"O, Heinous, Strong, and Bold Conspiracy!”

National Review Online (non-Girly Man Section) ^ | October 30, 2002, 9:00 a.m. | Andrew Breitbart

[Doctor Raoul]

Call the Right wrongheaded. Work against us with all your might, if you disagree. But at least make the debate an honest one. And the only way to do that is to vote out of office the current crop of Democrat conspiracy theorists and their apparatchik enablers.

I'm rooting for the honest Democrats too.

[He Rides A White Horse]

.....is somehow the point man in a complicated global scheme of mass killing, hatched in the secrecy of the bought-and-paid-for corridors of Washington power so that a few Texas oilmen can lay claim to the Iraqi pumps?

Whatever. More class warfare strategizing from the party of discontentment, the Democrats. A group of people who hang their political fortunes on how much they can damage America.

[Ciexyz]

I remember seeing Barbra Streisand's movies "Funny Girl", "The Way We Were", and "Yentl" when they came out. And buying her albums. I thought I was supporting a major talent. But Barbra, once she had our money, turned on us. On part of us, anyway. She denigrates the intelligence of conservatives. She's rich as sin now, so she doesn't need us. Go figure!

[Billthedrill]

I held my nose and read Vidal's article. The guy has completely lost his grip on reality. I don't say that rhetorically, either, I have serious reservations about his sanity. We're all used to a little intellectual drama from the left side of the aisle; this was nothing like that, this was rubber room material: no-kidding, frothing-at-the-mouth, carpet-chewing, I'm-Napoleon straitjacket kookery the likes of which isn't normally seen outside a funny farm.

[He Rides A White Horse]

The Iranian hostages are freed by prearrangement between Reagan and the AyatollahYeah right. The arrangement was "Free the hostages, I'm not Jimmy Carter, if you don't I'll bomb you. Call it the 'November Surprise".

[David]

" He is a classic high-I.Q. ideologue . . . . "

With all due respect, I do not view Gore Vidal, nor Hilly and Billy from the Ozarks as particularly high-I.Q. types, ideologues though all three may be.

I have spent my career dealing with similiar left wing ideologues from expensive high tone eastern colleges and have usually found, like these three, than when you scratch the intellectual underpinings of their academic record, you find that the skids have been greased by similar more senior left wing ideologues (like Senator Fulbright etc.) that enabled the junior generation to enhance their academic resume even though their personal intellectual qualifications were mediocre.

Bill Bradley admited that his access to a Rhodes scholarship and to Princeton University was enabled even though he did not have the intellectual credentials to have been awarded or admited on merit in either case.

Simple reason why none of these people will enter into a straightforward debate on significant issues of economic and political politics--none of them are smart enough to frame the issues. Same reason you find these left wing groups on campus exercising picketing and other boycott efforts to keep Ann Coulter and others off campus and out of the political discourse. Reason why Harvard student liberals burn weekly's with written material they don't like. The liberals don't have enough IQ to meet any of these issues head on.

They are not smart at all, they are dumb.

[gcruse]

 B) the war was not about the liberation of
Kuwait, nor about ridding the region of a menace
predisposed to taking on further regional conquests
— it was about oil, pure and simple.

Well, if it was about 'ridding the region' it
was a colossal flop.  If not oil, what?
Our innate love of Kuwait?

[He Rides A White Horse]

If not oil, what? Our innate love of Kuwait?

It doesn't boil down to an emotionally appealing, simplistic idea such as 'oil'............and I think you know that.

[gcruse]

Oil was at base. If the region was not an oil producing
one do you really think the Gulf War would have happened?

[He Rides A White Horse]

Saddam is a world class sicko, gcruse, you know that as well as anybody.

"Mr Babylonian King" has grandiose ideas about himself, and it manifests itself time and time again. Yeah, he wants become self appointed tap master of the world's oil supply.

[gcruse]

So the Gulf War was to protect the oil supply upon which
Japan and other nations depend. It was about the oil.

[He Rides A White Horse]

Iraq is not much different from the other 'monarchies' in the Middle East.......they think they will stoke this anti-American hatred to 'solidify' their base. They know full well what the results might be (September 11); yet so-called 'friendly' governments capitalize on harnessing and fueling that type of jihadistic thinking to stay in power.

We're really sorry that 3000 people died. It got a little out of hand. Want some more oil?

I think Iraq needs to be invaded. "Poison Gas" boy can be sent to the trashcan of history, and anybody who thinks like him, or foments such nonsense (Hi Saud) can think about the consequences.

[He Rides A White Horse]

Do you want to send file, "Saddam", to the Recycle Bin.

Yes.

File "Saddam", cannot be restored if you press delete from here. Are you sure you want to do this?

Click.

[gcruse]

Recycle? Nah. Wipeout. :)

[He Rides A White Horse]

People who pull the wings off of flies become one of two things---- doctors, or President of Iraq.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I suspect file "Saddam" has a nasty virus in it. (laughing)

[AntiGuv]

Well, I for one still recall news blurbs regarding the potential of an Iraqi conflict with Kuwait in the weeks leading up to the invasion - which included statements that the U.S. would not intervene. I know that's long since vanished down the general memory hole, but I remember them plain as day in some of the relatively obscure military/foreign affairs mags I used to read back then (there was even some passing mention in the USA Today). Don't make any big difference now, but I'll not ever doubt that Saddam was either intentionally goaded or accidentally misled into thinking he had the green light.

Why? If purposeful, I'd guess to get U.S. installations moved into the region. In my recollection, the big concern back then was a potential cross-Gulf Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, and/or the U.A.E. That probably had the biggest role and they probably expected Saddam to have been long since overthrown by now. Over the past decade, I've seen articles discussing how #41's admin was surprised Saddam didn't fold in the face of imminent retaliation by the coalition forces. I think they expected to make a bold move on the geostrategic chessboard (remember, also, the Soviet Union was still a running concern in those days) without actually having to fire a shot.

Fortunately, everything turned out well for America regardless (well, unless hindsight leads one to somehow conclude that 9/11 wouldn't have happened without Gulf War I).

[gcruse]

Thanks for a thought provoking post.

[He Rides A White Horse]

It's not as simplistic as "Oil" is what I'm trying to say; US vs Iraq isn't as simple as Texaco vs the Common Class.....and what annoys me in some analogies found in the liberal press is a propensity to explain everything (I'm know I'm preaching to the choir) in some context of "Rich, cigar smoking types vs everybody else"

It's lame, it's weak, but unfortunately effective. Have's and Have Nots, and too many people are in the Have Not Category.

......although the sharpest sword against this sort of thing is American innovation, and traditional capitalistic values.

Not Enron, and that sort of thing, but the classic American ideal of capitalism tempered by our innate sense of good judgement.