May 01, 2004
LARGE, BEARDED COMET LUMBERS INTO VIEW
Halley’s comet can be seen every 76 years. Less frequent is a Phillip Adams column in which the phrase “I was wrong” appears six times.
Posted by Tim Blair at May 1, 2004 06:08 AM"However, my side of politics was absolutely right in demanding more time for Hans Blix and his team. Had this happened, perhaps around 100,000 deaths could have been avoided."
Well, there hasnt even been close to 100,000 deaths in this war.
"Perhaps it has been influential in stopping nuclear programs in Iran and Libya."
Perhaps that prevented millions of deaths dumbass.
Posted by: Oktober at May 1, 2004 at 06:32 AMWhat a jerk!!!Can't wait til Bunyip gets hold of this one!
Posted by: Debbie at May 1, 2004 at 06:34 AMIt is now more than a year since Operation Infinite Justice rolled into Iraq, and the Bushwhackers are falling silent. So I cannot resist the temptation of saying, "Told you so." Though, on a number of important issues, I happily admit to error.
The liberation of Iraq was Operation : Iraqi Freedom.
The Afghan op was, briefly, Operation : Infinite Justice, but they changed that do Operation : Enduring Freedom after a few days.
Not to mention this line:
"Australia went out on a limb for Washington and, yes, greatly increased the likelihood that we’d be targeted by terrorists. "
It was already a moot point, seeing as how Bali happened the October before...
Picking on this moron is fun and easy...
Posted by: Carl in N.H. at May 1, 2004 at 07:01 AMBeing a leftist means never having to say you're sorry.
Peace and Freedom for an Independent Iraq!
.
"Australia ... greatly increased the likelihood that we’d be targeted by terrorists."
This is a cowardly line.
Terrorists attack to the extent of their capability.
If we back down, we might "go down the list", but the threat simply gets passed onto the next target.
It is an appalling way to treat your allies.
Posted by: 2dogs at May 1, 2004 at 10:08 AMAdams is on his way out anyway. He used to be a big man with Labor, now they treet him like something smeared in a thick layer of that flesh-eating bacteria.
People generally are sick of hand-wringing old lefties. The feeling is they get a nice self-righteous chubby going protesting the injustice of it all but never lift a fucking finger to fix ANY of the worlds problems, since whining from the sidelines is so mush easier.
That's why people generally will go with the guy who tries to do something, who considers results more important than noble guestures, hard as it may be and as may setbacks may occure. Howard, Bush and Blair are doers, Adams is some fat wanker.
Posted by: Amos at May 1, 2004 at 10:55 AMThe Australian is running an ad today featuring Adams flogging world maps. What countries could we expect to find on an Adams' map? The Socialist Republic of Phattyskhan? Come on, someone can do better than that.
Posted by: slatts at May 1, 2004 at 11:26 AMThis column by Adamas is so egregious and intellectually dishonest that one wonders if it was not written in the midst of some kind of moral-cognitive crisis.
The very title of it evokes memories of adolescence - you know, when your parents' view of something had been well and truly demonstrated but you insisted "yeah well, I'm still more right than wrong. "Perhaps it's even more evocative of childhood spatts with siblings: "More right than wro-ong, more right than wro-ong, more right plus infinity, plus you can't beat me ever no matter what you sa-aay. You're a big stuu-pid."
Notice the smarmy and baseless confidence with which Adams feels it's now timely to start getting the history straight. 'Well, folks, it's all over now', he seems to say. More than a year has gone by and, gee, Iraq isn't a model of Athenian democracy and enlightenment. A whole year! And as poster Andrew points out above, the old layabout doesn't even get the military codename right -it was only briefly called 'Operation Infinite Justice.' Those evil Americans, having suffered a grievous and terrible attack orchestrated and carried out by rich, educated, spoiled, alcohol-imbibing, whore-using Islamic Jihadi, changed the name to 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' They left the infinite justice to God - and I have every confidence Atta and his colleagues are right now receiving it in the form of 72 hitherto unused cattle prods up their miserable arses.
A new Vietnam? After one year? Someone please tell Adams that the longer Vietnamese war lasted at least a quarter of a century. And Phil, Osama aint no Ho and he sure aint no Giap.
Adams says he didn't believe in the almighty Americans' "prodigious surveillance capacities" but he had full confidence the bespectacled Hans Blix would have found everything contraband in Iraq and then cleared the place out. Bollocks.
And Phillip - it was your beloved UN - and His 'Excellency', Dick Butler - that made clear that Saddam had a case to answer. It was also your beloved UN whose officials were profiting from Oil for Food while Iraqi children were dying. Adams doesn't mention that, nor does he say anything about Saddam's use of chemical weapons against his own people. Phil, you see, like other leftists around the world, doesn't really like the Kurds: they're not really elegant enough. They're so, like, macho.
The neo-cons planned the war during the Clinton administration? That's right, and the First Gulf War was planned during the Carter administration. The Bay of Pigs invasion, of course, was planned during the Hoover administration and that whole thing with TR at San Juan hill? Yup, planned by none other than Thomas Jefferson. Clinton himself argued Saddam had to be forced out you f---ing burke.
No massive uprising on the Arab Street, says Phil, but it's "early days." Hang on, isn't Phil arguing that it ISN'T early days now, that we can now make definitive judgements about everything? If it's still early days, then things look exceedingly good. One year: tyrant captured; heirs killed; military squashed; free press operational; torture ended; constitution written; tentative plans for handover drawn up; economy improving; education enriched financially and getting better; medicines becoming abundant; food getting to where it should; terrorists being slaughtered like flies. And in wider geopolitical terms? Hundreds of al Q'aeda killed or captured around the world; bin Laden either dead or living the life of a clinically depressed, cave-dwelling shut-in; Libya disarming; Iran and Syria worried now about the consequences of being linked by America to terrorists.
The Taliban? Women stoned to death? Phil does'nt care about that. That arena is doomed too, not worth fighting over. Adams subscribes to the idea that Arabs should not have democracy. Or justice. Or liberty. Or freedom. Or modernity. Or education. I suppose he also believes the East Timorese shouldn't have been given democracy either. They'd be so much more appealing to Phil if they were content to be pre-modern, cute fuzzy-wuzzys without McDonalds and VCRs. Like the Arabls, they just can't, well, handle democracy. Come to that, neither can Westerners - Adams doesn't like the support given to Bush, Blair and Howard. Our ignorance only proves to him that we'd be better off in Australia with a Whitlam-Barnard-like duumvirate consisting of Adams and fellow purse-carrying nancy-boy, Hugh Mackay.
This is one of the most dishonest, dog-whistlingly racist, wink-wink anti-Semitic and pathologically mendacious columns this rich, intellectually lazy old tosspot has written for a long time.
Memo to Adams: retire, put your feet up, play with your Eygptian figurines, do some renovations at Dunnie Lane, lasoo some olives, do anything. Just don't try to trash the efforts of those who believe: in right and wrong, that some people are worth fighting for and that, with some help and sacrifice from intellectual adults, the meek can inherit the earth.
That's the dream. You're unworthy of it.
Posted by: CurrencyLad at May 1, 2004 at 12:07 PMNot only is he a comet, he is also a star (using star in the sense of "a hot, gaseous mass".)
Posted by: Harry Hutton at May 1, 2004 at 12:12 PMa situation where the US and their loyal helpers would find themselves in an interminable, unwinnable conflict.
Sounds more like the political situation back home.
I was right to ridicule the Bush line that Saddam’s Ba’athists were implicated in the events of September 11 – and right to insist that bin Laden’s Islamists were natural enemies of Saddam’s secularists, and vice-versa.
More like natural allies against the rising tide of democracy.
The rulers of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, for example, remain on their respective thrones.
The former being a good thing?
On the other hand, the US invasion has had a negative influence on Iranian politics, emboldening the conservatives against the reformists.
Anyone else got views on the effects of the invasion? Some reckon that the US didn't support the students in Iran in return for Iran not releasing Al-Qaeada prisoners into Iraq.
I was right that a principal motive of the war was to support Ariel Sharon – and right again to dispute the Wolfowitz hypothesis that strong-arm tactics would force the Palestinians to behave. Far from improving stability in Israel, the war gave Sharon cover to escalate his war against the Palestinians who, in turn, upped the ante.
Care for any statistics on death tolls? (Death rates have been trending down, though I'm not sure of the precise effect of regime change in Iraq on that)
War in Iraq lead to the "Road Map", and now we have Israel withdrawing from Gaza. I expect Sharon's critics would never have predicted this.
as evidenced in Afghanistan where, as my side of politics stressed, things would soon return to the ghastly mess of the pre-Taliban years.
The implication being that the Taliban years weren't a ghastly mess.
Posted by: Andjam at May 1, 2004 at 12:39 PM>>as evidenced in Afghanistan where, as my side of
>>politics stressed, things would soon return to
>>the ghastly mess of the pre-Taliban years.
>The implication being that the Taliban years
>weren't a ghastly mess.
They weren't. The women knew their place, the homos were getting their heads lopped off on a regular schedule, disturbing foreign art was efficiently blasted to smithereens, and everything was peaceful-quiet 'cuz music was banned. Nice 'n' stable. Lefties have a hard-on for "stability," as long as it's not _their_ testicles being stabilized by a car battery.
>I was right to ridicule the Bush line that
>Saddam's Ba'athists were implicated in the events
>of September 11 - and right to insist that bin
>Laden's Islamists were natural enemies of
>Saddam's secularists, and vice-versa.
Phil is so right. The notion of religious fundamentalists allying with secular socialists against a common Western capitalist democracy is patently absurd. That's as ridiculous as, say, a capitalist democracy allying with a Communist dictatorship against a common Fascist enemy.
Posted by: Dave S. at May 1, 2004 at 03:52 PMI'm wondering if Iraqi's would be good for anything other than Gyros.
Posted by: IXLNXS at May 1, 2004 at 05:53 PMI'm wondering what your scream will sound like on that sunny morning you wake up and look back on your life with regret, IXL. I'm not sure if your tortured moans would move me to tears or laughter as you bitterly weep over the years you wasted in foolishness.
Right now, I'm leaning towards laughter.
Posted by: Sortelli at May 1, 2004 at 06:01 PMAdams like other awesomely self-righteous figures on the Left, eventually come to a point when they can't possibly live up to the incredible standards they set for others, and their only refuge is one of contradiction, denial and hypocrisy. He's way beyond that point now, and the fact that he is still seen to have any credibility at all by those who employ him, is an egregious indictment on our national broadcaster!
Posted by: Brian. at May 1, 2004 at 06:40 PMThe Guardian, back on February 6, 1999, ran an article on Bin Laden-Hussein links.
Since then, we've had documents recoverd in Afghanistan about Hussein overtures, UNSCAM documents that show some Oil-for-Food money went to the Al Qaeda funding machine, Al Qaeda announcments calling for forming an alliance with the Ba'athists against the U.S., jihadis blowing up trains in Madrid with the demand that troops pull out of Iraq, and a number of other bits and pieces.
And despite all this, "I was right . . . to insist that bin Laden's Islamists were natural enemies of Saddam's secularists, and vice-versa."
Can I have what he's smoking?
Posted by: Warmongeting Lunatic at May 1, 2004 at 09:11 PM"Right now, I'm leaning towards laughter."
Me too, you tasty bastard you.
Posted by: IXLNXS at May 2, 2004 at 12:33 PMIt's like you're not even trying anymore. I suggest donating your keyboard to charity.
Posted by: Sortelli at May 2, 2004 at 02:40 PMActually I have been terribly busy fixing bugs on my blog and in my comp. That and figuiring out how to cook an Iraqi. So far I've tried them in most combinations but they still leave a nasty after taste. Maybe ground up and mixed with enough spices to hide the oily taste.
Oh. I noticed recently in my local area there is going to be a new Australian type hamburger fast food thing opening. It soo reminded my of FAB that I think I may sue.
Posted by: IXLNXS at May 3, 2004 at 12:35 AM