> General Grange had a brief outburst that seemed to
surprise Dobbs. He said, "Half of the country seems to want
us to lose this war! Why do we want to lose this war? We can
win it if we want to."
Judy: our generals and former generals tend not to say
things like that.
Lou Dobbs was certainly surprised by Grange's outburst, but
also acknowledged the truth of the outburst. Maybe it's an
American thing: most of the media's world view is shaped by
Vietnam. (Remember the NYT started with the "Vietnam
quagmire" cry early in the Afghan campaign, and only stopped
when it was beyond any doubt that they were wrong.)
But for the desire to see things fail, just review the
postings on this List from 2003 to 2004. It's built into the
mentality and is beyond argument, reason, or national need.
Bush is partially responsible for reactivating the Vietnam
meme. Andrew Sullivan points out that after 9/11 Bush could
have said, "We have to rebuild our army to pre-Clinton
levels. That will require new taxes and no supply-side tax
cuts." He would have got what he asked for too. Instead he
said, "Everything's okay, don't sacrifice anything. We'll
take care of things. You just go shopping." Then he went
into Iraq with enough troops to lose but not enough to win.
So everyone stayed in their state of disconnected suburban
nihilism, and here we are...
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