Antiwar.com Blog

William F. Buckley sez we can’t leave Iraq just yet because:

1) The old concern that Shiites and Sunnis would fire up sectarian hostility to dismember the state is taking a back seat to the concern that they are forgetting their differences in order to fight jointly — for the expulsion of the American military.

2) Our program to train an Iraqi peacekeeping constabulary is in disarray. Many Iraqis trained and pressed into duty fled from the onrush of dissenters and terrorists, in some cases joining with them. There were reports of trucks and cars designated as equipment for Iraqi police which, in the pell-mell of midweek, were turned over to, or taken by, the terrorists for use in their anti-American war.

3) Sentiment in neighboring Arab countries that could be said to have been tolerant of the U.S. enterprise seems markedly to have turned. This is in part because our friendship in this quarter is the friendship of summer soldiers. But in part also because some Arab observers have concluded that the U.S. is not going to pull off the grand enterprise we took on. Some phrase their criticisms with no attempt to conceal their contempt. “Thank God that the American administration is too stupid to win the Iraqis over,” one Islamist lawyer in Cairo reported to The New York Times. “On the contrary, they create feelings of frustration and commit more mistakes, leading more Iraqis to rise against them.”

That manila folder labeled Things They Should Have Thought of Before Invading has long since burst from overstuffing. Who would have guessed that Iraqis might reject occupation on both religious and nationalist grounds? That creating and maintaining a collaborationist police/military force might be a tad difficult? That even the neighboring Arabs who weren’t furious about the invasion might turn on an unsuccessful occupation? Who woulda thunk all that?

Contra Jim Henley, I consider it not only acceptable but imperative to point out that the warmongers were wrong and we were right, because, like all good bureaucrats, they’re not going to stop at one failure. Since the American attention span is shorter than the childhood of a fruit fly, we had better take full advantage of this moment to emphasize just how wrong the warmongers have been.

A painful visual mosaic of our “War President,” courtesy of Joe at American Leftist who explains:

Given this image’s inflammatory nature, I posted it with a great deal of trepidation. I had a hard time deciding if it was the right thing to do and I am still not sure. No, I didn’t have the consent of the families of those pictured, and I apologize for any additional pain that this image causes them. That said, I must say that it is my belief that one distinguishing characteristic between art and other forms of speech is that art takes risks, and if we, as a society, value art we must allow it more leeway than other modes of expression to incite or offend.

‘War President’ is meant to be a satirical commentary, informed by the whole project of using the dead as political props. I’m not making a dime off the image, and never will attempt to do so. Given this lack of financial or other crass motives, other recent instances of the politicization of the dead strike me as more morally questionable: the coffins of the victims of 9/11 showing up in a political advertisement, the continued suppression of images of the funerals of those lost in Iraq from the mainstream American media, and images of the 9/11 disaster in a campaign ad. A certain party stands to benefit greatly from all three of those instances of politicization.

I’d also like to point out that ‘War President’ is an image. It is not a textual statement or rhetorical argument. An image is like an empty room and any message that one reads in that room necessarily came in the baggage one carried when one walked in the door. If I made a mosaic of George Washington composed of images of the American dead from the revolution, would viewers likely take that image as an indictment of Washington? I submit that they would not. It would be viewed as a monument to the dead and a celebration of a great leader, a somewhat maudlin monument maybe but surely not offensive. The fact that ‘War President’ is not viewed such a manner is not due to any intrinsic property of ‘War President’ but lies somewhere else.

I’m getting a lot of requests about usage rights etc. Use ‘War President’ however you want, but don’t use it for monetary benefit, and please don’t alter or modify it.

“WAR PRESIDENT,” view Image Here

Funny stuff from that notorious antimilitary rag the Marine Corps Times:

An Islamic civil liberties group has called for a Pentagon investigation into an apparent gag photograph of a Marine in Iraq taken during the last year.

In the photo, a smiling Lance Cpl. Ted J. Boudreaux Jr. is standing next to two Iraqi boys. All three have their thumbs up as one of the boys holds a cardboard sign that reads “Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, th[en] he knocked up my sister!”

I guess you have to see the photo* to grasp the full hilarity of the situation. Ha ha! Dumb savages–they can’t even read English!

*Is it a fake? Even the warbots who originally screamed “Photoshop!” now concede that it’s probably real.

Littlegreenfootballs posters or late German Fascists?

I was inspired to build this quiz when I noticed that comments on Littlegreenfootballs.com (a popular warblog) tended to be indistinguishable in tone and content from the writings of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and the other architects of the “final solution.”

Always indistinguishable? Well, maybe not – but close enough and often enough to be pretty disturbing. Yes, the quotes I’ve used here are all “cherry-picked” – from LGF and the Nazis both – but since the webmaster patrols LGF pretty thoroughly it’s fair to say that his site is as defined by what he allows (e.g., calls to “sterilize” the “subhuman” Palestinians) as it is by what he doesn’t (e.g., criticisms of Israel or George W).

Take the Quiz

Via Atrios

This morning’s announcement by the Pentagon brought the total killed in the last twelve days to 76 US soldiers, including 26 killed in the last three days.

CNN posted this story this morning, but moved this important part of the story down to the bottom, giving new top billing to the seven Halliburton employees missing in Iraq.

Here is the key part of the story (now at the end of the posted story.

Record death toll in April
New U.S. military figures released Monday showed April to be the deadliest month ever for American soldiers engaging in hostile action in Iraq since the war began a year ago.

At least 76 American troops have died in hostile action this month in Iraq, according to the U.S. military.

More U.S. troops died in November — 81 — but 12 of those were in non-hostile incidents.

In the past three days, 26 of the 76 troops died, the military said Monday.

Those deaths include three Marines who were killed in fighting west of Baghdad on Sunday, according to the Coalition Public Information Center.

The Marines, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, died Sunday during “security and stability operations” in Al Anbar province, CPIC said. Two of the Marines were killed in action, while the third died of his wounds later in the day, according to Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

“With regards to why the Marines are there, it’s because they fought for those, they bled for those and in some cases they died for those positions,” Kimmitt said. “And they don’t give up ground that easy.”

Al Anbar province includes Fallujah, the site of fierce battles between American forces and Iraqi insurgents. Top coalition officials are working to achieve a lasting cease-fire with the insurgents.

Also Sunday, two crew members of an Apache attack helicopter died when they were shot down by surface-to-air missile fire west of Baghdad International Airport, senior coalition military officials said.

Thirteen of the 23 dead American soldiers were killed Friday, the coalition said. Four servicemen died Saturday and another nine died Sunday, the U.S. military said.

The deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom to 674 — 480 hostile and 194 non-hostile, according to the U.S. military.

President Bush spoke to reporters Sunday at Fort Hood, Texas, where he spent part of the Easter holiday visiting troops.

“I know what we’re doing in Iraq is right,” Bush said.

“It was a tough week last week, and my prayers and thoughts are with those who pay the ultimate price for our security,” the president said.

Raed Jarrar posted a bizarre Kimmitt (the Iraqis have started to call him Kimmitt the Frog)quote.

The shadows of the unpleasant events of Falluja will affect the image of the American Army in Iraq… it will only increasing the anger of Iraqis, and help more extremist right winged leaders dominate the political mood.

For God’s sake, didn’t anyone think of starting a survey to attempt to predict what this war might cause from a socio-cultural perspective? A survey to compare the anger and hatred of both Arabs’ and Americans’ “regular Joes” before and after the war of Iraq??

Don’t you believe that the war on terror must start with fixing the deep roots of the problem?? The real reasons that cause horrible incidents like what happened on the 11th of Sept…. the reasons that rationalize the plans of people full of hate going all the way to kill themselves with other thousands of American civilians?

Well… Kimmitt the frog has an interesting theory…
Today, he asked Iraqis to simply “CHANGE THE TV CHANNEL”…
What the!!!!!! I mean… he was answering a question from an Iraqi journalist, about how to enhance the image of the American Army, after Iraqis saw hundreds of civilians being killed in Falluja on the Arabic TV channels…
He said that twice! I swear to god! “Change the Channel”!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Well, he really did say it. I googled it up.

Coalition spokesmen Sunday were unwilling, however, to admit to widespread civilian casualties and said U.S. forces had acted in self-defense. Kimmitt noted that the bombing of a wall surrounding a mosque last week, killing a reported 45 people, was necessary because insurgents were using the mosque to attack coalition forces.

He blamed Arabic language newscasts for distorting events.

“My solution is change the channel,” Kimmitt said in response to a question from an Iraqi journalist. “Change the channel to a legitimate, authoritative, honest news station. The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children, are not legitimate news sources, that is propaganda and that is lies, so you want a solution, change the channel.”

So, if the TV tells you something different from what Prince Kermit says, change the channel until you find one that isn’t distorting everything!. And anyone showing you live images of Americans killing children and women is a liar! When you see this live on your TV remember that the TV is lying!

As Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of U.S. military operations in Iraq, was speaking by phone on al-Jazeera and insisting that American forces declared a unilateral ceasefire in Fallujah, the channel was airing live images of continued air raids by F16 fighter jets on residential neighborhoods of the town.

Kimmitt later dismissed the coverage of the channel for the crisis as a “series of lies”. However, asked by al-Jazeera anchor about the live images, the U.S. commander said he was not accusing al-Jazeera of faking the images, but rather “looked at things differently”.

He said the attacks by F16 fighter jets and helicopters were meant to take out “armed insurgents firing at our troops”. The anchor reminded Kimmitt, however, that “live coverage showed children and women killed by the missiles, not armed insurgents”.

Damn those al Jazeera pests! They were making Kermit sound as demented as Bagdad Bob!

What’s a frog to do? And if you say this is anything but a big fat al-Jazeera lie, you’re an unpatriotic terrorist antiamerican commie traitor! You wish Saddam was in power with his people shredder! You hate freedom and you should change the channel!