More to Come
Since my most recent post got linked to InstaPundit, traffic here has positively exploded...by midnight last night I had nearly 10,000 visitors since 3 pm.The comment section is packed with well-reasoned arguments and a lot of fruity reasoning. There's a lot of polarizing name-calling on there, and while I may have been guilty of it in the past, I don't really appreciate it now. Nobody does. That's what Jon Stewart was saying.
Many of you think I was a sign-toting protestor. I wasn't. My girlfriend and I marched in the protest parade because it was A) fun, and B) we were, and may still be, not that wild about Bush. But when we got to the end of the parade, we entered the inaugural festivities and watched quietly and respectfully...giving the other side a chance.
I'm not switching sides, and you gleeful neo-cons can go ahead and stop rubbing your little hands because you think you've got a guy on the fence. I'm for doing your homework, listening to the humans behind the message, and thinking for myself, and I always have been.
But I digress. I have got to focus on my day job for a bit, but you best believe there is going to be a follow-up post responding to all this attention, and I am not lying. For real. Please tune back in.
posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 10:29 AM
3 Comments:
I think I probably speak for a lot of us who are in the moderately conservative camp when I say that I'm most glad that you took some time to think about what was going on from both perspectives. I don't expect you to change your "side of the fence" after this, but I hope that maybe you'll use this experience to remind yourself that there are 2 sides to every story and to try to get as many facts as you can. Great piece, BTW. I hope you got some real exposure.
Jeff, I think you are going to have a bit of readership for a time, perhaps for good if you conitnue to be interesting and provocative. And now to a quibble: I dislike the term "neocon," and do not know that it means much more than "Jew who supports Bush's foreign policy." I'm not Jewish, and am a hawkish libertarian, not a conservative of either the neo-or paleo- varieties. There are more than two political camps looking at these issues, even if one can end up only either pro-war, anti- or undecided.
So, even if your ruminations on the liberation of Iraq and the recent elections did signify a change in political orientation, it would not necessarily be an evolution into the neocon camp. As I wrote in the thread below, you may be poised on a transformation, or you may just be a prophet of decency to the left-of-center; but if it is the former, please believe me, it need not be to the oh-so-despised neocons.
Carry on.
--Mona--
READING RECOMMENDATION: Google 'Thomas Barnett', and look up his book, "Pentagon's New Map". He's a liberal who voted for Kerry, and disagrees with Bush constantly. But his explanation of WHY for invading Iraq, "war in the context of everything else," is user-friendly and a must-read. He also has a neat weblog.
A little about myself. I'm a Columbia University student. I'm a non-religious, progressive liberal 'blue state' New Yorker who in happier days agreed quite often with Michael Moore. I most certainly did not appreciate that Bush Jr was elected president in 2000. What else am I? I'm a a Taiwanese American who grew up in a single-parent union family. Okay, what else? I'm an Army veteran, former MI, part of whose old job (97-01) was to track world events, such as those unfolding in Iraq.
On that basis, as a socially conscious liberal, I supported change in US policy over Iraq years before 9/11 or the Bush admin's portrayal of the WMD threat - that's right, back when Albright was saying dead Iraqi kids were worth it and pre-9/11 Powell was touting the successful 'containment' strategy reducing Saddam's threat. As a humane liberal, I opposed the - indefinite - harmful sanctions and containment mission. As a MI soldier, I saw that the UN's and US policies were complicit in, if not causing, a lot of unintended, ancillary harm and that things in the Middle East were coming to a head. A lot of us put 2 and 2 together and believed a 9/11 type attack would occur (my estimate in Feb 01 was <4 years), and that we needed to resolve the festering Iraq mission, sooner rather than later. As an American, I also saw that folks at home were happy in good economic times and weren't paying attention to what we MI troops were tracking in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Is war always the morally correct choice? Obviously not. But in the case of Iraq, OIF, and Saddam, I believe it was the harder right instead of the easier wrong.
OT: Another popular misperception about Bush Jr since 9/11 is that he came into office as a dedicated interventionist. Quite the opposite. Remember his 2000 campaign railing against the Clinton-era interventions that so stretched the military even before 9/11? His pre-9/11 foreign policy goals were pure conservative realist (think Pat Buchanan), ie, LESS involvement and MORE draw-down of overseas forces. In fact, Rumsfeld's primary assignment was to figure out how to realign our OCONUS forces so we wouldn't be committed so costily, heavily and indefinitely in Germany, Kosovo, Korea, et al., and restructure our military with more tech and fewer bodies. In further fact, Colin 'exit strategy Powell Doctrine' Powell was most certainly not signed on to advocate for overseas military interventions. That all changed on 9/11, when the pro-business president, surrounded by his father's conservative realist advisors, became a liberal champion. If Bush succumbed to the oft-vilified neo-cons, it was after, not before 9/11 - his track record bears that out.
Anyway, look up Thomas Barnett for the answers you seek. If you're a liberal, you won't be disappointed.
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