Why the New York Times MOVEON ad was wrong: An Exegesis

MOVEON.org--I have a number of reasons to dislike Moveon--search this site, and you'll know why, as Eli Pariser is basically a creep who wants to be power-broker like Henry Kissinger or Josef Goebbels. Bluntly-put, he's a little man. Is the basic thrust of the ad wrong? Of course not, the war is a disaster and was never a worthy cause. It's equal to the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, a war of aggression, the highest crime there is. Here's an excerpt of the text of the ad:

Cooking the books for the White House(Click here for the thinking behind the ad) General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress“ in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” (Moveon.org)

The problem? General Petraeus is not a civilian leader--they control the military and give the ultimate orders, not the Joint Chiefs. The ad should have targeted Congress, and most especially, the White House, the president. Congress gave the president the ability to use aggression in late 2002, and the president has refused to draw-down troop deployments.

So have enough members of Congress that a redeployment is not going to happen unless there's a massive groundswell of the public calling for them to, by e-mailing them, writing them, and confronting them at their offices in the districts they claim to represent.

The onus is not on General Petraeus. Were he to disobey the orders of the president, he could be imprisoned or shot for treason. The former would be the most-likely outcome. Yes, he has the option of resigning as so many other Joint Chiefs of the high command have done. Many of them simply had the wisdom to resign or to retire before-or-during the conflict, and the general is just the one left holding the bag. If you're going to criticize General Petraeus, this is what you should be hitting him with: "Why didn't you resign rather than obey orders that are clearly illegal?" Yes, he does have the ability to challenge the legality of his orders, but we all know that that's an uphill battle he would lose with the current administration and Congress.

Merely having the public on your side is not enough, and making his the focus of the ad was poor judgement. No, the onus is not on General Petraeus--it's on all of us. WE allowed this political climate to fester and grow. WE are the oil-addicts. WE are the greedy. WE are lazy and apathetic complainers. WE have sat back silently and allowed this illegal war to happen. WE have no regard for our victims. WE aren't hitting-the-streets and engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, effectively shutting-down this war. WE are the fatalists who have said to ourselves, "Best to keep my head down, there's nothing I can do to stop this."And WE are the culture that made this mess because WE haven't been responsible, civically-active citizens. What the Moveon ad does is let the public off-the-hook, and that's its greatest sin.

If General Petraeus did what the public and Moveon claims we all want, it would amount to a coup, and that's the last thing that's going to fix the mess that America is in right now. It would only makes things worse...much worse. In short, while most Americans appear to be on the same page about the war, we're still just the same irresponsible creeps who helped create the proper climate for this catastrophe, and we're going to pay for it eventually. We deserve to based on our irresponsibility. George W. Bush is merely a symptom of a cultural and political malaise.

Blame: YOURSELF, CONGRESS, THE MEDIA, and GEORGE W. BUSH and his administration. Nonetheless, Moveon has every right to be wrong--it's part of the First Amendment, the right to free speech. I'm exercising that right at this moment. What are you doing? You might start exercising those rights before they're gone.By taking the approach of attacking the military, Moveon has played right into the hands of the GOP, but at least it got them some more donations (a short-term fix, traded for the long-term prospects for peace). The Senate passing their stupid measure isn't going to help Congress's approval ratings much but this whole debacle will surely prolong the war. Shame.

We all have to accept our share of the responsibility for this obscene war, it's high time.

Full Text of the Moveon ad with links: http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html

KARL ROVE ANNOUNCES HIS DECISION TO RESIGN

Washington D.C.--You can still be subpoenaed. Your kid is at college. You can still be pardoned, but the president had better save it for last.

You're a traitor, guilty of more crimes than Aaron Burr, or even Benedict Arnold--at least there was a smidgen of validity to their motives. We all know you're going to be running the RNC's campaign strategy for the 2008 elections. This is why we must watch your every move making your life extremely transparent.

The threat of prison will always be over your shoulder, it's coming...or is it? You'll never know, will you? Not until Federal Marshals come for you. Then, it'll be too late. It's funny how you Republicans use the same lame excuse when it's obvious you're about to be felled: "I need to spend time with my family."

Sure. You've been so attentive already. At least Joseph Goebbels had the common courtesy to kill himself.

Chimpy McFlightsuit (TM) almost speaks: "Iraq is straining the nation's psyche."

"These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists," stated the Chimp in Chief to the White House Press Stenographers. Does he really understand?

Just a few years ago, we were all told Bush never reads-newspapers, never watches the news, and even recently has stated he isn't affected by the polls. YET, he makes comments like the above, so it's clear that he has recently taken these factors into account.

Right, we know Cheney never watches any other news except on Fox(http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html ). He's really the President, after all, and who wants to watch bad news that relates to oneself? Anyway, Bush keeps insisting that if we leave, then a disaster will become a "disaster" and it "would provide a safe haven for terrorists and extremists and give them revenue from oil sales."

Oh, instead of oil revenues to our own terrorists at the White House and the oil-sectors of the "global economy". And what happened to that $9 Billion that simply vanished when Paul Bremer left Iraq?( http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/ And funny, no accountability whatsoever. Did it happen under Bill Clinton's watch? Of course, the right wishes they could blame it on him, but no-dice. The whole thing is just another resource war, and 2/3rd's of the American public aren't going-along anymore. They're too lazy to do anything, including going-along. The Preznent's angry, which is tough-shit, the people have spoken: "We're too lazy, and besides, American Idol is on." Sometimes, apathy is a double-edged sword. Soon, they'll probably be speaking-loudly when gasoline is $5-6 dollars-a-gallon, and their atrophied-buttocks can get some circulation.

Like Joseph Goebbels during Stalingrad, the neocons and their supporters think if they keep spinning, lying and obfuscating the truth, that reality will conform to their propaganda on the ground. History has never worked this way, and it never will.

Before the invasion: Iraq was not a haven for terrorists, though it became one once we invaded. It's also becoming a combat training-ground for terrorist groups, where it had never been one before. Having been created by the British as an artificical nationstate with artificial borders, Iraq has been a hodge-podge of rival ethnic-groups, and it really isn't worth-saving. There have been many experts in geopolitics who have said splitting the "failed nation" into three-parts is likely the best route for Middle Eastern stability. Ah, and then there is the influence of Iran in Iraq nowadays, something that was impossible under Saddam Hussein. I think it's time--we need to invade our own country, but how will we justify it? Who knows, but we'll find one.

Speaking of justifications, the last pillar of "Why we went into Iraq" fell last week--with no reaction in the press whatsoever. The Bush administration, and the State Department are thinking seriously of "alternatives to democracy", because they have finally realized that the hodge-podge was only governable with an iron-fist (almost there!). We created this mess and we cannot avert a Civil War once it has begun, and it began long ago. The bill is coming due, much of it from People's Republic of China. We could build a bunch of escape pods and do a collective dine-n'-dash, but that would be communist.

Eventually, they're going to want Taiwan in the package too. Oil might not be based on the US dollar anymore. While morons talk about antiwar activists and the Left "appeasing" (who? North Korea?) "Islamofascists" (an oxymoron for oxymorons), the reality on the ground is going to make it clear what is really going on. We illegally invaded Iraq, and we are being repelled by attrition like any imperial power. Just like France in Indochina, just like Great Britain in North America and just like Spain and America from Cuba. Bye-bye empire, the gambit failed. We'll be better off for it in the end. But then, I believe everything I see on CNN and Fox. Oh, and I'll have fries with that too.