Wardell at one time believed that the internet was the alternative toward mainstream commentators and columnists who were not satisfactory to his way of thinking. Now he claims it is “destroying the civility of political discourse.” Only he and his small circle of friends have “ views based on a set of honest, well thought-out principles.” I wonder if his mention of internet includes JoeUser bloggers that are not suitable to his high criteria for civility and debates, which he has relegated to the Dean Scream. Notwithstanding his admission that the damage stems from both Right and Left, he proceeds to dismiss the Right as simply “kooks” but harmless, whereas the “kooks” on the Left are tend to join the ranks of “mainstream Democrats.”
He reasons that most people are not partisan and are rational assessors open to both views, nonetheless, finds the Left views “unreasonable” and therefore the “non-partisan” agrees with the Right as a “more valid point of view.” This is known as the O’Reilly approach: fill them with kindness, then destroy them. By referring to strawman Al Franken, who is, after all, a comedian primarily, Wardell highlights his attack with “Bush Lied,” and defends the president for being honestly misled by Intelligence as indeed were Democrats, French and Germans and then proceeds to accuse the Democrats via Franken of calling an honest mistake a lie. None of the candidates have accused the president of lying but rather of deception and a program of disinformation on WMD and al Qaeda linkage to move the nation toward war, which, if I may be so bold, seems to be an intellectually honest appraisal.
In spite of is, being is, Wardell fudges the facts by stating that the soul of America — “joe-six-packs” — is indifferent to the professed reason for going to war; since 9/11 these average folks, too, predicated their animal instincts, not unlike Cheney and Rumsfeld, that Saddam had to go! Oh, really? I’m sure the GI’s over there would disagree. He infers that “the average American doesn’t really care very much whether WMD are even found.” Suddenly his chop-logic infers that the Americans will figure out the intellectual dishonesty from the Left who have contempt — “subconscious” or otherwise — for the average person, implying evidently that the Left consists only of priggish elites, who ignore that Clinton was in all intents and purposes a worse war-monger by being all over the lot in his military ventures.
What is worse, Wardell continues his assault on sanity by blowing off the intent of the Kosovo war on genocide as small potatoes compared to Saddam’s. His screaming logic prohibits him from perceiving the real intent of Kosovo intervention which was to stop the mass expulsion of Kosovars from their homeland. The mass graves were secondary and in no way did the media over expose the genocide — though immediate and recent — as much as they covered the genocide in Iraq, which admittedly was far worse, yet not as dramatic since these graves were over a period of thirty years of terror, which the world already knew about, including the United States.
Granted regime change in Iraq had been the policy of the US during Clinton’s term, but escalating in terms of boots on the ground did not equate with the war already in progress by containment — sanctions and no-fly zones. It was a well-known fact that over 90% of WMD had been destroyed by the inspection teams, but no one wanted to hear that, especially the current administration and even Clinton himself feared a weapons build up because he wrongly let Hussein throw out the inspectors after an intensive bomb attack.
I give enormous credit to Bush for lighting a fire under the UN to reinstate the inspection team, but am confounded by his impetuous action to ignore the findings of the inspection in progress, and his manipulation of the public by capitalizing on its 9/11 fears, without which he never would have invaded. Bush deliberately turned those fears and the flag-waving into jingoism to suit the original intent of his cabinet to get rid of Saddam at any cost.
As for Wardell’s argument concerning the lengthy Hague trial of Milosevic in contrast to Saddam’s encroaching trial, he tries to equate the two. Nothing could be further from the truth. Milosevic was tossed out on his ear by his own people as a war criminal in many provinces, not just their homeland. Saddam is a prisoner of war and, as in Nuernberg, sentenced by us, or turned over to the Iraqis for trial and obviously resulting in the death penalty called for by the Shi`a. Moreover, Wardell’s untiring comparison of Milosevic and Saddam is like comparing Stalin and Hitler as to who killed more innocents. The fact is, both were devastating terrorists and nitpicking does not serve the argument. Moreover, Wardell fails to mention the maniacal — and still at large — Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, who allegedly killed 200,000, mostly Muslims, for which I hold NATO, Clark and Clinton responsible for failing to hunt him down. It is Karadzic, not Milosevic of Serbia who is still held in high regard by the Serbs in Bosnia.
In addition Wardell’s diatribe on the Clinton “lies” concerning Kosovo was not criticized from the Right or the Left. I seem to recall the criticism from the Right was that Clinton engaged in this to distract the nation from the impeachment. Furthermore, there were critics from both sides of the aisle, including Gen. Clark, that wanted troops on the ground. As for its not being backed by the UN, the NATO backing surely gave the war on Kosovo legitimacy. Currently there are no cries about bringing the troops home from Bosnia and Kosovo: the skeletal US input to SFOR’s peace-keeping can hardly be compared to 130,000 troops in Iraq.
Yet what’s done is done. The Iraqi war whether popular or not is a fact, and the emphasis must be on ending it either through UN and NATO participation or early elections. The final outcome will be left to the Iraqis and unfortunately complete Shiite rule — quasi-democratization, notwithstanding.
Wardell cools down in his conclusion by granting the “left has a lot of very principled positions” that are ignored by on-line arguments from leftists — and I trust by rightists.
Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: January 28, 2004.