but you'll be otherwise silent about it. that's the issue.

i never want to hear another progressive ever claim they stand under the banner of democracy and self-governance. the fact they are silent when actual democracy is happening and only raise their voices to accuse democracies of repression, reveals that democracy is a term they use fraudulently.

if you support democracy, celebrate its success in proportion to your opposition to its institution.

if somebody in the cnn newsroom mumbled something that sounded like "plame", you wouldn't have suffered from such an accidental oversight regarding something you so obviously have a sincere support for.

There is absolutely NO point in arguing this with you, as it is clear you and most of the others who supported the war see this as an, "ends justify the means," proposition, while I simply dont. By your argument, you should be demanding that we invade North Korea next... Are you?

Eh, its called WORK, something some of us have to do. You know, those of us who dont get paid to blog. So forgive me if I did not go running for the keyboard after catching the CNN report, I'm affraid I am guilty of WORKING.

we are dealing with n. korea with the best means for the situation.

in iraq, the means you endorsed comprised a status quo which had been corrupted in saddam's favor. in other words, you support neither the means nor the ends. so save me your sloganeering about ends and means. the condition of iraq under saddam was apparently the end you prefer AND it had been arrived at by the means you prefer.

same with n. korea. the brutality n. koreans suffer under was quite ignorable untill bush named them in his axis of evil speech. then the notion of n. korea as a terrorist state was widely derided. that is, until we went into iraq. suddenly the iraq war was a dangerous distraction from n. korea. and so now you mention it here.

how do we account for this? simple: progressives, as a matter of who they are, lie.

just as they lie when they pretend they support the ends of free elections in the third world while merely opposing the means. itts actually the other way around: they support and defend most vocally the means of war wielded by progressive despots towards the ends of progressive totalitarianism.

Nice speech did you write that yourself, or find it in some manifesto somewhere?

maybe instead of trying to crack wise, you should reflect on the role you've played during this conflict.

The role he played?? So I guess constantly blogging every single story from the Iraq War causes meaningful change? C'mon man.

I was against the war but once we got there, I decided to support the effort for change. And I have similar people, like you jummy, who still give me grief since I didn't support the war and don't talk about it every damn day. Screw that. A man or woman doesn't have to trumpet loudly every step of this conflict to SUPPORT THE TROOPS. That's just silly, stupid, and downright passe. This isn't a sporting event.

By your argument, you should be demanding that we invade North Korea next... Are you?

North Korea is complicated matter with its own unique set of problems, as every country is a different situation. I want North Korea liberated, but it has the means to destroy the capital of South Korea if anyone attacks them. And they already have nukes.

You can keep asking why we didn't liberate every other country under the sun, but all you're really saying is that you just didn't want to liberate Iraq in addition to not wanting to liberate anyone else. We decided to deal with Saddam once and for all and at long last, after over a decade of failed diplomacy, something that in hindsight we should've done a long time ago. It seemed to me there were very few options left for what to do with Iraq. So, some of us thought it was a good idea to deal with Iraq before it became more like North Korea, that is, able to hold the world hostage.

A lot of people forget this, but Saddam did once say his biggest mistake in invading Kuwait was doing so before he had the kind of weaponry with which he could put a military check on anyone who would try and stop him.

According to Anderson's "logic" -- If you can't help ALL the poor, it is wrong to help ANY of the poor.

Not very liberal.

I love Jeff's note at the end about how he's "not passing judgement" on the blogs he quoted.

Right.

Whatever.

I love the rationale of some of you people...

North Korea is complicated matter with its own unique set of problems, as every country is a different situation. I want North Korea liberated, but it has the means to destroy the capital of South Korea if anyone attacks them. And they already have nukes. Wasn't a similar argument used by YOUR President to go into Iraq in the first place. Something about Missles hitting the U.S. in 40 Minutes, Nuclear Programs, yada yada. Every time one of you guys tries to defend the North Korea is not Iraq meme, you come off looking like idiots and the liars that you are. So piss off on that one. And Timmy, WAY to go buddy, you have once again demonstrated what I have always said about the Protien Wisdom Peanut Gallery.
"When unable to achieve victory through logical argument, simply change the argument or put words in the mouth of the person you are arguing with."

I really wasnt expecting you morons to say, "gee a Lefty who is happy for the Iraqi people and their election." I mean whatever I said I knew you would find fault with it since I dont share the "hive" mentality. But sorry folks, it aint like that... I will not be assimilated. All you keyboard heroes who support the war and just about anything else the administration does, are entitled to your opinion. While I realize you came here to insult and not discuss, I am entitled to mine. Especially in my house. So forgive me if I ignore the next 100 rants, feel free to continue to contribute to my stats, trackback and call me an idiot on your own blog... eh, that is those of you who have ONE! I don't really care. And NAW Tas... Goldstein has NEVER been one to judge. He and his readers are salt of the earth, warm and fuzzy types who encourage debate and discussion.(As long as it agrees with them).

Keyboard heroes?!?! I have just added that phrase to my vocabulary. LOL!

So what does your "against-ness" consist of? Circa 1859 would you have discouraged the armies of the north from invading the south? There were many who did so. Would you have said that the slaves would throw of the chains of their southern overlords all in good time? There were many who said so. Is your against-ness just an opinion? a feeling contra the large overall concept of War? As opposed to another large overall concept of, say, Freedom?

Bush didn't have the luxury of an opinion; he held the future in his hands.

uh oh. i didn't realize that we had beset upon a real live martyr. excuse me while i wipe a tear from my cheek.

i'm glad you didn't expect any of us for whom this election has some meaning to applaud you for begrudgingly offering your support. you're not entitled to any such accolades. your statement on the election, probably a tenth of the length of your shortest post about why this election was going to be a doomed catastrophe, came only after the deafening silence from the left was catalogued and exposed.

what do you call someone who's absent for the good times but there with a bucket of salt for the bad times?

And once again we're back to "my team has a bigger prick than yours". So what if the so-called "left" was "catalogued and exposed" and the so-called "right" been wearing Team America soccer shirts. The fact is that in this case, David has said he his proud of the Iraqis and their right to free and safe elections. Case closed. Trying to squeeze blood from a turnip is fruitless and useless.

I know you don't need defending David. Just couldn't help it man. :)

Thanks T, I appreciate it. As for the moron posting directly above you. I will give him $1000 in cash if he can show me ONE post I wrote, just ONE, that said this election would be a failure. Not that he had any credibility from the jump, but that stone faced lie exposed him for exactly what he is...

really dave, answer the question: what do you call someone who's absent for the good times but there with a bucket of salt for the bad times?

Jummy, you're right.

Cherry picking things like "tell me where I was against the voting" is a bad stream of logic. If the war never took place, voting in Iraq wouldn't have ever occured either. It's one thing to pick a nice slice of time or a nice slice of a complex situation that proves your narrow point, like David does with a line like that, but it's also lousy logic. Jummy is right. You can't be against the whole thing and then be for the end product of the process.
Lots of things in life can't be explained away by one nice blanket statement.

I wrote my statement down, but didn't write it up. What I mean to say with the line "You can't be against the whole thing and then be for the end product of the process." is that those who were against the war from the get-go and are finally seeing the good that those who were for the war knew would come were just wrong about the war. You can definitely be for the good things, and still have convictions against war and agression. (a little hint, nobody, even the 'war mongering right' likes to see people killed or hurt)

Wasn't a similar argument used by YOUR President to go into Iraq in the first place. Something about Missles hitting the U.S. in 40 Minutes, Nuclear Programs, yada yada. Every time one of you guys tries to defend the North Korea is not Iraq meme, you come off looking like idiots and the liars that you are.

You can name-call all you want. I didn't do so towards you because I don't know enough of what you're about, and in any case it's not my style.
You know even less about what I'm about.

I did not come to support an invasion with eagerness, and I remain deeply concerned about how it's going. I watched the elections with happiness, but also a lot of relief and an understandign there's still a tough road full of uncertainties ahead. The reason I supported the liberation was because all the other options that I heard at the time stunk. And I did think the festering problem of Saddam became more urgent in the wake of 9/11 for numerous reasons related to both the dangers of the Baath regime itself and the need to deal with the root-causes of the problems in the region as a whole. I also believed we had a moral obligation to intervene in Iraq in a pro-democracy manner after decades of intervening in Iraq in ways counter to demoratic values. I also believe we are obligated to do what we can to prevent genocides and I was unwilling to doom the Kurdish people to being ethnically cleansed once again in the future. It's safe to assume we will never see eye to eye on such matters, but I'd like to make a few points.

Bush stated we needed to deal with Saddam before his threat became imminent. The fact is, intelligence on Iraq's WMD were guesses (and should've been presented with less certainty, IMO) and the only way you could properly inspect Iraq was after the removal of the Baath regime. You know with some amount of certainty that Saddam didn't have WMD ready to launch within 40 minutes because Saddam was removed and only then could the country be properly inspected. Before the invasion, Colin Powell stated that it was time for Saddam to be transparent. To take the inspectors by the hand and fully comply. The burden was on Saddam.

I'm not sure what difference it makes whether Saddam had WMD ready to launch within minutes, or if he'd have to spend a few weeks readying that capability. It would play into Saddam's hand to make that out os a difference of any significance. He was purposely defying his obligations, obligations put upon him after he invaded a sovereign country and attempted to annex it out of existance.

He never abided by his cease fire agreement and never complied with resolution 1441. You bring up N. Korea. Does it mean anything to you that David Kaye's report found, among hundreds of other violations, that Saddam sent money to N. Korea in an attempt to illegally purchase long-range missiles off the shelf and that N. Korea got cold feet because the Coalition was readying to invade?

I believe Saddam was waiting for a better day. And was bribing whomever he could to help remove sanctions. And was making sure to preverse the ability to build up arsenals of WMD whenever he liked. I believe Saddam was involved in the support, funding, and harboring of terrorism. I believe his existance was also contributing to the conditions that have led to jihad in the Middle East. But we'll never agree on this stuff. so be it. I'm glad we do agree that yesterday's elections were a positive.

Wow, David. Can you imagine the response if you had said something negative about the elections? They would be falling all over themselves to come over here and insult you.

Oops. They are already doing that. My bad.

Looks like a cant win for loosing situation huh Rogue.

Rogue, David could have said that the Iraqi elections were a rousing success and that he's sucking Ahmed Chalibi's cock as he typed the post, and the Protein Wisdom crew still would have found bad things to say about him.

In my opinion, there's really no useful purpose in "debating" with these people because they refuse to listen to anybody who doesn't agree with them 100%. And that's really the point of Jeff's post, despite his "I'm not passing judgement" line of bullshit. Jeff quoted a bunch of liberal blogs just to highlight the fact that they didn't strap on their kneepads for yet another bout of Iraqi elections that we don't even know if they will be meaningful or not. Only time will tell. But Jeff expects everyone to treat this as some sort of great victory, and if you don't mention exactly such on your blog, well then you're just a fucking asshole.

Sorry, but Iraq has had elections before and, uhm, we're still there. South Vietnam had numerous elections and look what happened there? And while I would hope that Iraq's elections turn out to be historic, only time will tell if they are. And nothing that Jeff and his sheep say can change that. So, personally, I think he should take his opinions about what everyone else should think and shove them up his rear.

What if they caught al-Zarqawi and then released him? Would the righties ignore it? You bet. Haven't seen a thing from the chest-thumpers about it.

The periodic waves of triumphalism that sweep the right-wing are a phenomenon we've seen since early 2003. You know, "Mission Accomplished" and all that. In two weeks, when they announce that the elections have been won by Shiite clerical parties that favor an Islamic republic friendly to Iran, these folks will act as if that's just friggin' wonderful.

I think most Americans are hoping these elections will be successful so the U.S. can start to get the hell out of Iraq. Most people here want the war, along with its vast expenditures of American blood and treasure, over with. The Keyboard Heroes mainly want to scream about how right they are and isn't great to see democracy in action. As if they ever really gave a damn about the freedom of a sectarian, fundamentalist country of tribal, religious and ethnic conflicts that go back for a thousand years.

Can we at least agree that things are getting a little better there? And that things are a little better today than they were in 2003? Is that not a reasonable statement?

I think that was the whole point of my post, it was some of the Right Wing commenters who decided to use my post as an opportunity to attack my antiwar sentiment.

I'm sorry David.

My only defense (and reason I guess) is that usually, when I want to just to cut to the chase while talking across the political aisle, I have to talk to (and in anticipation of) the extreme end of the/an argument from the other side. It's nice to not have to do that.

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