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Tom McClanahan’s Moore’s Thoughts on Iraq Ignore Reality, in this morning’s K.C. Star, is a perfect example of how, for partisan extremists, Democrats are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Because McClanahan ignores so much reality himself, while people suffer and die, he demonstrates how everything is really much more about ridicule than it is about solutions.
McClanahan's first criticisms of Moore’s responses to the Star Editorial board have to do with Moore’s moderate statement “We can’t be expected to stay there forever.” Since this statement is problematic to McClanahan, we can assume that he’d prefer that we either, a. stay there forever, or b. leave, and since he characterizes redeployment as running away, we must conclude that McClanahan would prefer that we stay there forever. All of the rest of his criticisms of Moore should be taken in light of that extreme fact.
McClanahan goes on to criticize Moore for not having a political solution to their/Iraqi problems. While I’m pretty sure McClanahan would defend the rights of all humans to self-determination, I fail to understand why Iraqis are not included in that right. The U.S. meddling in other country’s politics causes blind anger and, hence, Terrorism. Terrorism does not come solely from the mindless hate that some people are promoting. Whether we agree with them or not, people have reasons for being angry with the U.S.
By the way, we’ve had political solutions for Iraqi problems before, they were named Saddam Hussein and the Baathists. How well did that work out? It only shows that enabling dysfunction by supporting it does not produce functional politics. The Iraqis must do it on their own.
Then McClanahan, having demonstrated that he understands nothing about being a Democrat, proceeds to characterize the Democratic mind, by repeating a Republican talking point, a mass produced sound-bite handed to extremist partisans for brainwashing those who do not know the facts. He wants you to believe that all Democrats are lying to you when they say we should redeploy in Iraq and that we really want to “run away”. I would suggest to you that everything McClanahan says in this piece demonstrates that he understands nothing about a legitimately moderate position on this issue and is, therefore, not qualified to characterize what Moore or any other moderate thinks. I would further suggest that if you begin by defining people as liars, you treat them as such, they react to being treated as liars in insecure confused manners that you then assume confirm your assumption that they are liars. Both sides do it. It’s called self-fulfilling prophecy Mr. McClanahan, look it up.
McClanahan then proceeds to tell us that, because the U.S. government couldn’t keep a secret redeployment time-frame secret, there can be no such time-frame, further confirming our suspicions that he does, in fact, prefer that we stay there forever. He goes on to tell us that if we leave Iraq will be divided up amongst the political factions in the region. I ask you, what business is that of ours – unless our oil royalty has invested in the loosers? And how might we invest in the winners instead?
McClanahan then goes on to treat us to more right wing brainwashing with: redeployment equals defeat and a free Iraq means “America would face a much more dangerous world”, as though all of the terrorists are now, and always will be, in Iraq so we must stay there to threaten them, because they are scared of being killed by U.S. troops, not, in fact, motivated by it.
Within the authoritarian mindset, McClanahan’s speculations are intended as facts. He tells you that redeployment will result in a stronger Iran, but He does not mention the fact that Iran has nothing to fear under the status quo in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons, because we are bogged down in Iraq and we are supplying political fodder for Iranian solidarity with Iraqi Shia. He also neglects to mention that due to our absolutely blind support of Israel, Hezbollah, through Iran’s client state Lebanon, is becoming stronger in the region and, because we have ourselves over a barrel in Iraq, we cannot afford to step back, from Israel, our only support in the region. And that’s all just fine with Israel, because we are protecting their only source of fresh water in the region. This brings American politics under the control of Israel. I ask Mr. McClanahan, if this is about Democracy, what about our own Democracy? What if the people of this country don’t want to be an army-for-hire for Israel?
McClanahan ends his editorial with what I suspected from his first objection to Moore’s statement “We can’t be expected to stay there forever.” McClanahan would have us believe that we can and should stay there forever. The “retirement home” he alludes to in his quote from a Marine Lt. General is being built in the permanent bases, fortified for nuclear war, that are being built in Iraq at this moment.
I would agree with McClanahan’s statement that you win wars by convincing your adversary that their victory is impossible, but it is apparent from this piece that McClanahan’s definition of “war” is al Qaeda’s definition of war and by accepting it, we loose our options to respond in the ways supported by George Will in a recent column: close international alliances that work through each country’s law enforcement and banking interdictions, all of which are lost to us at present, because of our delusional behavior.
Those delusions extend themselves into a deadly game that McClanahan wants us to play. “The terrorists believe they can win by continuing to blow things up.” He proposes that our troops sit in the middle of this (in Iraq or elsewhere) forever, doing this or that, but continuing to get blown up, until the moment when Washington realizes that, because terrorists are motivated by all of the death and destruction, and our armed forces are weakened to the point of no return, there is nothing left to do but blow up “all” of them with nuclear war. What is truly frightening about this is that I know McClanahan and many other Americans wonder why anyone sees this very distinct possibility as a problem. This underscores the fact that the only real solution, in terms of how solutions are being defined presently in Washington, is Genocide. I’m afraid that that is indeed where the present course leads with the support of delusional extremists like Tom McClanahan.
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