NY Post columnist: Baker "would wash his hands in the blood of our troops"
In the December 7 New York Post, columnist Ralph Peters responded to the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) by comparing ISG co-chair and former Secretary of State James Baker (R) to the biblical figure Pontius Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Peters wrote, "The difference is that Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops." Peters claimed: "Baker resembles Pontius Pilate in wanting those bedeviling local problems to go away and in imagining that, by caving in to unjust local powerbrokers, he can safeguard the empire's interests."
From Ralph Peters' December 7 New York Post column:
In the end, the biblical figure who best reflects Jim Baker doesn't come from the Nativity sequence, but from the end of the Gospels: Baker resembles Pontius Pilate in wanting those bedeviling local problems to go away and in imagining that, by caving in to unjust local powerbrokers, he can safeguard the empire's interests.
The difference is that Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops.
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Today's cover of the New York Post has a picture of two monkeys facing each other with the heads of James Baker and Lee Hamilton superimposed on the monkeys with a headline calling them "Surrender Monkeys".
Groundskeeper Willie should sue.
Bad taste, even for the Post which is another Murdoch rag. Rupert and his minions are the ones with blood on their hands.
has already washed his hands in the blood of all dead service people in 2000 when he said "Stop counting the votes!"
You're absolutely right. Baker did start washing his hands in blood when he forced Bush in as president. But isn't it interesting how the same people who applauded the secretary back in 2000 are now demonizing him all because the guy he helped get into office has screwed up his presidency and the country? Either they trust this guy's judgment or they don't. It seems they are being very conveniently selective in their judgments. Oh well, what else is new?
You might even call them flip-floppers. That one never gets old!
"the votes have been counted 5 and 6 times", a flat lie. at most they had been run through the machines a second time and some hand counts were done. but our librul media never pointed out baker's exaggeration. they just showed baker saying it over and over. and all those votes that had been hand counted {which certainly was not all} were ordered to be accepted by the same supreme court that said they were counted under unfair standards.
Don't the neocons at NYPO get it... THE PATIENT IS DEAD. American victory is unattainable and the only question that remains is how we bury the foreign policy corpse. As for our noble soldiers the ghouls and vampires that cheerled this war are the ones with the blood on their hands.
...of Who will be the last soldier to die for the cause of this horrible foreign policy disaster? And who will be held responsible for that?
King Bush submerges himself in the blood of our troops and innocent Iraqi's everyday for his ill-conceived war.
If anyone could actually be compared to Pontius Pilate its the neocons who were the cheerleaders for this war and are now attempting to wash their hands of the failures of the Bush administration, whining that this whole mess isn't their fault.
Can any one say cult of personality
Pilate didn't initiate the mess, but he probably could have stopped it. By contrast, we started the Iraq mess, but probably don't have the ability to end it.
Someone explain to me, exactly here, because I am a bit slow at times, how getting our troops out of a war zone is washing their hands in their blood?? Isn't that taking them out of harm's way? Or I guess he probably meant that all of the soldiers have died in vain because what we really want, is untennable? Or something like that.
I have never understand the republican noise machine when they talk about "supporting the troops" by making sure we stay in Iraq and win the fight. This sounds like sending people to thier deaths if you ask me.
The “washing his hands in blood of troops” is referring to the troops we have already lost, the sunk cost of the Iraq war.
Bush and the Republicans are enthusiastic advocates of the "sunk cost fallacy", that we must stay in Iraq or the sacrifices of the dead are all in vain.
LBJ presented this as his principal reason why we needed to stay in Vietnam.
Two Texans, two crappy wars, both elongated out of the same fallacious line of reasoning.
The kicker is that ANY half-way competent businessman KNOWS you NEVER, I mean N-E-V-E-R, consider sunk costs when deciding the next course of action. Variable costs are what you consider, such as the dollar cost and life cost of staying in Iraq verses what we GAIN by staying. If Bush and his Republican yes-men did a SIMPLE cost-benefit analysis of the Iraq war, we'd be out tomorrow. But they refuse to face up to the fact that they are throwing good money and viable lives into a sinkhole of death and debt called Iraq.
This line of "reasoning" infuriates me as well. In essence, what they're saying is that the feelings of those already dead are more important than the lives of the still living. It makes no sense; it is a naked appeal to emotion.
I agree about the comparisons between Bush and Johnson as far as their wars go, but I can guarantee you that if Lyndon were president when we lost a major city, he would have done all within his power to help the people and the city of New Orleans. You can say what you will about Johnson and Vietnam and I'm with you. But Johnson was responsible for "The Great Society" and fought for racial equality at home.
LBJ was a giant. He had deep remorse about Vietnam, and when he realized he had failed, he left office.
That's not to say that LBJ wasn't also capable of being vile and conniving, but compared to Bush, he was a saint among men.
But, speaking about Vietnam - how do the neo-cons square their reaction to the Iraq Study Group report with Bush's statements when he was in Vietnam the other week - when Bush said something about the lesson of Vietnam was to have patience? Because, he was saying, look how well Vietnam is doing now, part of the world community with a growing economy and a valuable trade partner.
Except I didn't hear anyone point out that WE ABANDONED VIETNAM. The country didn't start to thrive until WE LEFT and they united THEMSELVES.
Isn't the lesson here that the sooner we leave Iraq, the sooner they'll get around to figuring out their own solution? And the longer we stay, the longer the chaos will endure?
Throwing good money after bad
Bush is telling Americans that all the deaths of our troops and expenditure of money and other costs of this war, to include America's lost stature in the world and the depletion of our military, are all so "WORTH IT", that it must continue unto "VICTORY".
The blood already lost will be JUSTIFIED by all the future blood, as long as we don't "QUIT".
If we "QUIT", then all the blood and money has been for naught, and our soldiers have died in VAIN. Their blood will be on BUSH'S hands, having killed them for nothing.
THIS is why the White House cannot entertain any talk about letting up. Bush's REPUTATION. Bush must AVOID the responsibility for his mistake(s), and the only way to do THAT is to "stay the course" ... no matter HOW MANY LIVES it costs into the future.
Because Bush had decided that his LEGACY (of being "right all along") is more important than the lives of our brave servicemen and women. They continue to die, so BUSH does not have to admit failure. And, frankly, that he is an incompetent that has become a monster.
Who can blame him? TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, or more deaths? He MUST choose the latter, because the former is unthinkable.
I doubt that the deaths of 100,000 Americans would keep him awake at night -- as long as his legacy as the War President was secure.
The neocons were big into myths. Their whole ideology is founded on winning the loyalty of the ignorant, unwashed masses with complex fantasies involving religion, nationalism, and capitalism. Noble lies, like "Christmas is under attack," are meant to keep Americans from engaging reality.
Bush's favorite fantasy is that we're in Iraq to win the War on Terror. Who knows how much of it he believes himself, but we can be sure that with his dying breath he'll still keep trying to make us believe.
I could have guessed this would be the reaction from the Post when I tuned into the Iraq Report yesterday on cable. CNN had live coverage, discussions, etc- treating the story with as much import as was needed.
Fox, on the other hand, had the press conference on the missing family in Oregon.
Her article talking about how the incoming Congress is already planning for our "surrender". First of all, who are we going to surrender to? She is such a shrill moron, I can't help but hate her. She is saying that the dems are going to dismantle the war on terror, and once again, like the rest of her idiot friends, she is equating the war on terror with the war in Iraq, which are not even remotely the same things. And of course she has her usual crying about how dems don't want wiretaps. Which is not true. Overseas, tap away. Not a US citizen? Tap away. A US citizen? Well, you should probably get a warrant, something about the Constitution.
I hate people like her who wrap themselves in the flag and yet ignore our Constitution and our laws, and all in the name of combatting something that doesn't even really threaten most of the people in the US, or the world for that matter. She needs a good kick in the horse teeth.
Actually, it's not totally new, but it's all that has survived of their pre-election bullsh*t. Rush Limbaugh hammers this point every day now...that the Democrats don't realize how much danger we're in, and will sell us down the river in the name of political correctness...yada yada yada. Be afraid 9-11 be afraid Al Queda be afraid World War III be afraid dirty bombs be afraid be afraid be afraid....and don't forget that only Republicans can protect you.
It's all they have left.
...is doing belly flops into a pool filled with the blood of our troops. These troglodytes are so hung up on salvaging some kind of honorable "victory" out of this mess that they are willing to squander thousands of more lives and hundreds of billions more dollars. And for what? So the Arab world won't think we're pussies? How many lives is George Bush's ego worth?
...even staunch, longtime Republicans and Bush family allies like James Baker. The right-wing press and pundits really have lost their minds, and absolutely refuse to face reality.
If you go on websites like Michelle Malkin's , she hardly even mentions the Iraq Study Group's report. Instead, she's posting about things such as street names in France, public school books, CNET's James Kim, and a bikini march in Australia. She certainly won't mention how the report concluded the Iraq violence is UNDERREPORTED by an estimated 1000%, blowing away the entire right-wing blogosphere's argument that the supposed liberal media was only reporting the bad things in Iraq.
and it's always the two schools that were opened last week. of course three may have been bombed by religious fanatics the previous week.
And just what, you may ask, does the " * * * * " stand for?
Answer: DUMB AS A FU( KING
That's what.
can get blasted from both sides with the "blood on his hands" analogy, because he wants us to stay there for another year or so. I just posted a long note on the issues of why more troops won't make a difference at the "Blitzer Gives McCain Another Pass" (paraphrased) site following Magnolia's volunteer for the draft that I believe is equally apropos here. Maybe Nerzog can take a look at it and rephrase it in two lines of metaphor in his inimitable fashion.
Drafted in 68's take on the comment I quoted in that post made by a senior officer serving over there in '64.
Conservatives will even eat their own if one dares to step out of line.
I would go so far as to say that, next to Cheney, Bush, and Rove, Baker is THE Republican archetype.
If they'll turn on him, they'll turn on anybody. This is how maniacal their ideology is. Beware.
The Trade Towers were attacked in 1993, by terrorist bombers.
With a presidential election coming up, Cheney said, "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States"
Cheney was absolutely right.
America made the RIGHT choice in 2000 ... Al Gore got the clear majority of the votes of Americans. But the "WE" Cheney was talking about was NOT the American people. It turned to the Supreme Court, who made the choice to install BUSH into the White House instead. The WRONG Choice. And, as Cheney predicted, we got hit on 9/11.
America made the WRONG "choice" in 2000, and disaster has resulted. Cheney called it.
consternos have always had a "blame/bash the messenger" mentality... anyone who tells them bad news is to be trashed and discredited... here we have yet another example...
btw, thanks to the commenter who identified Groundskeeper Willie as the one who coined "surrender monkeys;" I was racking my brain on that one...
Okay, we're losing in the Middle East. That's what they say. We can't win with the status quo.
So, the solution is to stay in another 12-24 months? WTF?
It's over. There's no way we can settle a civil war. These people need to kill each other off until one or the other is left standing.
On one side we have the Shia'a, backed by the Iranians and lots of oil. On the other side we have the Sunni, backed by every Arab country....and lots of oil.
THEY are the ones who either have to put some value on life and figure out a way to talk to each other, or we can stay there until Doomsday and get picked off a half dozen at a time, just as we are right now.
We need to bring our boys home. Afterwards, we can tar and feather the entire administration. These guys are a total disaster.
Living in NY, I can tell you that I wouldn't use this paper to line a bird cage, much less actually pay to read it. They appeal to the worst in us with horrible front page headlines designed to shock the passerby.
Remember that this is a Murdoch owned paper, the same guy that was going to air the OJ Simpson show before he received so much resistance.