Wing de la wingnut: Wank of the day

Victor Davis Hanson. Does there exist anywhere on God's green earth a wankier pseudopundit? Perhaps, but I can think of none with the bully pulpit of the Vic.

His latest, on yesterday's Wall Street Journal's opinion page is titled "At War With Ourselves." Fine, and true, even. But check out the subtitle -- and I swear I'm not making this up:

We're winning in Iraq. Let's not lose at home.

Last week the golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra was blown apart. Sectarian riots followed, and reprisals and deaths ensued. Thugs and criminals came out of the woodwork to foment further violence. But instead of the apocalypse of an ensuing civil war, a curfew was enforced. Iraqi security forces stepped in with some success. Shaken Sunni and Shiite leaders appeared on television to urge restraint, and there appeared at least the semblance of reconciliation that may soon presage a viable coalition government.

Ponies for everyone!

The whole piece reads like it was written by Lil' Orphan Annie channeling Tinkerbell, and each fact-free sentence is as absurd as every other, but here are two paragraphs in particular that jumped out at me like winos falling from a fire escape:

There is a more disturbing element to these self-serving, always evolving pronouncements of the "my perfect war, but your disastrous peace" syndrome. Conservatives who insisted that we needed more initial troops are often the same ones who now decry that too much money has been spent in Iraq. Liberals who chant "no blood for oil" lament that we unnecessarily ratcheted up the global price of petroleum. Progressives who charge that we are imperialists also indict us for being naively idealistic in thinking democracy could take root in post-Baathist Iraq and providing aid of a magnitude not seen since the Marshall Plan. For many, Iraq is no longer a war whose prognosis is to be judged empirically. It has instead transmogrified into a powerful symbol that apparently must serve deeply held, but preconceived, beliefs--the deceptions of Mr. Bush, the folly of a neoconservative cabal, the necessary comeuppance of the American imperium, or the greed of an oil-hungry U.S.

If many are determined to see the Iraqi war as lost without a plan, it hardly seems so to 130,000 U.S. soldiers still over there. They explain to visitors that they have always had a design: defeat the Islamic terrorists; train a competent Iraqi military; and provide requisite time for a democratic Iraqi government to garner public support away from the Islamists.

Where to begin...

1. "Conservatives who insisted that we needed more initial troops are often the same ones who now decry that too much money has been spent in Iraq."I don't recall any conservatives complaining about Rummy's Walmart war (with low, low prices), but even if they did, and even if they were complaining now about the $240 billion and counting we have thrown at Halliburton et al, this an absurd straw man opposition. You see, Vic, it is possible to think that more troops up front might have increased our chances of success AND that the kajillions we are wasting now are not so effective at unshitting the bed. No inconsistency there at all. (Personally I think the bed was gonna get shit either way, but that's just me.)

2. "Liberals who chant "no blood for oil" lament that we unnecessarily ratcheted up the global price of petroleum." Liberals like me did and do decry the blood being spilled for oil. And we see cause and effect between the mess we've made and the run up in oil prices. But I don't hear a whole lot of lefties saying the price of oil is too high, Vic. Just the opposite. So no contradiction there, either. (We do think that enriching Exxon and Saudi princes is not the best idea either, but that isn't a contradiction either.)

3. "Progressives who charge that we are imperialists also indict us for being naively idealistic in thinking democracy could take root in post-Baathist Iraq and providing aid of a magnitude not seen since the Marshall Plan." Let's hold off for another time the question of whether your naivete' was idealistic or not -- for now, perhaps we can agree that the attempted installation of a client government while establishing numerous permanent military bases in the center of the richest oil-producing region in the world is, shall we say, subject to a different interpretation. But "Marshall Plan?" Puhleeze. Nearly three years after Commander Codpiece strutted across the deck of his aircraft carrier, Baghdad averages four hours of electricity a day. We have spent peanuts on stuff that makes Iraqi lives better -- the money all goes to protecting our troops from all those improvised explosive flowers the grateful locals keep throwing. Focusing on how much cash we have thrown at Halliburton and Blackwater is a rather faulty metric for success.

But this is my absolute fav: "If many are determined to see the Iraqi war as lost without a plan, it hardly seems so to 130,000 U.S. soldiers still over there."

Mr. Hanson, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Zogby:

Poll of forces in Iraq shows majority think U.S. should leave within a year.

Nearly three of every four American troops serving in Iraq think the United States should withdraw all its troops and end the war within a year, according a Zogby-Le Moyne College poll released Tuesday.

Le Moyne faculty helped develop and word the poll's questions, which were given to troops in face-to-face interviews in Iraq, pollster John Zogby, of New Hartford, said.

Zogby said the poll was commissioned by a wealthy war opponent, whom he would not name. Zogby said the man "had no input into the questions or analysis and was not trying to make a point."

Despite President Bush's declaration that American troops should remain in Iraq as long as needed, 72 percent of 944 military members polled there said he should bring all the troops home within 12 months.

More than a quarter said American forces should leave immediately.

Oh, and deaths since the mosque bombing in the civil war you say was averted? More than 1300 as of yesterday. A bunch more today.