Yeah, but deep down he (of the give Karl Rove a medal for outing CIA agents involved in non-proliferation fame) really isn't.

The screen cap is funnier than your title. Which probably he doesn't actually believe--I mean, if their parents can't afford to feed 'em, they shouldn't have had 'em.

I think "I'm against massacres of civilians" really needs to become a catch phrase.

Not to mention "I am against the hacking off of heads."

I like reading "my word" as an exclamation.

"My word! I'm against massacres of civilians!"

Bah, he's probably got a five-foot boner under that desk.

This just shows how biased Fox News is. They don't have anybody defending the opposing view.

Bah, he's probably got a five-foot boner under that desk.

Robust, are you implying he's gay?

No, just a mad scientist doing plastic surgery. We've got some right trolls, I'll be the first to admit, but we would never take him into our ranks.

Reminds me of when Dave Barry wrote a column saying, "I am against crime." But he was trying to be funny (I think).

In the wingnutosphere, being against massacres of civilians and the coveruping up of same is actually a pretty unusual position. See, e.g. "Reynolds, Glenn."

For what it's worth, this is an example of how people can me made to look silly when their statements are selectively quoted out of context.

A fuller version of Gibson's remarks:

"I'm against massacres of civilians — I think we all are. I'm against cover-ups — you probably are too.

But I'm also against taking an incident in which our troops overreact and commit an arguably criminal act and making it stand for the entire war. The war in Iraq is not the story of massacres by Americans. If Iraqis know their own history they know this is true. Massacres have been committed in Iraq by warring parties for millennia piled on millennia. This is the part of the world that was in on the massacre game early, played it often and the last character to be up to his eyeballs in massacres was the very guy we went in to regime change: Saddam Hussein himself.

Those people who oppose the war and want to make those who supported it pay with shame, embarrassment and a complete loss of credibility and reputation, want desperately for this massacre — if it turns out to be what happened — to be the name this war is known by forever. Haditha — My Lai — Iraq — Vietnam: it all fits together neatly in a slime fest designed to win elections and set the direction of the history books.

The Iraq War may not be the best war we ever fought. When the dust settles we'll know for sure. But it accomplished a great goal that no one else had managed for the last 15 years at least: ridding the world of Saddam. No matter what the political spinners say, that was a great thing. And the Iraq War should be known for that fact — Saddam is gone — not for one incident of alleged revenge killing in a place called Haditha."

Ah, so he's also against straw!

Gibson's first full paragraph is the only one that isn't full of crap. When the history books are done with the invasion of Iraq, they'll show that it, along with other parts of the Administration's fear-mongering tactics, was principally a sideshow designed to help with the agenda of concentrating power INSIDE the US.

The Rovian second paragraph by Gibson is completely repulsive: "Those people who oppose the war and want to make those who supported it pay with shame, embarrassment and a complete loss of credibility and reputation, want desperately for this massacre — if it turns out to be what happened — to be the name this war is known by forever. Haditha — My Lai — Iraq — Vietnam: it all fits together neatly in a slime fest designed to win elections and set the direction of the history books." Just as Republicans were the ones who managed to lose the war in Vietnam, they are the ones who have initiated and waged the war in Iraq - to try to shift the blame to others is shameless, but straight from the Republican's key playbook: blame all failures on others, especially insidious "back-stabbers" - poltical opponents, MSM, enviros, gays, etc. The slime fest is nearly wholly Republican now, and it is precisely the game that Gibson is engaged in.

You support this rhetorical subterfuge, GB?

Putting aside the decision to invade, I'm with the Colin Powell/Pottery Barn school of foreign interventions - you broke, you own it. Unfortunately we're all stuck with Iraq now and the question is where we go from here. If this Administration doesn't intend to make the effort to win this war - and people are calling for troop levels at least triple from where they are now - then just what the hell are we doing there, and why aren't we better served simply by leaving (or withdrawing to our bases)? Where is the honest discussion from the Administration about what the ground really looks like (see Nir Rosen) and what we need to do to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again?

You're quick to accuse people of setting up straw men, BB, but I don't think that's what Gibson is doing.

His argument as I see it is that people who cast Haditha as representative or symbolic of the entire war are emphasising the negative and ignoring the positive in order to intensify opposition to the war. That sounds like a pretty unremarkable assertion to me.

You may think Gibson's claim is flawed, but that doesn't mean he's attacking a straw man.

TT, I don't read Gibson as engaging in "rhetorical subterfuge". He's not saying the Bush administration should be free of any responsibility for what happens in Iraq; he's saying that its opponents are playing up incidents like Haditha while downplaying the significance of removing Saddam from power and dismissing the potential to make things better.

Personally, I agree with you that we should be thinking long and hard about how to fix Iraq now that we're there. But tabloid-esque coverage of events like Haditha, by encouraging us to go home immediately and wash our hands of this horrible, terrible mess, makes it less, not more, likely that Americans will be able to have that debate.

people who cast Haditha as representative or symbolic of the entire war
I am suggesting that these people are made of straw. I certainly haven't seen anyone saying that, and I've read quite a bit of commentary on Haditha recently. I would wager that even if these people can be found somewhere outside of Gibson's imagination, they are even rarer than those in favor of massacres of civilians and cover-ups.

Are you serious? The general theme of current war criticism is, "In war, things like Haditha will always happen, so that's why we shouldn't have invaded Iraq."

Seems like a brick man to me.

You can't see the huge difference between "in war, things like Haditha will always happen" and "Haditha is representative of the entire war"?

One hint that there's a difference is that Gibson's argument doesn't even begin to refute the former statement. That's why he needed the strawman to beat up on.

I think you are quibbling over semantics.

By "representative", I mean "so much more significant than other issues, that it should be the decisive factor in our decision about whether and when to leave Iraq".

Maybe that's what you mean, but Gibson was saying people were "taking an incident...and making it stand for the entire war" and "want desperately for this massacre...to be the name this war is known by forever." Pure straw.

But even your argument isn't one I'm seeing. No one I've read is saying it should be "more significant" or "the decisive factor", simply that it's something that should have been considered as a predictable cost of waging this kind of war, one more piece of evidence to pile on top of all the others that shows the war was poorly planned, one more reason to believe that we didn't have enough troops to do this correctly, one more reason to pile on top of all the others for why it's long past time to pull out.

Of course it's significant. Of course it's an important factor to consider. You need to add things like "much more" to "significant" and "the decisive" to "factor" to be able to find anything in the position to dispute, so you add them, and then argue against them. That, my friend, is a strawman argument.

Either way, it's still a funny picture.

Either way, it's still a funny picture.

Right, it's funny to read GB saying this is just an instance of making Gibson "look silly when [his] statements are selectively quoted out of context" -- the statement out of context is silly, the full quote is damning. If he's just saying "I'm against massacres of civilians", then he comes off as a pompous buffoon but no real problem with that, our networks are full of them. If he's saying "Those people who oppose the war and want to make those who supported it pay with shame, embarrassment and a complete loss of credibility and reputation, want desperately for this massacre — if it turns out to be what happened — to be the name this war is known by forever," then he's a raving McCarthyite fomenting a witch hunt against the disloyal. I'd say the latter is worse, so it seems like an odd defense.

This is a point I am planning on addressing in a post I've been working on for my own blog, but there is a difference between pointing out a problem because you want to see it fixed, and pointing out a problem because you want the whole enterprise that led to the problem to be abandoned entirely.

For example, BB, let's say Harley-Davidson came out with a new model that was really low quality. Broke down, caused accidents, riders getting hurt, the whole deal. You'd probably want to find out what went wrong at the company and fix it so they could get back to making safe, fun bikes. You wouldn't say, "See, this proves motorcycles are dangerous, and they should be banned!"

I find most of the war criticism focused on Haditha, however, more analogous to the latter scenario. It reflects a desire not to mend the occupation, but to end it entirely.

Oh, and yeah, it is a funny picture. Especially considering its lack of monkeys.

I would advise against such a post for several reasons.

First off, you're accusing people like apostropher and LizardBreath and Hilzoy of arguing in bad faith. They're not denouncing atrocities because they're actually against atrocities or anything, they're denouncing them because it suits their political agenda!

One can point out a problem because one wants to see it fixed, AND point out that the problem is also one of the many reasons to abandon the whole enterprise that led to the problem. There's no contradiction, no dishonesty, no undue emphasis, and no fallacy going on there.

Secondly, your analogy just doesn't parallel the situation very well. People are pointing out the many flaws in one particular product, not denouncing the whole class of products.

Try this one instead: A paleontologist who has been arguing against creationism for years finds yet another transitional fossil, and this one is very well preserved and fits the theories perfectly. The paleontologist reports the finding, saying, "Once again, we have proved that there are transitional fossils just as evolution would predict. This is yet one more reason why Intelligent Design Creationism should not be taught in schools." And the IDiots respond, "He's only harping on this find because he wants to discredit the whole enterprise of teaching the controversy!"

Hmm... The difference is that evolution is a natural phenomenon independent of human control, whereas building a motorcycle, or occupying Iraq, are human endeavors that are within our power to change and to do better.

There's nothing ID supporters can do to make a transitional fossil disappear. But there are things bike designers or military leader can do to prevent the same problems from happening a second time.

GB, your perceptions blind you to what is obvious. What Gibson and others are doing is nothing less than helping the Administration to dodge responsibility by smearing critics. It's been the modus operandi of the Administration from the beginning.

You say that Gibson is not engaging in "rhetorical subterfuge" because he's "not saying the Bush administration should be free of any responsibility for what happens in Iraq". Sorry, but what Gibson is very much trying to do is to distract attention from responsibility of the Administration by attacking the motives of all critics. If you were to say that the Administration bears some responsibility for incidents like Haditha, you would be smeared as well.

I share your interest in having an open debate about what our policy should be in Iraq now. That we are not having a fruitful one is obvious, and for obvious reasons: the Administration itself does not WANT a debate, and has never been open about its cost-benefit analyses of the invasion, the permanent bases being built, troop levels, exit stragegy, or what have you. All voices within the Administration or military which did not follow script have been squelched, and all dissent from the outside has been attacked as unpatriotic.

How can there be a fruitful debate in these conditions? How can anybody have confidence in an Administration unwilling to really make its best case for being in Iraq or how to actually win the "peace"? How can we avoid seeing the invasion as a colossal mistake, driven by perceived political gains and riven with hubris about easily achieved strategic advantages? How can we not wonder about hidden agendas, when invading Iraq was clearly not about stopping al Qaeda, and was so at variance with Bush's own campaign promises (see http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/debates/transcripts/u221003.html) about avoiding use of the military for "nation-building"?

It doesn't appear at all to me that the Administration has a serious strategy for victory in Iraq. I am not at all sanguine about the consequences if we withdraw, but in the absence any open discussion of clear and achievable benefits, likely costs and necessary actions, then count me among those back-stabbing Americans who would like to avoid the further spilling of blood and squandering of treasure for "gains" that have so far proven wholly illusory - except at the ballot box and in the aggrandizement of the White House.

GB, your perceptions blind you to what is obvious.

Oh, I am so sick and tired of your high-handed "Your opinions blind you to reality" routine. It's essentially a dressed-up ad hominem attack that essentially boils down to "You're an idiot for not seeing things my way."

I would submit that the big reason we have not had a productive national debate about the future of the Iraq occupation is not because the Bush administration mysteriously controls what we as a nation can talk about, but because many (most?) war opponents are more interested in ending the occupation outright, by whatever means necessary, than in figuring out how to improve it.

When the left lays off the scorched-earth "Impeach Bush" rhetoric, maybe we can have a serious discussion.

No use trying to understand or argue with a guy as smart as you GB (or to try to defend you on a "GB is a tool" thread).

All of reality is just picking on you: not just me, but those congenital idiots on the left as well as the back-stabbers on the right who are deserting Bush.

Americans can of course have a debate, but it's hardly meaningful if the Administration doesn't care to participate. And it's hardly conducive to debate when all critics are smeared a la Gibson, or other scorched-earth tactics applied by the Administration. That you refer to criticism of the Administration as being "scorched earth" is entirely consistent with a view that it is the Administration (and its supporters) which is the victim in all of this (just pointing it out, without trying to make an ad hominem attribution to you). Your reference to impeachment is another canard, at least as far as Iraq goes - there is for all practical purposes no discussion of this by Dems in Congress, and Hilary and others are running on PRO-WAR platforms. Any pressure to discuss imeachment is coming from the grassroots, supported by some pundits - are you suggesting Democratic leaders should squelshed the impeachment movement even further than they already have, in order to invite the Administration to participate in a serious discussion? Is that why they're not talking now, because no one else wants to play fair?

I've never called anyone an "idiot" or a "back-stabber" with regard to their views on the Iraq war, so don't put words in my mouth.

I continue to believe that criticizing Bush and his team is fine, even necessary. But I also continue to believe that much criticism of the war is aimed at having the occupation end ASAP, going down in history as a hubrisitc Republican failure, than to seriously struggle to fix it and make it succeed over time.

But here's the dilemma, GB. If you honestly believe, as I do, that the entire enterprise is doomed—and always has been—because we simply don't have a big enough military to pull it off, then the only option is to end the occupation ASAP. Well, there are other options, but they're either stupid or unrealistic. Saying I have a desire to see it going down in history as a hubristic Republican failure is like saying I have a desire to see the tide go out. It is already clearly a failure, designed and executed by Republicans, born of hubris and stubbornness. That part of the narrative is already written and well understood. All that's left is how long and costly it will be before we leave.

It isn't going to get fixed. We've been saying that all along. You need to triple the size of occupation force to even begin to provide security. That force doesn't exist. The country won't accept a draft. After watching somebody run into a wall over and over again, you don't start brainstorming with them about how to hit it at a better angle.

So in a sense, your belief is correct. But it isn't in any way remarkable.

It isn't going to get fixed. We've been saying that all along. You need to triple the size of occupation force to even begin to provide security. That force doesn't exist.

What you say is true if we're talking about the ability of the US military to immediately impose a security lockdown on Iraq so that the violence stops like turning off a faucet. What may be a more realistic and likely possibility is that Iraq evolves into a stable, secure society with the US doing what it can to help that happen.

Counter-insurgency has plenty of history to study. The British required a much higher troop-to-population ratio in tiny Northern Ireland, and they knew the land intimately, spoke the same language, plenty of intermarriage, and didn't look different.

Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. It's growing, not settling, and the Shi'ite south and Kurdish north are beginning to rumble ominously. Providing even minimal security is going to require more troops going forward, not less. There aren't any good options.

On some levels, I envy your optimism. But I don't see your last sentence there as either realistic or likely. Iraq is a broken society and a failed state, with an entire generation that has been deeply traumatized. We can't shove the civil war back into Pandora's box.

I should point out that I accept that a "stable, secure" Iraq may mean that it ends up divided into two or three separate states. It's possible that the hatred fueling the proto-civil war may burn itself out; then again, it may not. I don't think we lose points for undoing the British mistake of glomming three ethno-religious groups that hate each other into a single new country that was only held together by Saddam's brutality.