{"id":3754,"date":"2003-04-02T06:25:31","date_gmt":"2003-04-02T11:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3754"},"modified":"2003-04-02T06:25:31","modified_gmt":"2003-04-02T11:25:31","slug":"grow_up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/02\/grow_up.html","title":{"rendered":"Grow up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The LA Weekly, which sits pretty left of center in its editorial policy, suggests that the anti-war movement — between gloating over slow-downs in the war and staging counter-productive protests — is hurting itself<\/a> more than the Bush Administration.<\/p>\n

Already, “progressive” anti-war Web sites like Commondreams.org are more or less gloating over these troubles, running every report they can suggesting that George W. Bush is about to bog down in a quagmire. But this hope, if you can call it that, is radically ill-placed. Just as a dozen years of draconian American sanctions against Iraq battered everyone except Saddam Hussein, this war going off the tracks would devastate just about everyone except George Bush.
\nA prolonged siege of Baghdad would provoke a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions, running the Iraqi civilian population through a meat grinder of hunger and death. Military casualties on both sides would soar. And the already inflamed passions of much of the Arab world — and not only Arabs — could explode. It would be much worse even than the disaster we%u2019re currently seeing in Basra. The consequences of a short war in Iraq are going to be bad enough. Only an idiot could hope for a prolonged conflict. That’s why the best we can now hope for is a swift and definitive conclusion of the war.<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

Blocking traffic when 74 percent of the American people support the war, or endlessly whining about CNN\u2019s coverage, or grandstanding as Michael Moore did at the Oscars telling America that a president who currently enjoys (for all the sordid reasons we know) stratospheric popularity ratings is \u201cfictitious,\u201d has much more to do with personal therapy than with effective politics. Continue on that tack and you can pretty much count on another <\/i>four years of Bush, no matter how ugly the war turns.<\/p>\n

Some other interesting points (some of which I agree with, others not) are also made.<\/p>\n

(via Volokh<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LA Weekly, which sits pretty left of center in its editorial policy, suggests that the anti-war movement — between gloating over slow-downs in the war and staging counter-productive protests…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4048,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/23\/division_error.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":0},"title":"Division error","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 23-Feb-03 3:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an interesting, even, dare I say it, insightful article by Robert Fisk about the polarization of thought in the US over the impending war with Iraq. It was a...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131669,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/28\/trump-and-iraq-two-and-a-half-lies.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":1},"title":"Trump and Iraq: Two and a Half Lies","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Sep-16 10:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Trump denies he was pro-war before it started. The only real evidence refuting this is a Howard Stern article where Trump gives a half-hearted \"I guess so\" sort of answer as to whether we should invade Iraq. It's about as wishy-washy as anything I've ever heard from Trump's lips,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/57d1b75b170000ac34c788cd5B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/57d1b75b170000ac34c788cd5B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/57d1b75b170000ac34c788cd5B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3953,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/06\/and_your_point.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":2},"title":"And your point is …?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Mar-03 11:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"How noble. A New Zealand woman has offered herself up for crucifixion to George Bush, if only he'll call off the Iraq campaign. \"Send your troops home and take me...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11089,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/13\/he_really_doesnt_have_to.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":3},"title":"He really doesn’t have to listen, I guess …","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Apr-07 5:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"Law suits by a pair ejected from a Bush speech a couple of years ago have led\u00a0to a fascinating appeals argument asserted by lawyers for some of the people who...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132940,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/27\/george-w-bush-supports-a-free-press-and-a-welcoming-immigration-policy.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":4},"title":"George W. Bush supports a free press and a "welcoming" immigration policy","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 27-Feb-17 10:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"'\"We need an independent media to hold people like me to account,\" Bush told TODAY'S Matt Lauer. \"Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it\u2019s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power. ... It\u2019s kind of hard to tell others\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128348,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/19\/trump-bush-bush-and-911.html","url_meta":{"origin":3754,"position":5},"title":"Trump, Bush, Bush, and 9\/11","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Oct-15 8:04am","format":false,"excerpt":"While the words \"Donald Trump is right\" seem to not want to pass my lips, in this case (broken clocks and all that) it's true. No, Bush did not intentionally let the 9\/11 attack happen (and Trump never said that), but Bush's neocon appointees were far more focused on digging\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}