cryptome.org]

                The Act covers the intentional collection of the communications of a particular, known U.S. person who is in the United States, all wiretaps in the United States, the acquisition of certain radio communications where all parties to that communication are located in the United States, and the moni

                • Read Clinton's order, and you'll see it only is regarding physical searches, and does not mention wiretaps.

                  Um, yes NeMon'Ess -- it may surprise you to hear this, but our Founding Fathers had never heard of a `wiretap' when they wrote the Constitution. To the extent that wiretaps are regulated in any context, it is because the courts have held -- quite correctly -- that they are a form of search. That's why FISA, for instance, has jurisdiction over both searches and wiretaps for law enforcement purp

                  • Except that Clinton had heard of a wiretap, and by specifying physical searches and not electronic searches, legally this means his order only applies to the former and not the latter.

                    Do you have case to show congress has no jurisdiction over this?

                    • Except that Clinton had heard of a wiretap, and by specifying physical searches and not electronic searches, legally this means his order only applies to the former and not the latter.

                      Um, yes, NeMon'ess, of course. His order applies to searches, and Bush's order applies to wiretaps. The question at hand is the constitutionality of either, and the courts have repeatedly held that searches and wiretaps are governed by the same procedures.

                      Do you have case to show congress has no jurisdiction over

              • Ever hear of the phrase "no blood for Monica"? It's what neocons said of Clinton helping in the Balkans. But while Clinton lied about a blow job, the Bush administration has distorted facts and situations for their gain and to keep the public scared and distracted from the administration's failings. The Patriot Act was a collection of wet-dreams for the neocons they'd had for a long time before 9/11 and they finally got to implement them. Iraq was another dream ready and waiting for years. Of course I
                • Again, NeMon'ess, if you would do yourself and your readers the courtesy of calming down and trying to organize your thoughts before posting, the result would be a lot more coherent -- take a deep breath, have a cup of coffee, and use that `preview' button, and you won't get posts like this one.

                  To the extent that I can determine what your point is here, you seem to be claiming the following:

                  • `neocons' opposed `helping in the Balkans' (by which I assume you mean Kosovo, since the Dayton accords were sign
                  • If in a fantasy world the war could have been done for free, and 2,241 American soldiers were still alive and 16,185 weren't wounded [globalsecurity.org], then I'd support the war, despite my other reservations.

                    My post above is just fine and coherent. If you can't follow along, that's fine. You've been unconvinceable on /.. This wasn't supposed to be a minutia-by-minutia drawn out debate originally. I was hoping the 2 years had changed you more than they have and you'd note your changed opinions like others who stuck around
                    • Interesting. For several posts now, you've told us that you didn't support the war in Iraq because it was being carried out by the `wrong people' with the `wrong intentions', that you have `multiple reasons' to oppose the war, and that we couldn't possibly be right to go to war in Iraq because we were not somehow, magically, simultaneously solving every other example of bad government worldwide. Now you suggest that you would find all of these arguments (your own, remember) uncompelling if the war were fr
                    • What you call a retreat, I call not important. When I said the administration misled or misconstrued the facts to get us into Iraq (or words to that effect), I omitted the fact that it's flat out lied as well. But since I'm not interested in a point-by-point as happened in journal entries pre-your leaving, I left it out.

                      BTW, stop bringing up the predicted wave of violence at the elections. That wasn't my prediction, nor did I bring it up. I'm sure what you're doing is on the list of debate techniques, b

                    • What you call a retreat, I call not important.

                      Undoubtedly. The fact remains that you began this thread (here [slashdot.org]) asserting that:

                      Some other thing slipped by your radar, like the cost of the war, the duration, torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, the deficit spending while the tax cuts for the wealthy continue, the number of American soldiers dead and disabled, and Afghanistan returning to an opium state run mostly by warlords. No regrets on those?

                      (emphasis added). Now, you acknowle

                    • Very mature of you implying a quote of mine with exclamation points. Like I said, I'm not going to go into that, just stating my position.

                      Oh but I can't help myself. Actually this one isn't a lie, it's pointing out how incredibly dumb Bush is. I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees. [mediamatters.org]

                      Aw heck, it's just too easy to google for "bush lies" and look at pages like this. [bushwatch.com] And before you pick on any single point as being ambigous, or open to interpretation as an attempt to topple a house of car

                    • So I will admit that my original statement on Afghanistan is untrue

                      Mighty big of you, though you might have looked better acknowledging this any of the first four times you were presented with the same evidence -- or better yet, not making the claim in the first place, if you couldn't be bothered to check your facts.

                      What's interesting is that not only this, but each one of the original points you made in opening this thread you have now either quietly backed away from, or openly admitted as untrue

                    • skim...skim...skimmm

                      nope. you refuse to concede anything. you could concede on afghanistan, but nope, you just use this as another opportunity to attack. how neocon of you.

                      and you're wrong. it is true that we pulled troops out of afghanistan before we'd trained their army up to replace our troops. yet iraq is different for no good reason. there we're keeping our troop levels up until the army we're training can take over and keep the country from backsliding like it did in afghanistan.
                    • Although come to think of it I'd rather you conceded that Bush lied. Check out that link for examples.

                      Bush is stupid. It's Administration that's the evil mastermind helping him out. Remember seeing photoshops or editorial cartoons of Dick Cheney pulling the strings on a Bush marionette? It's analogous to that. No it's not just Cheney. Karl Rove is also widely respected and reviled for his strategy.
                    • I could as easily argue that ``NeMon'ess Lied'', now that every single claim with which you began this thread has turned out to be untrue.

                      I don't actually think you're a liar though -- I just think you're a smart and well-meaning guy who has the crippling disadvantage in life of having, so far, done most of his political thought in a bubble where talking points pass for supported argument, and where people win acclamation based on how `clever' their putdowns of Bush sound, rather than on how factual or w

                    • (answer to this and your other current post here [slashdot.org])
                    • There you go distorting things again. How would I prove to you that Bush is dumb and Cheney and Rove are considered the brains of the organization? Fox Nexs articles? I brought up the cartoons to jog your memory. You actually think our President, who has a book about him called Bushisms, is the bright bulb in the bunch? Or at least equal to Cheney and Rove?

                      We're clearly not communicating as well as we should. When I say "attack," the context is that you continue to press your points without acknowledg
                    • As far as I can parse them out of your (often rapidly-typed and poorly-organized) posts, your original claims in this thread were as follows:
                      • the cost of the war -- when asked to clarify what you meant by this, you explained [slashdot.org]:

                        It's insulting however that the Administration told Americans the war would cost 50 billion or some other tiny fraction of it's true cost. The public got behind the war in part because it wasn't going to cost much

                        When it was pointed out [slashdot.org] to you that a.) the administration had nev

                    • Yippee, you keep looking towards my original points, which I've let drop, while not looking at any of the newer points. BTW, big mistake linking my credibility to the fact that Bush lied. Because I linked [bushwatch.com] to bush's lies right here. [slashdot.org] You never got back to me on that. That is my evidence.

                      Your terminology is wrong, letting s claim drop doesn't make it false. You can claim a "point" or what you want, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

                      As for mistreatment, I wish I'd remembered these cases [bbc.co.uk] before.

                      So you only wa
                    • I've been checking out some of neocon's debates since running into him (or her) last week in the Washington Post Blog forum. He or she is a wiley debate opponent, who favors ad hominem, red herring, and context-shifting fallacies over actual logic. I called neocon out on several of these in the Post thread, and there hasn't been a reply to date.

                      However, technically speaking, in formal debate it *is* considered concession when you let an argument drop without addressing all outstanding challenges to that a
                    • Actually, NeMon'ess, credibility is the issue here. With the number of absurd claims you've thrown out here, and then hastily retreated from once they were shown to be untrue, it's pretty obvious that you're trying out a debating strategy of ``throw anything we can come up with at the wall, and see what sticks''.

                      Having thus damaged your credibility, you're not in a position to try to prove anything by assertion any more. Any claims you want to make, you now really have to back up if you don't want them

                    • And I'm sure the prisoners who have been released have no grounds for their lawsuits. In at least one of those cases, the BBC article says the CIA admitted it made a mistake. Admitting they screwed up doesn't excuse them for torture.

                      You need specific lies, then here we go:

                      On April 26 2003, President Bush said in his weekly radio address, "My jobs and growth plan would reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income tax."

                      That turned out not to be true. According to the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy
                    • Good thing he and I aren't formally debating. Yeah I'm aware of that. Around when I let the national guard points drop, and it seems I'm wrong on those, I remembered why I'd posted; to see if he had any admissions he'd forgotten about in the original journal entry. So I dropped the small stuff and focused on strengths. Since he appears unable or unwilling to admit the illogical disparity between Afghanistan and Iraq, I'll conclude I've won that point. [slashdot.org]

                      Thanks for the suggestions.
                    • Um, no -- having already acknowledged that there was, in fact, no security crisis in Afghanistan, you lost the only basis you ever had for claiming that US troops should stay there indefinitely.

                      If you would really like to claim that Afghanistan and Iraq are identical situations, and thus must receive identical treatment, please explain why it is irrelevant to you that:

                      • the insurgency in Afghanistan has been crushed, but is still ongoing in Iraq
                      • NATO has formally taken over many peacekeeping tasks in Afg
                    • Let me see if I've got this straight: you feel that the fact that someone has filed (not won!) a lawsuit proves that he is telling the truth? That has to be the weirdest legal principle I've ever heard.

                      The rest of your claims are pretty laughable, but as I am glad to see you ignoring Big Al's advice, and at least attempting to provide some backing for your claims, let's go through them in order, shall we?

                      • First, you try:

                        On April 26 2003, President Bush said in his weekly radio address, "My jobs and

                    • having already acknowledged that there was, in fact, no security crisis in Afghanistan

                      I did not. Find a quote where I said that.

                      What I said was

                      I've already said that if we'd left more troops there, the country would be in better shape. Yes it's getting better as you link to, but it could have been where it is today, 2 years ago. I'm not going to google for an old article unless it would actually change your mind that at one point, President Karzai was actually only president of Kabul, because the rest of t

                    • interesting how you seem to think `non-profit' means `non-partisan', when, in fact, the CBPP is a project of Clinton advisor Robert Greenstein. In short, your story here is not `Bush wrong on benefits of tax plan' but `Democratic Administration official disagrees with Bush on benefits of tax plan'. Hardly as compelling a case, now is it?

                      Sorry, but you should've read the link I gave you.

                      Asked about the exclusion of the child-care credit for low- and middle-income families, White House press spokesman Ari Fle

                    • having already acknowledged that there was, in fact, no security crisis in Afghanistan

                      I did not. Find a quote where I said that.

                      Um, okay [slashdot.org]. To quote (you):

                      So I will admit that my original statement on Afghanistan is untrue

                      Now do you see why your credibility is in trouble?

                      Really, you don't have a point here, let it go. First off, US troops only drew down in Afghanistan when NATO troops arrived to supplement them, and second, they only did so after the point where, by your own admission, the

                    • Again, you don't get to claim `Bush Lied' because a think tank (of the other party in this case, which makes the whole thing even funnier) disagrees about what the effect of his policies will be.

                      `Brookings Institute disagrees with Bush' isn't even news -- much less proof that `Bush lied!!1!'.

                      Of course, your argument goes downhill from there. I appreciate the bravery of your effort to resurrect your (not only disproved, but admitted by you to be false) claims about Afghanistan, but we've already dealt

                    • In a non-binary situation, the opposite of Black is not neccessarily White. The answer could be Not Black.

                      In a country where American soldiers are still being killed by roadside bombs, I'd say there is still a security crisis. If roadside bombs were going off in the USA, we'd say it was a crisis, to say the least.

                    • Sure. If you want to define crisis down to whatever is still happening, you can always claim that there's a ``crisis'' afoot. The fact remains that you explicitly claimed that the country was controlled by warlords, and now you admit that nothing is actually going on except a few desperate and self-defeating acts of violence by a few bitter-enders.

                      By your definition of `crisis', by the way, post-world-war-II Germany was in `crisis' until the end of 1949 (when the last US troops were killed by Nazi hol

                    • The fact remains that you explicitly claimed that the country was controlled by warlords...

                      You really need to stop trying to paraphrase, becuase it's dishonest when you fail to do it correctly. Stick with using quotes in italics, like this:

                      ...and Afghanistan returning to an opium state run mostly by warlords.

                      If you'd done that you wouldn't be lying by saying I explicitly claimed something...that I never claimed.

                      By your definition of `crisis', by the way, post-world-war-II Germany was in `crisis' until the

                    • Wait, no, let me guess. It depends on what the meaning of `is' is, right?

                      Stop trying to parse yourself out of the corner you've painted yourself into by defining `crisis' down to whatever the current state of affairs turns out to be (no matter how different that state is from your own original claim).

                      You're only embarassing yourself.

                    • So you can reframe debate and rephrase statements to change how they're interpreted, but people you're talking to can't? Brilliant.

                      You want to bring presidents back into this?

                      "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]

                      "I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

                    • Um yes. We would certainly like to bring back Osama bin Laden, `dead or alive' as the man said. It's not our highest priority, however -- breaking up al Qaeda's infrastructure, denying it the shelter of friendly regimes, and so on are much more important.

                      In other words, this isn't even a change in policy, much less a `lie'.

                      You're really reaching here. Stop embarassing yourself.

                    • Right. In other words, we want Osama bin Laden, and we want him `dead or alive'. It's hardly our highest priority, however -- dismantling al Qaeda's infrastructure, denying it the shelter of friendly regimes, and beefing up our own security are all much more important.

                      In other words, this isn't even a change in policy -- much less a `lie'.

                      You're really reaching here. Stop embarassing yourself.

                    • Lying isn't a factor here. You brought up Clinton to try and link me to his embarassment. So I'm linking you to Bush's embarassment.
                    • Uh, okay there.

                      Since the Bush quotes you pointed out are perfectly consistent, ``I guess you failed''.

                    • Just like you did in your attempt.

                    • I think it's safe to point out that if that's all you've got, we've already resolved everything we're going to resolve in this thread.

                      After all, we've already discounted all of your original points, and even shot down those points (like Wiretapping or `Bush Lied!!1!') which you brought up along the way.

                      If it's important to you to have the last word, go ahead and respond to this post. By now, I am quite confident that anyone still reading has the same opinion of your credibility as I do.

                    • The real question is are you willing to let the last words disagree with you.

                      "we've"? Nah, just you. I didn't have to respond to your mistaken defense of Bush's lies because to objective people, my points are correct.
            • Sigh.

              National Guard: I'm thinking of the one we've had since we ended the draft.

              OK, hopefully, I may be seen as having a little authority to speak here, as I have been a national guard officer for over 10 years. You are wrong. You are 180 degrees wrong. The National Guard is INTENDED to be integrated into the active military in time of conflict. I live in WA, and was in a heavy armor brigade (tanks). I don't think it was because we were preparing to to repell the great "eh" horde from the north.
              Sarcasm asi

Slashdot Top Deals

If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.

Close