Holy Crap -- SF Chronicle Editorial

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

It's not that I'm surprised that the Chronicle would criticize Bush, it's the quote that Carolyn Lochhead cites in the sixth paragraph.

"Others on the political right, as distinct from their more interventionist neoconservative colleagues, have begun openly attacking the administration. Wall Street Journal contributing editor Mark Helprin called Abu Ghraib "a symbol of the inescapable fact that the war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate contempt for history, strategy, and thought." He asked why the administration was trying to occupy Iraq with current troop levels, "even as one event cascading into another should make them recoil in piggy-eyed wonder at the lameness of their policy."

Geez, when the Wall Street Journal starts ripping up a Republican administration like that, can the end be far behind?

On Edit: Added Link

[wtmusic]

1. It's always an attack on the way the war is being run

and never questions the original intent. It was impossible to win from the start.

[CitizenRob]

2. Okay, I'll bite...

So, what was the original intent?

[wtmusic]

4. 1. To secure our oil-dependent energy future

2. To avenge Saddam's assassination attempt on Bush 41.

3. To provide a much-needed financial stimulus for the post-Cold war military-industrial complex.

Howzat taste?

[CitizenRob]

8. hmmm

Tastes like Chicken-hawk!

[Mechatanketra]

5. Hear hear.

And sadly, that applies even to most of our leaders and pundits (including heir apparent JK). Always about the conduct of the war, and never the validity of it -- as if there was a 'right' way to invade a country without just cause.

And as long as that's the case, guess what? Bush only has to defend the conduct of his war, and not its validity -- and the latter is where he's much more vulnerable.

[alarcojon]

3. This was also mentioned in a Nation column

by Eric Alterman. The article is entitled "Hawks Eating Crow". It's a good read, coming down on a number of these strokers as they try to backpedal from their support of Bush.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040607&s=alterman

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

6. Alterman is great

If you follow the alarcoeg's link, but sure to read "Dishonest, Moronic, or Both." It's in the the galley on the right-hand side. Good Reading.

[alarcojon]

7. Here is a (non-subscription) link to the entire Helprin article

A further quote:

Before the war's inception, and even after September 11, the Bush administration, having promised to correct its predecessor's depredations of the military, failed to do so. The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day.

Note the Clinton-bashing...the article is clearly critical of Bush, but on different grounds - he wanted to go into Iraq right away.

The year-and-a-half delay between action in Afghanistan and Iraq mobilized the Arabs and the international left, weakened the connection with September 11, and prompted allies who would have been with us to fall away. The delay was especially unconscionable because it was due not merely to normal difficulties but to the aforementioned military insufficiencies and to indecision masquerading as circumspection. Once the Army and Marines were rolling, their supply lines were left deliberately unprotected, and are vulnerable to this day.

The second half of the screed goes on to caricature Kerry and the left.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/mhelprin/