RESPONSES TO “I TOLD YOU SO” A goodly number of readers,
those over there to your left, were vitriolic about my terming their
favorite pundits “Buffoon” and “Dowdy”. Prove
it some said. Okay. As Casey Stengel used to say: “You could
look it up.” R. W. APPLE: THE NEW YORK TIMES; 03-30-03 In cranking up their war plan with expurgated intelligence, the hawks left the ground troops exposed and insufficiently briefed on the fedayeen. Ideology should not shape facts when lives are at stake. MAUREEN DOWD: THE NEW YORK TIMES; 03-30-03 The first war plan has failed. PETER ARNETT: Iraq TV; 03-30-03 This invasion of Iraq, if it goes off, will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe. CHRIS MATTHEWS: SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE; 08-25-02 [W]e could take, bluntly, a couple to 3,000 casualties. BARRY McCAFFREY: BBC’s NEWSNIGHT; 03-24-03 We’re embroiled in a conflict that looks like a bad remake of Vietnam. ELEANOR CLIFT: NEWSWEEK THE PRIVILEGED FEW There is an almost endless supply of this type of drivel. My objection to this exercise of the 1st Amendment is that these same people have the privilege of being wrong without any penalty. Remember the fellow who was pilloried because he spelled potato as “potatoe”? They are granted the privilege but none of the right is. (Yes “is”.) Here’s another privilege granted the losing left. President Bush is criticized for making war in the name of a humanitarian cause but without the sacred sanction of the United Nations. But Clinton could do that in Kosovo. And Clinton did it without the approval of Congress. Did you hear any complaints from the left? No, you did not. The left has been wrong about new terrorist actions around the world; wrong about massive civilian casualties; wrong about the Republican Guard; wrong about the Arab “street”; wrong about the reaction of Iraqi citizens; wrong about all the “quagmire” warnings; wrong about American resolve and surely wrong about President Bush. They are wrong about Bush because they expect politicians to lie in public. The President confounds them because he tells the truth. What a novel concept in a president. What does that tell you? It tells me that the anti-war crowd is anti-Bush; anti-conservative; that it is not anti-war. The left cares solely for power so that it then has the capacity to meddle in and micro-manage other people’s lives. That is the hallmark of tyranny; it is specifically not liberal. CNN By now everyone has heard about CNN’s bribing Hussein’s thugs in return for “access” in Iraq and permission to be there in the first instance. If ever a man should be fired summarily it is CNN’s “news” division president and everyone else who knew and who failed to blow the whistle. Why would anyone watch CNN while these frauds are still in place? This conduct must be in place elsewhere: Cuba perhaps? Castro is the left’s favorite dictator. THE GENERALS OF RUSSIA, NORTH KOREA AND CHINA I would imagine
that the aforementioned military men are those most in shock and awe
of what they have witnessed in Iraq. They have heard about American
power and technology from their spies and sources. But seeing it on
display, seeing that it actually works in the real world and watching
a country conquered in less than a month while concurrently exercising
never before seen caution NOT to destroy the infrastructure or inflict
civilian casualties must have a totally humbling effect on them and
their governments. Good. Stay that way. It is clear that North Korea’s
sudden change in its negotiating posture results directly from the
Iraq exhibition. All those poseurs (I know it’s French) |