Ah, the authentic Mitsu-Palin sauce. Lost, but found once more.

I’ve addressed Barack’s comments on that subject at length in Neo’s post about that, and I won’t repeat my remarks here, but I will simply say that it’s quite obvious that you and most people criticizing Obama about this don’t understand the technical meaning of the term “preconditions” in diplomatic circles. It’s an understandable mistake, but it’s simply a mistake on your part, not “incoherence” on the part of Obama.-Guess who

Looks like some people have a definite lack of “fortes”.

It’s not like we can fault him for anything.

Obama and the Left are going to make him default, we need do nothing on that score.

Back when the MSM hit and run propaganda interviews came out, people had these “opinions” that they thought were about the Best Candidate.

They were merely regurgitating somebody else’s pap.

As an Army veteran (if I recall correctly, JJ is a Navy veteran), I found this statement by Mitsu particularly annoying:

Not everyone is good at thinking about military strategy or the logistical and other issues related to that, and one can’t fault him for not foreseeing those – that’s not everyone’s forte.

Nonetheless that essay addresses a most critical matter, one which those who have not studied Marxist thought in any depth, especially the EPM, might well miss until they are slapped upside the head with this realization once the left gains power, i.e.,: Despite their use of the language of rights and justice and fairness, the Marxist left believes in no such things. How could they, after all such phenomena are interpreted as epiphenomena, or superstructure.

I just glanced at the Geras essay for a few minutes. But I gather that he, Geras, somewhat contrariwise seems to think that despite Marx’s many overt and documented expressions of contempt for the ideas of rights, justice, freedom, and constitutional polities – all that mythology of the capitalist class – Marx did have some implicit sense of justice which psychologically drove him. (again I just speed read the essay).

Geras would like to see such a notion explicated. Yeah, “Here’s hoping …”

Well, whether you wish to believe that a man (Marx) who thought that the essence of man was created in his particular productive activities could even logically conceive of valid universal rights of some kind or not, what is important is that people keep before them the salient fact that the central idea of progressivism IS NOT, equality.

“It is indeed a truism of the philosophical analysis of both justice and equality that the formal principle involved here – ‘Treat like cases alike and different cases commensurately with their differences’ – is practically useless until one has specified substantive criteria regarding what sort of likenesses and what sort of differences are morally relevant; what kind of equality it is, in other words, that matters. Marx for his part comes down in favour of need, and against ‘individual endowment’, as the decisive criterion. There is no question that, in doing so, he himself emphasizes how adoption of this criterion – responding to the specific needs of each individual – must, in some senses, mean unequal individual treatment. It is a mistake, however, to get carried away by this emphasis of his, as are so many of the contributors to this debate. For they cannot, simply by verbal fiat, stipulate that there is not then any sense in which equal consideration and treatment are involved. There is, and Marx shows himself aware of it in the way he criticizes the contribution principle. The needs of all, irrespective of individual endowment, irrespective also of such other and many differentiating characteristics as will be judged to be morally irrelevant – the needs of all equally, therefore, are to be met.”

All have appetites, but not all can or are willing to work or work effectively. Distribution is to be made on “needs” which are individual.
From each according to his ability, to each according …”

Since you can work and he cannot, or will not … but you both have stomachs … “Well, in that case I guess that you are f**ked, blessed be the name of the collective”

Sound like the individual mandate of Obamacare? That is because it, in essence, is. Modern progressives refer to the scheme when minimally realized, as “social insurance” don’t you know.

And no, your moral indignation over being used counts for nothing. That is why with Marxists it all comes down to power … and violence.

How fortunate for progressives that conservatives still do have those internalized moral inhibitions which the progressives scoff at as relics of a primitive mind.

It will be interesting to see what happens when – helped along by the double dealing of the progressive kind – the conservatives lose those old inhibitions and stand face to face with the progressive; with nothing but a practical calculus remaining between the progressive and it’s doom.

As I said regarding Geras and his notion regarding the possibility of Marxist justice, “Here’s hoping”

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/geras.htm

Eventually, after awhile, time was up and there was no reload or reset button.

Mitsu, war doesn’t justify the cost of war because war is destruction. A war’s cost only is justified by the long-term peace we create and build upon the destruction. Iraq should have been the cornerstone of our victory in the War on Terror.

As President, Clinton said about the US-led enforcement on Iraq: “In the century we’re leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we’ll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past — but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.”

Bush honored Clinton’s pledge with Iraq. But Obama did not. Bush handed Obama a winning hand with Iraq, achieved through revolutionary accomplishments by our military in Iraq, in partnership with the Iraqi people, under enormously adverse conditions both over there and at home. Obama inherited an Iraq that had turned the corner after Saddam and the terrorist onslaught, and on its way to building the peace, yet still fragile and beset by vicious anti-liberal forces. We were ready to help Iraq build the long-term peace after a hard struggle, as we have done following other wars as leader of the free world. But Obama bungled it.

I seldom read his blog, but was certainly aware of it back in the Iraq days. I believe he was much like Christopher Hitchens, a leftist who was strongly against Islamic terrorism.

It’s too bad he never engaged neo’s commenter, Eric, on the issue of the Iraq war. Eric makes a strong case for the war and for recognizing that it was a success that was squandered by Obama because he failed to get a status of forces agreement.

At any rate, Iraq needed to be done in order to find out if a majority Muslim country could embrace representative government and tolerance for all faiths. If any Muslim country could have done it, Iraq was the best bet. Now we’ll never know, but the presumption is in the negative.

RIP Norm Geras.