A Fisking 

Instapundit linked to an article entitled How to End the Iraq War. Well, all I can say is that it deserves a good fisking. As I haven't seen anyone else pick up the torch on this, I guess I will have to. I suppose the reason nobody has, is that it is so ludicrous as to not deserve the time. But since it's a Sunday night and I don't have anything better to do...

Once the election was over, the Bush administration turned Falluja into a slaughterhouse - even as the Democrats remained silent and thousands of activists seemed frozen in mourning or internal discussions of what went wrong.

Turned Fallujah into a slaughterhouse? Fallujah was already a slaughterhouse and we went in and cleaned it up. The terrorists that were embedded there were killing hundreds and terrorizing the entire city, using it as a base of operations for their kidnappings and murder plots. The terrorists turned it into a slaughterhouse, not our troops.

There is a lesson here for progressives. Since the anti-war sentiment was a factor of public opinion during the presidential race that made Bush defer tough decisions, the movement needs to create an even greater force of opposition that will become indigestible, a kind of gallstone in the stomach of power.

If this seems unlikely, one must remember that the war-makers are feverishly trying to manipulate the perceptions of restive Americans. They fear the multitudes. That is why reporters were embedded at the beginning. That is why the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue on April 9, 2003 was "stage-managed" by the U.S. Army, according to the L.A. Times.

Reporters were embedded at the beginning because war-markers were trying to manipulate the populace? Ask any of the war-makers and they'll tell you that they would rather have not had those reporters embedded. After all, it's a lot easer to manipulate public opinion if networks news organizations don't have live feeds showing exactly what's going on. I would think that if what was going on is so obviously terrible to you, then you would jump at having embedded reporters showing the gruesomeness of war, not claim that they are a tool of manipulation for the right. The mainstream media as a tool for the right... is anyone else laughing their ass off at that suggestion?

Even the most recent battle of Fallujah was about "the American military intend[ing] to fight its own information war," as the New York Times observed. According to another Times article, the Fallujah hospital was shut down on the first day of the operation because our Army considered it a "source of rumors about heavy casualties." A senior military official called the hospital "a center of propaganda" as scores of patients were being treated.

It couldn't actually be that the hospital was secured because terrorists were using it as a base of operations, storing weapons there, and fighting in the hospital could it? No, that can't be. Terrorists would never break the Geneva Conventions that way.

While it is theoretically possible (and in my view, desirable) that the January election might bring to power a Shiite-led coalition that would ask the U.S. to withdraw troops, that is hardly the intent. The U.S. still plans to permanently remake a new Iraq, plans that include American military bases, a privatized market economy, ready access to oil, a prime target for Western and, especially Christian, proselytizing in the region. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. is already flooding Iraq with satellite dishes and televisions while privatizing its 200 state-owned companies: "Bremer discussed the need to privatize government with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold."

Only a liberal would make the assumption that a privatized market economy is automatically bad. You guys still can't get over how communism failed can you? Why is the privitization of 200 state owned companies defacto evil? Isn't putting companies in the control of private Iraqi's, so they get the benefit (and not Saddam), a good thing? And how is flooding Iraq with satellite dishes and televisions bad? Isn't providing the people with a means of getting information good? Unless they are special hard wired satellite dishes that can't receive Al-Jazeera, I'd assume they can turn on anything they choose, including anti-American news stations. I suppose you don't like the U.S. Freedom of Information Act either.

The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose "conditions" for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding. If only 75 members of Congress go on record against any further funding, that's a step in the right direction – towards the exit.

Brilliant. Cut off our troops and make sure they die faster and more horrifically. You're all about the ends without a damn care in the world about the means aren't you?

The movement will need to start opening another underground railroad to havens in Canada for those who refuse to serve, but for now even the most moderate grievances should be supported - for example, relief from the "back door draft" that is created by extending tours of duty.

Is this the same underground railroad that is helping to smuggle disenfranchised liberals and Hollywood elites to Canada? I'm just curious.

Five, we need to defeat the U.S. strategy of "Iraqization." "Clearly, it's better for us if they're in the front-line," Paul Wolfowitz explained last February. This cynical strategy is based on putting an Iraqi "face" on the U.S. occupation in order to reduce the number of American casualties, neutralize opposition in other Arab countries, and slowly legitimize the puppet regime. In truth, it means changing the color of the body count.

So not only do you want American troops out of there, you want to make sure that Iraqi's can't run their own country too. If your plan is successful, who do you plan to have back in charge of Iraq? Maybe we should just release Saddam while we're at it, apologize, give him a couple nukes and be done with it. I'm sure that without a police force or Iraqi army, that no terrorists will set up camp. I'm sure there's no possibility of civil war then. I'm sure it will be a beautiful utopia overnight if only all of the Iraqi security personel and American army were gone.

With Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggesting that the Iraq policy is illegal, the Bush administration faces the danger of being frozen out of international diplomacy. At some point, the administration will painfully find that it cannot impose its will on everyone on the planet.

This is the same Kofi Annan whose staff held a vote of no-confidence against him, and is deeply tied to the Oil For Food Scandal right? This is who you're pinning your hopes on? Good luck with that.

I'm glad that you have reflected over what happened when Kerry lost the election, and decided to channel your energy into making the world a better place. Keep this sort of discussion up, and I don't think there will be another Democratic president for a long time.