Posted on 11/11/2008 2:21:12 PM PST by St. Louis Conservative
Bob Novak is the last of the Old School DC journalists, I always enjoyed his columns and Media appearances, and now he is heading for twilight.
Funny that Kystol and Rusher were both wrong about Iraq, Novak, the down to earth one, was right.
Still waiting for his miraculous recovery once his hit and run accident is settled.
Sadly, I agree with him about Reagan, and only Reagan, getting a passing grade. I’m not sure if Obama will be an improvement over Nixon but if he is I doubt it will be by much.
Having read the article, I can’t see where Novak learned anything.
President Nixon loved America.
“Funny that Kystol and Rusher were both wrong about Iraq, Novak, the down to earth one, was right.”
I’ll bite, why was the Iraq War bad.
Novak sat on the Armitage name for what, three years in the Valerie Plame case?
To send up Scooter Libby? Think of all the harm to the Administration that whole episode caused.
Sorry, no sympathy from this corner.
I dislike Bob Novak with an intensity that I can not rightly explain. Having said that, I found the article a very interesting read.
alright, I’ll take the bait:
Politcally speaking, what is good about the Dems taking over DC?
Your answering my question with a question?
How many conservatives were actually IN DC before the Dems took over? I don’t see much of a difference if the people with R’s after their name usher in the left’s agenda, while the left blames the right for doing it.
If the left is going to screw the country up, they should do it themselves and reap the full measure of contempt they will eventually deserve.
So, again, why was the Iraq war bad?
Because it was unneccessary for US national security, and because it was dishonestly sold to the American people by people who were lying and knew it.
Fully 1/3 of the federal judiciary posts are vacant, leaving them for Obamao to fill, the Dhims in Congress have already said the Iraq War is a “lost cause”, and the Obamao agrees with them.
If you cannot see the difference, then what is the discussion?
Let’s see how those with a “D” after their names handle the Iraq War, we will find out in about 70 days or so..
I consider myself very conservative and I was against the war at the very start. I personally thought that taking out Iraq while leaving Syria was begging for problems. My biggest objection was Bush not explaining the WOT more fully. After 911, Bush made quite a few speeches telling us that the extremist were out to change our way of life. He basically said that we would win if we lived our lives normally.
War demands sacrifice. He should have said this forcefully. He should have told us the truth that this war could go on for generations.
I knew this would eventually backfire once the cost got high enough. People don't remember the few times he talked about the cost but do remember his mission accomplished banner.
But the real reason I was against it was I thought we could not win it. Not that the military could not win, but our policy would screw it up. I knew it would engergize the left big time and end up doing our country harm.
Believe it or not, now I support the war (actually did once the invasion started). I think we could win it now (policy wise even), will see if the golden child screws the pooch on this by playing footsie with Assad.
You STILL haven’t explained why there wasn’t ample reason to go to war in Iraq given the situation in 2002 when we went. War’s aren’t popular. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fought.
Abe Lincoln wasn’t very popular with either side for the Civil War, and got his head blown off for his trouble, but it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t have been fought.
Any explanation is negated by the ballot box.
Reason with that fact of life, I’ve fought this one too many times before, now that we have proven that CINC Bush does not understand that politics is a part of war, will you jump on that train as well?
Thank you so much for the reply. That is the most reasoned and candid assessment I’ve seen on this so far.
I think, especially after Bush I leaving Hussein in power, that many of us felt, indeed, that it should be fought but we’d screw it up somehow.
Fact is, we don’t know what the cost of freedom is any more, because we take it for granted. It took about five seconds of Glasnost for Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to leave the Union and not look back. The Poles erected a monument to Reagan, and I suspect sometime in the future Iraq will too. I remember, before the invasion, seeing some Iraqis begging the president to bomb their own houses if the US had to, but to kill Saddam Hussein.
Set aside all of the nonsense of this election, and the most frightening piece of news I’ve seen in years is the report on Microsoft’s R&D office in China.
Economically, that news is an indicator that our ability to intervene globally to protect freedom is close to an end.
The Chinese own half of that R&D center, and have a position on all of the 1000s of patents MS has registered out of that facility. Part of that news was that Intel, HP, and others had theirs R&D facilities there too.
Our days of out-innovating our enemies is likely at an end, if US corporations are willing to put R&D facilities in China, rather than put them in just about any other country and hire Chinese scientists out of China instead.
Politics is NOT a part of war. War is an extension of politics, and always has been.
Bush failed because of the EXECUTION of the war, not because he waged it in the first place.
The margin for error in that regard has changed in an age of instantaneous communications.
By ALL measurements, this is the cleanest, cheapest, most effective major war ever fought in human history, with the fewest civilian casualties and refugees, the fewest battlefield deaths, the fewest casualties, the quickest achievement of primary battlefield objectives, etc.
The post-surrender administration of Iraq was a complete failure, until the US learned how to wage effective counter-insurgency. There was literally no book written on that topic, save some of the lessons learned from VietNam. The US adapted and eventually succeeded in countering the Syrian/Iranian/Russian/Chinese insurgency alliance through the surge. In the finest traditions of the US military, they taught themselves how to do it, and now we teach others in how to do it.
Lord knows the Russians screwed that up in Afghanistan in the eighties.
Bush relearned one of the most important lessons each civilization learns - war is something that continues until one side utterly capitulates. Until you reach that point, you wage it with everything you have.
Strategically, Iraq isolates Syria and Iran, and establishes a non-Jewish base of operations in that theatre.
Afghanistan is a monkey trap, literally, by comparison. There’s no sea access to it, and resupply by air has to occur over Georgian airspace. This is why the Russians backed the N. Ossetian revolt, even though they have a similar issue with separatism in Chechnya.
Putin is waiting for Hussein to commit a bunch of troops and materiel to Afghanistan, at which time he’ll cut off Georgian airspace to NATO/US aircraft, and then its all over but the shouting. So far, nobody is batting an eyelash at the fact that the Russians have moved nuclear bombers and surface ships into South America, expanded their claim to the Arctic seabed and waters, established forward strategic missile bases near Poland, and invaded Georgia knowing full well the US virtually turned Georgia into a 51st State.
We are, and continue to be, at war. This is a war we did not invite. We went to war WELL before 9/11/2001, but that was the catalyzing event for invasion. From the beginning, both the Russians and Chinese have been involved, and continue to be involved. Iran has no reactor, and no nuclear centerfuges without the Russians and Chinese direct involvement.
Now we learn Obama’s people met with Hamas BEFORE the election.
You want to blame Bush for something? Ineffective execution of the ground and intelligence aspects of this conflict, which continues apace. As of last Tuesday, we simply lost a great big battle.
Globalization Szechuan style!!!
You’ve pretty muched nailed it, actually. This whole UK/Gore/Kyoto call for a new global economic ‘perestroika’ cum environmental revolution is unilateral. The Chinese and Russians back this only to the extent that they want us to sign up for this, at which point they intend to renege on the deal and do what they want. Both countries have a single digit percent track record of keeping treaties and protocols.
The totalitarian regimes (you can’t call them communists, since neither think planned economies work) are happy to assist us in signing over sovereignty to some Belgian-based global authority on economics and environmental science.
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