Full of Schmitt

When did I stop being the person I was on the internet and adopt the pound6 cover identity? Why? What caused it?

It was a brewing feeling, really — a bubbling rage fueled by the bold-faced lies and pollution of thought pervading the mainstream media and the government. But, for every bubbling cauldron there has to be a tipping point. And, as is befitting for indelible paradigm-shifting moments, it started in Dallas.  And it came from Professor Gary Schmitt, Ph.D.

His diatribe on why war is good for the soul shook mine with such anger that I could no longer stomach the hypocrisy and ignorance which paves the way for war and suffering; war and suffering celebrated under banners of smug, jingoistic self-righteous, narrow-minded piles of steaming monkey shit.

So, here you go, Gary. This one’s for you.

Has the Iraq War Made Us Safer?
by Gary Schmitt, Dallas Morning News, September 11, 2005

[http://newamericancentury.org/iraq-20050911.htm]

Are we as a nation safer for having invaded Iraq? Was the decision to remove Saddam from power after 9-11 a step forward in the war on terror, or not? The answer is yes.

Is the answer absolutely, yes? Of course not. Wars don’t work that way. Did the decision by the country to wage war on both Japan and Germany in the wake of Pearl Harbor make the U.S. safer at first? No. Even after critical successes at Midway, in North Africa and Italy, thousands of Americans still lost their lives. The war had to be won, and the cost was high precisely because our enemies knew it was going to be a fight to the death. And Americans understood that security could not be had in a piecemeal fashion given the nature of the enemies we faced.

Nice. Anchors away and into the wild blue yonder we go down the path of ‘the last good war’. Let’s draw parallels not to the historical facts of WWII, nor the realities of cause and effect, but to the Jimmy Stewart aw-shuckery of our rose-tinted, Hollywood-gilded memories of WWII. Why don’t you just throw in some apple pie and a race car for added value.

Welcome to the Museum of Turn of the Century History, everyone. If you look over there, you’ll see what is called, a Patent Hack-job Politician — A PHJP. Sadly, though, the stars and stripes camouflage effectively hid his hollowness from the vacant-eyed populace of the time. Let’s look at why.

Similarly, we should remember that the war on terror is not just about defeating terrorists. The larger meaning of 9-11 was the recognition that the mix of terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction with dictatorial regimes who gave them support, and who themselves had or were seeking such weapons, was potentially too dangerous a brew for the United States to take a reactive stance toward. As such, the war to be waged requires not only taking on the terrorists themselves, but also the states that give them support or, through their governance, are spawning new cadres of jihadists.

Oh, nice veneer of logic supported by run-on sentences slathering a sickly argument with razzle-dazzle buzzwords phrases like ’seeking weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘the larger meaning of 9-11′ and ‘new cadres of jihadists’ and ‘dictatorial regimes’. So, let’s break those four things down. Try not to cry foul too much, Gary.

• ‘Seeking weapons of mass destruction‘ — Scary! I mean, you’d think the WMD term had been so overused even a flaccid neocon like this would find something meatier to use. Like, I don’t know, maybe facts? Anyone behooved enough to take up arms against that which they define as an oppressor wants the biggest and best tools at their disposal. Raising alarms that a terrorist wants WMDs is like condemning the night since it’s always trying to make things dark. ‘Now is the time to act!’ with this as motive makes you wonder about the other 50 years and all those apparently warm and fuzzy terrorists who didn’t want WMDs. Those wishy-washy people of the JRA, PLFP, RAF, IRA, and all the other wankers prior to these Muslims must see the Arab terrorists and hang their head in shame.  If only they’d thought about trying to get a WMD!
• ‘The larger meaning of 9-11‘ — Let’s see, it was only 4 years later and already you’d discovered, in no uncertain terms, the larger meaning of 9-11? Well, jeez, who needs a crystal ball? Or years of observation to gauge the impact on politics, economics, sociology, and the Tinkertoy connection of international relations? Or, you know, facts? You heard it here, folks. Gary Schmitt knows the larger meaning of 9-11! Let us kneel and learn. Hell, I don’t even want to continue with sarcasm. That preposterous notion, filled with arrogance greater than the two towers could themselves have ever held is precisely enough reason for me to declare you a doddering dumbass. Or, in the vernacular of the times: EPIC FAIL.
• ‘New cadres of jihadists’ — Simply put, you make the vagaries of militant insurgence sound as simple as playing a game of fucking Starcraft. ‘If we could just take out the Spawning Pool we won’t have to deal with the Jihadlings!’ The word simpleton has too many syllables to make for a good label. You need something smaller like … clod.
• ‘Dictatorial regimes’ — we’ll get to that in a minute.

Moving on.

On that broad front, America’s record of success has been substantial, and we are the safer for it. Both the Taliban regime of Afghanistan and Saddam’s Baathist rule in Iraq are history.

Translation of that gimpy passage: Yay, we publicly labeled people as enemies, bombed the crap out of them, and removed them from power.  And this is a definition of success because, uh, we defined it as success when we started. Oh, but wait, he actually goes on to try and support a statement. Way to go, Gary!

Two of the most brutal regimes in recent times can no longer call us their prime enemy. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi turned over his entire nuclear weapons program, while Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan, once the world’s leading purveyor of illicit nuclear technology, is no longer in business.

Yeah. And the Gadhafi, your corroborating evidence of how the two are linked is … totally absent. Yeah, and Dr. Khan was never convicted after his arrest, recanted his statements, has become something of a celebrity and folk hero to Pakistan, was pardoned and conditionally released from house arrest, and is now … a columnist. You guys should do lunch. By the way, Dr. Khan’s removal from his allegedly (albeit probably true in certain ways) integral position in the proliferation chain has done little more than open up opportunities for other entities. Once again, you treat the symptom and not the disease and then want a pat on the back for all the good you’re doing. Well, here, you can have this plastic trophy I got you. You like the inscription? Best Agent of Ineffectual Change.

And while far from complete, the salve of political reform has begun to take hold in the region, with real elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, a dramatic reassertion of self-rule in Lebanon and even small but potentially significant changes taking place in the political systems of Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

So far so good, huh? That spirit of cooperation and great American-style Democracy should take root any day now, right? How about, now? Okay, maybe not then but … now? Oh, not going so well, huh? It’s almost like those people have five thousand years of their own culture which they may not be so wiling to give up for an extra can of soda pop and Gummy Bears. Who would have seen that coming?

Oh, and ’small but potentially significant changes’ essentially means your point is more hollow than a reality show contestant’s promise of truth. I mean, really, every single ratified agreement, signed charter, or political memo in every political system of any country of the world is a ’small but potentially significant change.’ Tell me, on our way to a Ph.D, did you skip the part where words were supposed to actually mean something?

For those who think that invading Iraq was a distraction, the question they have to answer is whether – with the exception of the progress made in Afghanistan – the record outlined above would have been conceivable absent removing Saddam and his henchmen from power. How power is used matters perhaps more in the Middle East than in any other region of the world.

Toppling Saddam wiped out a decade’s worth of pan-Muslim hubris about America’s weakness after the retreat from Somalia and, conversely, helped set the table for the progress that’s been made so far.

I don’t know how to begin here. Let me start with, you’re an ass and go from there.

‘The question they have to answer…”? Again, when you define a point of success and then engineer it so there is no refutable path to oppose this definition, it’s not real success.  This has gone past hollow-point and straight into 16-inch guns of bullshit. How can anyone prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that their way might have been better after we’ve already gone down the other way? Not everyone thinks arguing in hypotheticals (of which you seem rather fond) proves anything. All you are doing is repeating rhetoric. And you know who loves rhetoric? That’s right: ‘Dictatorial regimes.’ Why don’t you go shine that trophy I got you?

Moreover, the war in Iraq has not stopped us from reforming the CIA and the FBI to better enable them to wage the war on terror or, for that matter, disrupting al-Qaeda cells in South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Nor have the disagreements with key allies over Iraq prevented them from fighting alongside us in Afghanistan, sharing intelligence on terrorism, joining the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative and, increasingly, taking the lead in challenging Iran on its nuclear program.

Awesome, it didn’t stop good(-ish) things from happening, you say? Well there’ a fine reason to do something which involves the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Rock on, Schmitt.

Iraq was not some sideshow when it comes to the broader war on terror. The fact that no WMD stockpiles were found – and the occupation poorly executed at times – does not mean that it was the wrong war at the wrong time. As both David Kay and Charles Duelfer, the heads of the post-war inspection team concluded, Saddam Hussein was still committed to acquiring those weapons. He had had them in the past and the evidence indicates he wanted them again.

Yep. If we presume a man or a government wants to do something bad in the future we should kill the man and remove the government. Got it.

Complicating matters further was the judgment that, as Sandy Berger, President Clinton’s national security adviser, stated, a policy of containing Iraq was not “sustainable over the long run.” Given Saddam’s own ambitions, his history of creating confrontations and the fact that the international consensus supporting the tough sanctions regime against Iraq was crumbling, the real issue is not whether we should have gone to war with Iraq but rather at whose time of choosing would we do so – Saddam’s or ours.

It’s almost like he was a ready-made villain, huh? Like, when you order Sea Monkeys but instead of brine shrimp it’s a little egg that grows into Darth Vader. With a mustache. Man, how’d that guy get into power in the first place? that’s something I’d like to know. Oh, wait…

And, you know, it’s a damn shame he didn’t already do something like invade a neighboring country and then get booted out by the goodly nations of the world. If he’d have done that, he could’ve been deposed in the way we’ve deposed such leaders for pretty much all of human history. Then we wouldn’t have had further reason to be over there mucking around in a part of the world few in the West truly understand. Man, if only we’d have had that opportunity. I’m sure our leaders wouldn’t have wasted it. Oh, wait…

Nor was removing Saddam from power tangential to the war on terror more narrowly defined. Of course, Saddam’s Iraq had always been a home for and supporter of various terrorists, including a key participant in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. But what the mainstream media have largely ignored is the evidence of contacts and an evolving relationship between Osama bin Laden and Saddam in the 1990s.

I actually agree with you on the point about mainstream media. And I feel dirty for doing so. As for the rest, see prior discussion.

Focused on the narrow question of whether Saddam had any hand in the attacks of 9-11, they have ignored the reports coming from prisoner debriefs, uncovered internal Iraqi intelligence documents and, for that matter, declassified Clinton-era National Security Council memos pointing toward a budding “marriage of convenience” between Saddam and bin Laden. As Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of the 9-11 Commission, put it: “There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.”

There is also a relationship between al-Qaeda and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, and, the United States of America. You see, relationship is a broad term. The inference is clear, but as a supporting argument for your point, Gary, it’s gold. Looks great but it’s a soft metal. It won’t support anything of substance.

Indeed, given those growing ties, it’s no surprise that the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were free to travel to Iraq and set up shop there in the wake of al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Afghanistan.

By your logic, any known terrorist leader residing, hiding, or even reputedly visiting a nation is cause enough to start a war against them. How about trying to find a way to solve issues which don’t involve daisy cutters, Bradley fighting vehicles and collateral damage. Don’t you think it worth even exploring a … oh, you tuned out after I suggested a lack of warfare. Moving on.

And it is in Iraq – and not the U.S. – that the terrorists are now doing battle with us. If Iraq was a diversion, someone forgot to tell the jihadists whom we have killed or captured by the thousands there.

…because being there doesn’t induce more young Arab men to become militants ‘by the thousands’ nor paint a big red target on your soldiers so fighters can come from all over the Middle East ‘by the thousands’ to take a shot at some young Yankee. Your arguments leads us to intellectual places like an arrow bent into a pretzel. It is a Möbius strip of propagandist bile. “We’re there because they’re there because we’re there because…”

Whether it is a question of WMDs or support for terrorism, Saddam’s Iraq was a ticking time bomb, and we are safer for having gotten rid of him.

In fact, despite the very substantial difficulties we face today in Iraq, the question to be asked is not simply whether we are safer today for having removed Saddam Hussein from power, but just how safe would we have been in the future if we hadn’t?

And you close your argument with a hypothetical which does not address the damn question posed in your title: Has the War in Iraq Made us Safer? You answer with “just how safe would we have been in the future if we hadn’t?” Which is a rephrasing of your question! Just how safer would we have been in the future if we hadn’t invaded Iraq is precisely what’s being asked. What you’ve proven in your vainglorious answer is nothing more than the ability to chase your own tail until you feel satisfied you’ve proven your point. You’re like a little Goebbels brother.

You argue with little more veracity than, “Because I said so”. You raise points which have less weight than a helium balloon and don’t even seem to have a firm grasp of the English language. Yet you supposedly understand ‘the larger meaning of 9-11′, comprehend the sole cause of insurgency (bad men with nasty thoughts), and know how the future would have changed had actions been different. I tell you, the academe of the University of Dallas must be a well-kept secret.

And you cite yourself on the Project for the New American Century’s website (and I haven’t even begun to start on these thugnaughts, yet) as some sort of source of a credible argument for pursuing warfare in the Middle East when what you really are is incredibly deluded. And you have the gall to criticize the mainstream media for ignoring important issues? I’m sorry, but I can no longer hold my abject disdain for your outright ignorance of world affairs behind my thin veil of bemused sarcasm. I complain about the obfuscation of geopolitics with your facile arguments and verbose diction. So let me be clear and concise.

You’re an idiot.

However, you did do one good thing with your life, you psychologically tyrannical, neoconservative propagandist General of the socially dictatorial regime. You shook me out of my stupor. So, Gary Schmitt, I just want to thank you for making me me.

Love,

pound6.