Monday, January 15, 2007

 

Idiocy

ConnecticutBLOG has a video of Joe Lieberman spouting nonsense on Meet the Press: "My own sense of history tells me that in war ultimately there are two exit strategies. One is called 'victory', the other is called 'defeat'." Mr. Lieberman, I do not think that word means what you think it means. Consider the dictionary definition of strategy:

  1. Also, strategics. the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.
  2. the use or an instance of using this science or art.
  3. skillful use of a stratagem.
  4. a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.
By any of those definitions, strategy is the means, not the end. Any sensible person would realize that "victory" and "defeat" are outcomes (i.e. the end). They are not strategies (i.e. means). What bothers me about this mangling of the language is that it may not be cynical rhetoric intended to accuse Bush's critics of undermining the war effort by "choosing defeat". I suspect that Senator Lieberman and all the Busheviks genuinely believe that the U.S. can achieve victory in Iraq by saying forcefully enough that it's what we want. Achieving the desired outcome by really and truly believing in it works in fairy tales. How do we convince these idiots that it doesn't work in real life?
# posted by MEC @ 1/15/2007 04:47:00 PM
Comments:
If we all clap together then Tinkerbell will live.

Bush and his friends have apparently misunderstood this and interpreted it as "if we all get the clap together Tink will live," and now syphylitic dementia has set in.

Too bad. We used to have a pretty nice country.
# posted by Blogger shrimplate : 1/15/2007 05:26:00 PM
 
Disaster is the cure for stupidity, MEC.

Unfortunately, it is generally visited on a wider area than would seem just.
# posted by Blogger Charles : 1/15/2007 09:41:00 PM
 
Lieberman refuses to understand that Ahmad Chalabi conned Ariel Sharon and Likud before moving on to Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of PNAC. Chalabi knew he needed both Israel AND the US to back his cockamamie invasion plan, and he also knew of Rumsfeld's and Cheney's tight ties to Likud (chief among them being Douglas "stupidest bleeping man on the planet" Feith, whose Likud links go back to his father's own pro-Likud ties). Chalabi spun a fairy tale of an Israel-friendly Iraq (as opposed to the sullenly neutral Iraq as existed under Saddam), and Likud -- and Likud's friends in the US -- fell for it.
# posted by Blogger Phoenix Woman : 1/16/2007 06:43:00 AM
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

More blogs about politics.
Technorati Blog Finder