April 08, 2005
Chickenhawks and Vultures
Thanks to Charles, we know that Pittsburgh IndyMedia will be meeting this weekend in Pittsburgh. Their topic is:
How can the U.S. be stopped? Lessons from the Vietnam warI found the concept of "stopping the U.S. slaughter" very interesting, as even if you agreed with the idea in theory at one time, the facts show that the supermajority of offensive actions killing civilians are being conducted by the insurgency, not by coalition forces.Mass protests, GI refusals and a powerful "insurgent" movement - the same things that led to the end of the war in Vietnam are what can stop the U.S. slaughter in Iraq today...
Saddam's conventional military forces have long since been defeated, and Saddam himself just watched a Kurd elected to his former position from his prison cell. The insurgency itself has failed prevent free elections, and it's recent behavior is far more criminal than revolutionary. By trying to "stop the U.S." by supporting a powerful insurgency, these "peace activists" actually advocate extending an insurgency that only currently exists as a terrorist and criminal force.
In other words, these "peace activists" are actually encouraging far more continued slaughter by supporting the insurgency.
I've accused liberals in the past of so blindly hating President Bush that they don't seem to care who gets hurt; these people hate our president, one man, so much that they would sell tens of millions down the river hoping to cause him to fail.
When you combine this blind hatred of Bush with the complete lack of any sort of changeover plan by the left, or even an acknowledgement of the fact that the immediate withdrawal they favor would plunge an fledgling democracy into chaos and potential civil war, then you see that IndyMedia and their far left supporters are long on rhetoric and hatred, and short on well-reasoned or even remotely strategic long term planning.
IndyMedia and other liberals are against George Bush beyond logical constraints. Their heated rhetoric and short-sighted ideologies shows that they don't care who dies, American soldier or Iraqi civilian, as long as they get their desired result of an diminished George W. Bush.
Liberals have taken to calling conservatives "chickenhawks."
In return, liberals have given us vultures.
Update: Donald Sensing happens to have a post up this morning about how the liberal's hoped for powerful insurgency is giving us lessons on how not to conduct guerrilla warfare (via Instapundit). Sensing in turn, points to must-read articles by Austin Bay, Bill Roggio and Wretchard.
On a separate but related note, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda is still widely viewed as a traitor by many Americans for supporting the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It will be very interesting to looks back to the present from 5, 10, or 20 years in the future at today's crop of pro-insurgency leftists and see if they earn an even more tainted legacy than Fonda for supporting an enemy who are fighting against the common dream of the Iraqi people.
Update 2: Allen at Cox & Forkum reminds me that they've covered this ground before.