Okay, Glen Beck conservative, but not unthinking...

[JHB]

13. No, he still doesn't have it right

Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people.

Horseshit. I don't doubt for a second that that's "what liberals said" as received by his blinkered and malfunctioning perceptions, but that's not what liberals were saying. Beck, much like most conservatives (and a hell of a lot of Beltway "centrists&quot saw the anti-war protests and pigeonholed it as a knee-jerk kumbaya thing.

We were against the war because:

1)At least some of us knew that Bush's administration was stuffed to the gills with people who'd been pushing for Saddam's overthrow for years, whose response to every al Queda bombing in the 90s was "bomb Saddam, we have to show we mean business", who clamored for Bill Clinton to do more to overthrow Saddam. So after an attack by Saudis and Egyptians, when "Saddam" and "Iraq" suddenly appeared in Administration rhetoric, it was 5-alarm suspicious and the alarm-count only went up as time went on.

2)We asked "what comes after? What about all the internal antagonisms that were the whole reason we didn't occupy Bagdahd in 1991. We didn't want to be left deal with the mess back then. What's different about the situation in Iraq in 2003 that's going to make all those problems go away?"

3)Sure they want to be free. And they have as much ability to form a democracy as anyone else. But it has to be theirs to take root. If it's seen as more foreign puppetry it won't have the legitimacy it needs. Under the best of circumstances it would be extremely difficult for an outside army to come in, put enough boots on the ground to maintain order (i.e., several hundred thousand), and then get the hell out in fairly short order so that it's not seen as foreign occupiers. But there was no scenario that the Bushies were putting forward that bore any resemblance to that. They were pitching the horseshit scenario that you, Glen Beck, slurped up like it was chocolate: that after toppling Saddam everything would just become all hunkey-dorey, and had no Plan B if any of the long string of assumptions there didn't pan out as assumed.

And admit it Glen: you didn't question the Administration back then because of who spoke up against them and against the war. Because you enjoyed being part of a "burn the witches" mob, a leader of it, even. You were as free to indulge in as much liberal-loathing and hippie-hate as you could possibly desire. you supported the war for the sheer thrill of it.


When you leave this world for the afterlife, you know who you'll be able to visit? Hitler. Because you'll be in the same damned place. Emphasis on damned.