Dweebs and Beancounters

Gosh, but I hope the dems don't get elected in 2004. Hat tip to Kim Du Toit for this article on damning with faint praise.

"We want a plan! a plan!" We have a plan!! What the dems don't seem to understand is that, in order for 'the plan' - any plan - to be useful, someone, somewhere, is going to have to do some actual work. Actual work toward something worth accomplishing takes time and elbow grease and, in the case of war, danger and risk.

To listen to them, one would think that if only President Bush would present a nice Power Point, with color slides, and maybe some Visio thrown in, all the problems would be solved. It's an attitude I've seen too many times, an attitude prevalent in large, top-heavy corporations just prior to the point when the board of directors brings in some new leadership and serious layoffs begin. If the attitudes don't change quickly when the ax begins to swing, stock plummets, layoffs continue until the company is bought by another company with a serious work ethic and the balls to enforce it.

Just lemme get this off my chest:
Does anyone really think the rapid fall of Baghdad was due solely to US prowess? C'mon. Republican types seem to holler "We're #1!! We bad!." Dem types seem to weep like a 1920's silent screen star "Alas! The poor, weak, helpless and ignorant, downtrodden 'neath the villainous, cloked and booted, US of A! Save us, Dudley Do-Right!"

I don't buy either attitude. My own thoughts at the fall were more like "Man! Saddam must have been even worse than we thought."

Troops protecting their homeland do not fade away into the night. However, if they regard the incoming army as some sort of an ally against a worse, existing government, fading away may be the best available option for their own country.

That's all the US invasion of Iraq is and was - the best available option for the non-Baathist people of Iraq. For the Baathists, of course, it sucked.

Dems: you need to understand, this was the best available option for Iraq. It was the only available option for the USA. Diplomacy? tried. failed. Sanctions? Tried. Failed. Containment? Tried. Failed. UN? Tried. Failed. Tried. Failed. Tried. Failed.

No - I take it back. It wasn't the only US option. Another one would have been to nuke the entire mideast to kingdom come. It would have satisfied many of the dem complaints - quicker, less expensive, less US casualty. I'm not recommending, just sayin'.

Repubs: Please don't kid yourselves that US might can solve all the troubles of the world, or that the Iraqis will be our friends 5 or 10 years down the road. History is against you. Look at France and Germany today - that is Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow. Sorry.

Don't think that Iraq would have been as relatively painless as it's been if such a thug as Saddam hadn't been in charge. You discredit the bravery and the sense of the Iraqi people.

"Breathes there a man will soul so dead
who never to himself hath said
this is my own, my native land"

Micheal Moore and the Dixie Chicks aside, of course.


Ahem. Anyway . .

Basically, pretty plans do not freedom make. Not for us, not for Iraq, not for nobody. We are in a foreign country, full of foreigners who are putting up with us but would, I am sure, just as soon we leave as soon as possible. For the most part, the US would just as soon leave as soon as possible too. Unfortunately for both peoples, we can't leave until the thugs are reduced to a managable size, and some sort of government is in place that doesn't froth at the mouth. That means that perhaps close to the entire former government infracture needs to be killed, imprisoned, or persuaded to adapt to the New Iraq. That means work. It means killing, and death, and aid, and building. All of these things are being done - by better people than the democratic party's emotional ornaments. So much in Iraq is NOT dependent on the USA, but on Iraq itself, that a pretty timeline made by an MBA with PowerPoint is meaningless. There are a lot of variables outside US control, and - I'm sorry - for the major dem spokespeople to be so unaware of this is frightening. Could some of you guys please grow up and get a real job? You need to start injecting a little reality into your vitriol.