Just watched Flags of our Fathers, the good but not great first half of Clint Eastwood’s Iwo Jima saga. One thing jumped out at me that I have heard from many sources before, notably Studs Terkel’s The Good War (which I received for my Bar Mitzvah and actually read twenty years later). And it flies in the face of the Right Wing’s nonsense about how our country has become wussified and weak.

Americans were not as massively supportive of World War II as the neocons would have us believe. The Iwo Jima survivors were used to raise war bonds — because the country was about to go broke from the unwillingness of the American people to buy them. Americans were growing very tired of the war and the fierce fight the Japanese put up at Iwo was partly to break our resolve. It came close to succeeding. Had we invaded Japan proper, perhaps our will would have broken.

The film — and especially its Japanese-language counterpart — have been lauded as being “anti-war” or “anti-Iraq” or a commentary on veterans affairs (the Iraqi vets aren’t the first to be abandoned by our government). I didn’t see that. I’ll let you know what I think when I see Letters from Iwo Jima.

Read about how we found and killed al-Zarqawi — by using the humane non-torture interrogation techniques that defined US policy for generations.

But then . . . if we did that, those damn Aye-Rabs wouldn’t be suffering, now, would they?

Let’s see Bush’s supporters — his few remaining supporters — defend the year-long jailing of a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist. Come on, Bushbots. I know you’re out there!

A conservative talking point that I’m beginning to doubt goes like so: “If we set a deadline for leaving Iraq, the terrorists will just lay low until we’re gone.”

I think that’s true and it was a point I was sympathic to until recently. My thought was this: Why is that a bad thing?

If we get less violence in Iraq, a lessening of ethnic hatred and a breather for the Iraqi government to assert itself, why is that a bad thing? I don’t see that the insurgent forces would necessarily be able to marshall reserve strength faster than the Iraqi government could.

I think it is reflective of the conservative misunderstanding of the nature of our fight. This is not like World War II where we are going to track some bigwig down in a bunker and kill him and then his followers will surrender. This is an ongoing ethnic strife that is not going to end until the combatants decide it’s no longer in their interest to fight. If we set a deadline (one we can always change if necessary) and the thugs back off, that will give the people a chance to see that there is a better option — a peaceful option. It will give them a reason to stop fighting.

What’s wrong with that?

A soft deadline is a perfectly viable option, in my opinion.

Neal Boortz’s posts were obsolete almost by the time he posted them. But let’s fisk him anyway on the Iran issue:

The proper response would be to start dropping bombs until the soldiers were returned. You know…like Margaret Thatcher…or Winston Churchill would do.

But neither Thacher nor Churchill would have had us hip-deep in Iraq with an incompetently fought war that has produced military paralysis. We couldn’t have bombed Iran because, among other things, they might have decided to send a million soldiers westward into Iraq. How would we deal with that, Mr. Boortz?

A lot of criticism of the Bush Administration has focused on their erosion of America’s soft power around the globe. But I see an equal decay in our hard power. We went into Iraq and we couldn’t pacify it. Not because of liberal media or Democrats but because of a weak, incompetent Adminsitration that was more interested in handing out reconstruction contracts to friends than rebuilding a nation. Iran was emboldened. They new we couldn’t respond forcefully. And they took advantage.

As I said, thanks a lot, George.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just scored a gigantic political coup over the United States. Whatever else might be said of the hostage situation, he can point out that he treated his prisoners humanely while Bush waterboards them. He can point out that they were freed as a gesture of good will, while Bush has some that have been imprisoned without charges for five years.

And allow me to head off the “they were wearing uniforms” thing at the pass. Do you think that subtlety is going to matter anywhere in the world apart from National Review and Rush Limbaugh? Do you think the ROW cares about that? What they will see is terror suspects being indefinitely detained and waterboarded while Iran sets enemy soldiers free.

That’s the legacy of George W. Bush. Iran has made us look bad. Thanks a fucking million.

The GOP and their sychophants on talk radio are slamming the Dems over their Iraqi withdrawal plan, calling it a surrender plan.

I’m just curious. What’s their plan? Other than just saying they want “victory”? What is the goal? How do they plan to achieve it? It’s becoming clearer that the surge produced only a temporary lull in the violence.

So what do they plan to do? That’s the one thing I never hear from the so-called conservatives. All they talk about is how important the battle is and how leaving it will be a great victory for Al-Quaeda — which is amazing unlikely for a radical Sunni organization in a majority Shia state. But they never present any ideas? More troops? Different tactics? Change of leadership? We’re trying that now and it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. So what is your plan? Come on Bushbots. Tell me what the plan is to achieve victory in Iraq?

Having praised Boortz, I want to talk about my biggest point of disagreement – one that is coming more and more to the fore with the so-called conservatives.

You see, Neal blames the problems in Iraq on the Democrats. Yes, the Democrats.

Apparently, the negativism and lack of support has encouraged the Islamists to ramp up their guerilla war. While we thought they were building incendiary devices, they were really glued to CNN seeing if the war was popular here so that they knew whether or not to fight us. Never mind that they are primarily fighting each other right now.

My attitude toward this idea can probably discerned by my tone.

No, it was Bush who did all of these things.

Has the dissent of the media and the Dems hurt our efforts in Iraq? It probably has (although I don’t recall the conservatives being terribly supportive when Clinton took us into Kosovo). But if you remember the early months of the war, both were highly supportive. Remember the imbeds and the positive reports they made? It was only after Iraq began to spin out of control that the criticism ramped up.

You know, it’s funny how Bush is the Commander in Chief when it comes to war powers and bending the Constitution. But when it comes to responsibility, nothing is ever laid at his door. It’s the Democrats’ fault for objecting; it’s the media’s fault for portraying failure in Iraq; it’s the Iraqis’ fault for being sectarian; its the American people’s fault for being a bunch of wusses; it’s Hollywood’s fault; it’s Air America’s fault; it’s Andrew Sullivan’s fault. It’s someone’s, anyone‘s fault other than the one person whose job it is to take responsibility for our foreign policy.

As I said before. Is Bush ever responsible for anything?