Who says you have to
wait until Labor Day to roll out a new product? What we are witnessing in the past few days is the long awaited rollout of the weapon of last resort in the domestic battle over the Iraq war.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
OPERATION BLAME THE LIBERALS.
It's not necessarily a new or novel strategy and anyone with half a brain knew it would happen eventually. It always does. It's much the same as the operation that followed the Vietnam war. It's also been inevitable that this would happen since before the war started. It's been a given that those in power, that those running the show both in Iraq and at home, those who wanted and got this war,would blame liberals for their gross incompetence and criminal negligence in the prosecution of the war in Iraq.
How can one blame liberals for the failure of the war in Iraq, a war they wanted nothing to do with and who have been proven right time and time again about their criticisms of the war?
Answers on the flip...
The first question one has to ask is this: Why now? That one is pretty easy to answer.
In terms of public opinion about the Iraq war, they're fucked and they know it. As I have said here many times before, the American people have soured on this war for the last time. Contrary to Rummy's assertion today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, "that polls go this way and that and if you follow them you'll get seasick" (i'm paraphrasing), the numbers on Iraq aren't coming back. The American people are uneasy and are beginning to look for who is at fault. The repugs have figured this out too.
Time for wingnut damage control. So, now the incompetent chickenhawks are attempting to seed the public mind with a blame worthy target of their choosing: Us.
The short answer as to how and why the repugs would blame the liberals for their failures is this: They have to. There's no one else. They can't blame the idiots at the Pentagon or the military at large. That would be dangerously close to not "supporting the troops". They can't go and blame all the purple fingers in Iraq either. Blaming the insurgents or the "foreign fighters in Iraq" makes the mighty US military look weak.
Who is left?
You and me, friend.
I think we can identify the first shot fired in OPERATION BLAME THE LIBERALS too. It happened three days ago and was lobbed by none other than Bill O'Reilly.
O'REILLY: And when he [Durbin] went out there, his intent was to whip up the American public against the Bush detainee policy. That's what his intent was. His intent wasn't to undermine the war effort, because he never even thought about it. He never even thought about it. But by not thinking about it, he made an egregious mistake because you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor.
Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.
O'Lielly kicks off OBTL by invoking the tried and true "liberals are traitors" meme. Notice the direct 9/11 reference as well? You'll see it again and again in the coming months. It's another shameless attempt to link 9/11 and the debacle in Iraq in the public consciousness. It's shameful, yet it's worked like a charm for them before.
And now we have Karl Rove coming to NYC, the media capital of the world, to kick off the operation in earnest. You've all read his remarks, so I won't reprint them here. But, I do think that it was a direct provocation. Is it any coincidence that the often reclusive Rove is scheduled further spew his bile on Tweety's show tonight? I think not. Is it any coincidence that the pukes at the RNC had a list full of quotes from the usual suspects ready to go this afternoon? Once again, my gut says no.
I can certainly understand why they would launch OBTL at this time too. As I said before, the polling on Iraq is atrocious, the DSM doesn't seem to be going away and then you have Rummy getting pummeled in the Senate today. It makes tactical sense (even if it is a bit desperate) for them to pull the trigger now.
So, what are we gonna do about it? Well, I can tell you what we aren't going to do. We aren't going to sit back and let the these blood soaked ghouls assign the blame for their fuckups on us. We need to fight fire with fire. If the repugs want to play the blame game, I say we jump right in because there's plenty of blame to go around and I think we have a pretty good idea of where it belongs. We can't let these pigs seed the public mind with the notion, as absurd and irrational as it may seem, that the "liberals lost Iraq". We also can't let them paint us with the Michael Moore/Moveon brush. If they want to make us responsible for everything that anyone to the left of Joementum says, then we'll beat them with the Randall Terry/Pat Robertson/ Fred Phelps stick.
We need to throw every stupid quote about how much this war was going to cost, how we'd be "greeted as liberators", how the "mission" was "accomplished", how we've "turned the corner" in Iraq, all of it. Kill them with their own words. We also need to keep bashing their fucking skulls with the DSMs and all the lies that got us in to this mess in the first place. We need to remind them everyday that this country was attacked on 9/11 and the perpetrators are still at large and laughing in our faces despite the fact that Porter Goss is telling folks he has "an excellent idea" about where they are. We need to highlight the contrast between their words and their deeds every fucking day. We need to draw the distinction between their "last throes" rhetoric and the reality of the quagmire in Iraq every fucking day.
The repugs wanted this war and they got it. They wanted it against the advice of a great deal of people both here in America and around the world. It's THEIR war and THEIR failure. It's THEIR tragedy and we can never, ever let the American people forget that. NEVER.
Update [2005-6-23 20:54:12 by lipris]:: Thanks to socratic for pointing us to this fresh outrage from Joe Wilson:
[It is] just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that, in the midst of the war, the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops.
Can there be any doubt that OBTL is now not only officially "on" but that it's getting real fucking ugly, real fucking quick? This bullshit can not stand
Go check out socratic's diary for the full scoop.
These people make me fucking ill.
Update [2005-6-24 9:46:37 by lipris]: II:
From the comments, idiotboy points us to an interesting post at Americablog:
It's pretty clear now that this was a set up orchestrated by the White House in order to deflect attention away from the disaster that is the war in Iraq, and Bush's plumetting polls.
1. The White House released the TEXT of Rove's speech today. According to my sources who know about such things, that NEVER happens. This is prima facie evidence that the White House coordinated this thing from the beginning.
2. The RNC put out talking points today about how the Democrats "blamed America" for September 11. Those detailed talking points were clearly prepared well in advance of this noon today when this thing blew up. WE BLAMED AMERICA?
3. The RNC today reportedly released a new attack web ad going after Durbin for his comments about Guantanamo Bay. Isn't that convenient that something that took at least a few days to prepare was suddenly ready today at the same time that Karl Rove made his comments that anyone who recognizes that Bush has no idea what's going on Iraq is a traitor who loves Osama.
Anyone still have any doubts that isn't a coordinated program to to blame anyone but themselves for their monumental fuckups in Iraq?
Look, this is what is happening:
War has been declared on us. There can be no doubt. They are going to make a concentrated effort to make their failures in Iraq our fault. They are also rolling out the "Operation Conflate 9/11 with Iraq" meme again. They're going to try to make that connection again in the public mind and portray liberals as the reason they haven't succeeded in either Iraq or the "war on terror". Short term they are also hoping to deflect criticism of the administration on pesky problems like the DSMs and Gitmo by calling out half the country in the most crass and atrocious way possible. Anyone else think it's a coincidence that the flag burning amendment is the hot topic of conversation these days? I certainly don't.
We can't and won't let that happen.
Update [2005-6-24 10:11:34 by lipris]: III:
Al Rodgers sent me this nugget by email. It's definitely ON:
(CNSNews.com) -
Congressional Democrats are engaged in a "growing pattern" of demoralizing American troops, according to House Republican leaders who Wednesday showed no willingness to let the controversial comments of Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin die.
"While our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line each day to defend our safety and to protect our freedoms, I am sure the least they expect is the backing and the support of their leaders at home," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference.
"To the contrary," Pryce added, "what we've seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops, bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military's honored reputation through the mud."
....
He also labeled the Pelosi/Waxman proposal for an independent commission "simply another example of some Democrat leaders trusting the words of terrorists over the proven decency of U.S. troops.
"The American taxpayer is already providing accommodations for detainees, who are currently more comfortable than most of our men and women in uniform," Wilson added.
We're going to be hearing more and more of this shit for the next few days, weeks and years. They're gonna try and make us all new "Hanoi Janes". We've got to be ready.