Monday, December 11th, 2006...7:30 am
ISG Opponents Find New Ally
Many of us have seen and read the statements from various members of the right-wing communitariat condemning the Iraq Study Group report and calling its members, who include such well known flower-power lefties as Alan Simpson and Edwin Meese, “surrender monkeys” and deriding their recommendations as “cut and run.”
Well, ISG skeptics may be comforted by some suprising words of support:
This report doesn’t meet our needs, because it was written by people from outside, people who live in a normal environment, not this environment.
Hmm. Who said that? One of our generals? Maybe a freedom loving Iraqi leader?
Nope…it was from a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr.
(I didn’t mess up the quote this time, you can find it here.)
So, for the last few years, war opponents, heck, anyone that opposed even the tiniest part of administration policy, was compared to Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein. How do the “stay the course” talkmeisters like being lumped in with al-Sadr?
4 Comments
December 11th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
What is significant about the quote from Abu Mojtaba, spokesman for the Sadrist movement, is the statement that follows:
“His group is resistant to any change that might loosen Shiite control of the government.”
This is not about siding with those who wish to “stay the course” or those who want to continue to occupy Iraq until the oil has been used up.
December 11th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Liza-
I realize that…just as those of us who were opponents of the war were not for a continuation of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
It gives me a chance to do to them what they have done to us the last couple of years, why let nuance and fact spoil it?
December 11th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Yeah, I need to learn to do that.
December 11th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
I wrote a guest post on Belle of the Brawl about two months ago (the post is linked here)
in which I wrote (in part),
. A fighter is only as good as his or her heart. So let’s look at the heart of conservatism in terms of the fight against radical Islam. Consider that in fact these Islamicists have much the same social agenda as conservatism: A theological outlook in which morality is the foundation for society, in which schools and other social institutions are based on a religious underpinning, and in which such perceived immorality as abortion, pornography, pre-marital or extra-marital sex and homosexuality is elevated to the level of a serious crime, sometimes even punishable by death. Islamicists also espouse a society in which government is fundamentally weak and real decisions are made by a council of Clerics, and religious institutions also oversee and decide on the distribution of social welfare. Prayers are offered in every classroom, scriptural doctrine including creationism is taught masquerading as science, women are expected to remain virginal and pure until marriage and then be subservient to their husbands, and political campaigns are conducted through mosques. True, the name of God is different, but the basic structure is very much the same as what some social conservatives would like America to be like. The Islamicists are fighting against having a secular government, so why would Americans who are against having a secular government put much of their heart into the fight?
Some conservatives hate it when you put it that way, probably because it hits too close to home.
But you are right, after decades of red-baiting, they have brought it on themselves.
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