Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Here’s the thing: I’m just not that convinced that any kind of major offensive against a terrorist network or a nation that “harbors terrorists” is going to prevent 19 guys, or 1 guy, from hijacking a plane, or setting off a suicide bomb on a train, or, pick your favorite option. I just don’t believe that anything we’ve done in Afghanistan or (especially) Iraq has resulted in the increased safety of the United States. There’s no way to prove this one way or the other, but I think luck and planning have more to do with our quiet 8 years or so since 9/11.

There will not be a moment or a signal that this war is won in Afghanistan. Exiting in 2011…will it be any different than exiting now? I guess I just don’t believe it. The only difference will be the death toll, on all sides. I hope I’m wrong. But I am not for this war, even less so than when we originally began it.

UPDATE:

Lest I forget: There have been threats or plans that were disrupted over the years, and these were all thwarted because of law enforcement activities–look here at Fox News’ own list of foiled terror plots. Here’s another right wing site, The Heritage Foundation, with a similar list. It evens says there that “the best means to prevent terrorist attacks is effective intelligence collection, information sharing, and coordinated, determined counterterrorism opera­tions that can stop attacks before they are mounted.”

What any of this has to do with 30,ooo more military men and women going to Afghanistan, I don’t know. The letters FBI will come up again and again when you learn about the thwarted attacks. See also, “police department.”

I swear, I think we bomb the shit out of other countries just to make a certain segment of America feel good about themselves. Small penis complex or something…

Nine months in and the extremists’ reaction to Obama is as if he has enacted all of his agenda and changed the course of American history. Now, that’s kind of what we elected him for, but I certainly didn’t expect it all to happen in less than a year. And for sure, it is taking some time. You can feel the impatience on the left.

But does he deserve all of this right-wing nuttery so early on? Of course not. He hasn’t earned it. He may, and if he does I’d say that the liberals and progressives will be happy. But he’s never going to make the kooks happy. I mean, imagine if Bush had even pretended to listen to all of us who protested against the war in Iraq. Imagine that all of those good points that were being made before the war were taken into consideration. But they weren’t, we all know that.

We were ignored, quite proudly, by the patriots in charge and their media brethren. It’s still a little hard to believe that such an atmosphere existed, but you know it did, even past the 2004 election. And now, proven right by the stupidity and incompetence of the war, we are rewarded with…more right-wing wackiness.

A reader at Andrew Sullivan makes a salient point regarding earnings and time served:

The heaviest hitters in the Republican party, and in the conservative media have loudly and proudly called for Obama’s failure. Liberals who even softly criticized Bush were roundly shamed and called terrorist-loving-America-haters. George W. Bush, despite the controversial beginning of his presidency, was given the chance – - no, in fact, after 9/11, he was given all the unopposed freedom in the world to succeed or fail based upon his own decisions and his own performance. Bush EARNED his hatred.

Obama has not had that luxury.

It’s that “liberal media” once again controlling and defining the conversation, pandering to the 20%’ers. This is what happens when we treat politics like a reality television show.

Yeah, man, politics on a Friday. You heard me. Obama needs to let this happen: “open a full investigation of the many laws that were evaded, twisted or broken — pointlessly and destructively — under Mr. Bush.”

So why break the law, again and again? Two things seem disturbingly clear. First, President Bush and his top aides panicked after the Sept. 11 attacks. And second, Mr. Cheney and his ideologues, who had long chafed at any legal constraints on executive power, preyed on that panic to advance their agenda.

I know, they’ll never serve a day but history deserves to be informed. And when it all comes out they need to put it on a plaque in that George W. Bush library in Texas for all to see.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

The last word on Robert McNamara, here. There’s a great anecdote about a hippie artist attempting to throw him overboard on a ferry. As Dr. Thompson may have said, he was a man who deserved to be eaten by hammerhead sharks and then shit back into the sea to be eaten by electric eels.

Some good news (as if we need any more these days): Bill Kristol thinks that “this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right country.” If Kristol says it, you know it isn’t true! But, why does he still have that column?

I don’t believe that this was a ever a center-right country over the past eight years, it was merely a scared country, reacting to 9/11 with carefully manufactured fear. If the track record holds up, we can expect another attack over the course of the next eight years, and if we do, I would hope that our proud citizens react in a way that represents not so much fear but instead resolve and fortitude. A scared nation hurling its weight around is so 2001–not attractive at all. Let’s not piss our collective bed this time, yes?

Charlie Rose had on a double dose last night, highly recommended by this Booze Cabinet. First, Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Second, a conversation with Philip Gourevitch, author of Standard Operating Procedure. Both dealt with the issue of American moral authority in the wake of its war crimes under the GWB administration. That is, torture, sanctioned by our president, and disregard for the Geneva Conventions.

The entirety of it is so embarrassing, and I wonder if people weren’t trained to be scared by Bush, terror, et al. would we accept this the way we have? I mean, everyone should be appalled, and livid, but they aren’t. We detain innocent people indefinitely. We torture people. We are Americans. It’s quite pathetic.

UPDATE:

Jane Mayer on Colbert.

This is just sick:

“The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings,” Yellin said.

Oh, Scott, you have opened up the gates of hell!

Years too late and way past time for redemption, Scott McClellan finally writes his book that says what we knew all along. Doesn’t do us much good now, but it serves as another reminder for the Apologists who’ve been blindly supporting Bush for so many years: wrong as usual. And yet, in the race for the next president, we have serious examinations of flag pins and preachers, and plenty of fake outrage to go around. We really do get the country government we deserve, as if any more proof is needed.

“If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.”

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.�

“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.â€?

Now, what to do about the war criminals responsible?

The sacrifices we must make in a time of war: time, money, blood, sweat, lives…and golf. While over 4,000 soldiers have lost their life in an unjust and immoral war in Iraq, W. Bush decided that he would give up golf as his own personal sacrifice, to honor the men and women serving in our armed forces. Don’t you want to just punch him in the face?

UPDATE:

Looks like he lied about this too (I had a feeling this was coming). Don’t you just want to punch him in the nuts?

UPDATE II:

Pile on, Keith Olbermann.

Glenn Greenwald nails the Corner nut, Kathryn Jean Lopez, to the proverbial cross with this great column on “the right’s selective political manipulation of Catholicism.” In short (because GG keeps it long), K-Lo wonders how any Catholic could consider voting for a Democrat considering their views on “innocent life.” What does “innocent life” mean? Well, that depends. Take a wild guess, though, and see if you can figure it out.

Abortion = bad! War = good!

I’m sure the death penalty is OK for Catholics like Lopez, because they’re not innocent after all (at least some of them aren’t), but when it comes to cheerleading an immoral and unjust war that will take thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of innocent lives, you can count on the Catholic Lopez to sidestep that whole principled approach and wave the flag in the name of Republicanism. Hurray!

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?