To David Brooks' ongoing, long-range project of radically revising modern history by removing all the Republican treasony bits, you may now add this little gem of falsification which was partially buried under his woozy praise for Hillary Clinton's "muscular" ideas about foreign policy:
We are now living in what we might as well admit is the Age of Iraq. The last four presidents have found themselves drawn into that nation because it epitomizes the core problem at the center of so many crises: the interaction between failing secular governance and radical Islam.
I do not have room enough in my back yard to unpack all the facets and dimensions of willful wrongness Mr. Brooks has bundled up in this little sentence.
10 comments:
There is not enough room in the TARDIS to unpack all the Wrong in there. Maybe before they jettisoned all those rooms during "Castrovalva". Brooks is wrong on so many levels, I think there's a sky-lobby involved.
[Iraq] epitomizes the core problem at the center of so many crises: the interaction between failing secular governance and radical Islam.
Oh, horseshit. Here are a few observations to get you started, Drift:
The First Pres. Bush - Assembled a coalition to retake Kuwait after Saddam invaded it. This had f*ck-all to do with "radical Islam."
Pres. Clinton: Followed a policy of containment of Saddam through the no-fly zome. Ah, that's basically it.
The Second Pres. Bush destroyed the Iraqi state and any hope for a secular future in the country through an illegal war and an utterly screwed up occupation.
President Obama is trying to help pick up the pieces from the mess we made, but it's like trying to glue back together a Ming vase that was run over by a steam roller.
Brooks' "core problem" is a purely fictional construct that he pulled out of his rear end because it sounds nice and is consistent with his neocon agenda. It has nothing whatever to do with history or objective assessment of what's happening on the ground over there now.
Hell, it's more than just that.
Brooks is training RealAmuricans™ to continue ignoring history for bullshit talking points.
Iraq's problems start when it was created by a bunch of trashbag Europeans 100+ years ago.
As those European Empires finally started crumbling, the US had to stick it's newly-found World Empire nose all over the middle east, dismantling democratically-elected governments while supporting whichever dictator would continue selling out their resources and people for European and US corporate interests.
You get US toppling Iran's democratically-elected government and turning it into a dictatorship. We supply it weapons, and when they overthrow our puppet, get get our vassal Iraq to step in for a nice 8 year war.
And please let's not forget that Saint Ronald Reagan armed the Iraqis with...uh...WMDs...which were used on Iraqis and Iranians, while we looked on and did nothing.
Because freedumb, most likely.
It's funny that Brooks is a history major and is fucking god awful at it. No, strike that. He's a fucking champ at re-arranging history at his little NYTimes memory hole.
Treasonous scum. Not just the main actors, but the apologists who get paid to lie.
Well, he should know about failing secular government, he's done his best to make sure ours fails.
I wonder if the NYT has a special trash heap for all the shitty little pithy phrases Brooks and Friedman puke up.
"The Green Tea Party"
"The Age of Iraq"
"The World is Flat"
"The Thought Leaders"
I'm too tired to dredge up more but god damn these pasty old men never tire of coming up with these.
"I do not have room enough in my back yard to unpack all the facets and dimensions of willful wrongness Mr. Brooks has bundled up in this little sentence."
Oh, come on now Driftglass...we all know you're up to the task. Please elaborate at length. I personally will read it thrice.
As you said so many times before, "Brooks and those like him are in the club and there is nothing wrong they can't write to be held to account", of his many masterpieces of ideological propaganda dead lines for his pay checks.
Bill Maher did a political comedy rant that conservatives decry Birth certificate. When proved wrong, no apology or accountability. They simply move on to Coming to take your guns. When that doesn't happen, No apology. They move on to big spender raising taxes. When facts show otherwise, no accountability. They move on to Benghazi, when the public see that there is no "There-There", they move on with no apology, no I was mistaken no accountability. They move on to IRS, and so on and so on.
Brooks, Bill Kristol, Hannity, and yes, Gregory are all in the club.
They are there to reinforce the monotonously.
What I call the Symphony of Thought implantation" A recent American President referred to it as "Catapulting the Propaganda.
I agree with Redhand (above) but with first hand knowledge of being on the ground in one of those Iraq wars.
Serving under Reagan, HW Bush and Clinton. I can add to Redhand's list of President's that Reagan was deeply invested into Iraq.
Here is a piece of recent history for Brooks.
Saddamm thinned his military out by stretching for more than he could hold.
ISIS (ISIL) is doing the same. Concentrated they are tough. Holding their gains will thin them out and weaken them.
Bunch together, ISIS is an easy target. Stretched out and holding gains they become weak.
Know this, Kirds will fight for what they believe is their land. All those in and below Bagdad believe that is their land. They will fight for their land unlike those that surrendered and ran in a slice of Iraq they had absolutely no tribal ownership of the land.
President Obama is calculating any and all moves as they present themselves.
Remember how Bin Laden was taken out? Remember the Somali Pirate engagement. Quick, unannounced, thought through. Right down to the extra chopper that was vitally needed getting Bin Laden.
Perhaps too many people are looking for the Cowboy to be mouthing off.. Longing for Rick Perry to utter those scary words,,
"We Will smoke them out, Get them running".
Poor Brooks is delegated to obscurity in conservative fantasy land of ideology. The drudgery of meeting the ideological deadline for the paycheck with NO notoriety.
Why, Because President Obama was elected President and condemned Brooks to his obscurity amid major media.
One last issue,
House Republican, and for that matter Senate Republicans beware.
I am taking to Sen Lindsey (be afraid ISIS Muslims are landing on the South Carolina beach right now coming for your guns and children-panic) Graham.
If you do not stop campaigning on feat and loathing. Di not quit blaming the President for Iraq.
The President may just put in Congress's lap,
" THE POWER TO DECLARE WAR AND OR DECLARE MILITARY ACTION IN IRAQ " !!!
Know this,
The American People are not very enthusiastic to re enter Iraq Militarily. Especially after the austerity republicans have blessed the American People with.
I mean, does the words sequester ring a bell? How about shutting down Government"
Maybe investigating Benghazi 8 times instead of using that Congressional over sight (I have heard about) and over seeing a Veterans Administration in need.
You know,
from those patriots you sent to Iraq already?
I took th eliberty of writing this in the NYT comments under Brooks's cowflop. (it's pending approval)
1) ``Four'' presidents? Obama, Bush, Clinton, Poppy Bush -- but not Reagan? Brooks carefully screens Saint Ronald by using the phrase ``drawn into,'' but it was Reagan -- and the geniuses Rumsfeld and Cheney -- who buddied up to Saddam to back him in the U.S.'s proxy war against Iran.
2) ``Drawn into'' Iraq? A bit passive and a lot conflated. Two presidents *chose* to go in, Bush 1 to protect the U.S.-friendly oil producer Kuwait, and Bush 2 to ... well, who knows? It certainly wasn't WMDs, and it certainly wasn't to punish the culprits behind the 9/11 attacks. Of the other two of the four (not five) presidents who had to involve themselves in Iraq, Clinton never went beyond strategic air strikes (which pretty much destroyed Iraq's WMD capabilities and defenses), and Obama has spent the bulk of his presidency trying to extricate the U.S. from the immense catastrophe wrought by his predecessor. Only now, after the truly radical spawn created amid the Bush-Cheney Iraq fiasco has engendered a humanitarian crisis has Obama had to reverse course and re-enter.
3) So, the genocide-prone, Shiite-suppressing, Kurd-killing, chemical-weapon-wielding dictator Saddam Hussein practiced ''secular governance,'' did he? And it was just the regrettable failing of said governance under pressure of ``radical Islam'' that drew four (not five) presidents into Iraq? How does this drivel pass review from Times editors?
to anon- Your well written response SHOULD make it to the comments section; this did, from someone called cassandra-
"It is amazing that a columnist can keep his job when he is almost always wrong about everything. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote about this phenomenon in "Antifragile": we should not listen to pundits who have no skin in the game.
President Obama was very wrong about escalating the war in Afghanistan. What good then was a "muscular foreign policy"?
His instinct to "Don't do stupid stuff" is precisely what we need, following a Republican President, Bush, whose instinct was "Always do stupid stuff".
It seems that Mr. Brooks' instinct is "Always write stupid stuff". The antidote I recommend is to read intelligent books, and take the right lessons from history."
not bad...
Redhand-
"The First Pres. Bush - Assembled a coalition to retake Kuwait after Saddam invaded it. This had f*ck-all to do with "radical Islam."
True, but I think it had a hell of lot to do with RADICALIZING Islam. For some reason, American bases being built on sacred land pissed some people off. Go figure.
Maybe Brooks has come down with Reagan's foot in mouth dementia, in his neglectful disrespectful lapse of not giving St. Ronnie his due.
From above,
" 1) ``Four'' presidents? Obama, Bush, Clinton, Poppy Bush -- but not Reagan? Brooks carefully screens Saint Ronald ".
How old is Brooks' readers??
-Saint Ronnie dipped his toe into Lebanon. Then cut and run.
-St. Ronnie demonized Iran but he sure made weapons deals with them and what did Ronnie five for the hostages?
-Where-O-Where did Saddam get those WMD/s and how did America end up with the receipts?
-Rummy's photo shaking saddams hand in the '80's remains on the internet.
-Reagan's Israel policy meant he was in deep into the Middle East.
Anyone recall Reagan's foreign policy in the region? Hmmm?
Oh, this is just top soil......
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