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If you look up the word "asshat"…

Posted 21 Jun 2006 in Iraq, liberals, military, stupidity, terrorism, war

… you’ll find this guy. Pierre Tristam is an editorial writer for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. He’s also a prime example of an asshat. [synonyms: leftard, imbecile, cretin, moron, half-wit]

First up, a generous helping of the Santa Claus mentality that cripples so many Liberals. While our troops are in Iraq fighting the insurgents/terrorists and training the Iraqi military, we need to make sure to give Iraqi troops every convenience (at American taxpayer expense) rather than expecting the oil-rich country to provide for its own soldiers. (h/t: Sweetness & Light, Flopping Aces)

The Wall Street Journal described exactly how odious is Americans’ contempt for Iraqis. The Journal story last Saturday made the point through the immense differences in the way American soldiers live and work compared with Iraqi soldiers they’re training on the same base, and how those differences apply when the soldiers are in the field. The opening paragraphs:
“This sprawling military base is divided down the middle by massive concrete barriers, a snaking fence and rifle-toting guards. On one side, about 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers live in air-conditioned trailers. There’s a movie theater, a swimming pool, a Taco Bell, and a post exchange the size of a Wal-Mart, stocked with everything from deodorant to DVD players. On the other side are a similar number of Iraqi soldiers whose success will determine when U.S. troops can go home. The Iraqi troops live in fetid barracks built by the British in the 1920s, ration the fuel they use to run their lights and sometimes eat spoiled food that makes them sick. The only soldiers who pass regularly between the two worlds are about 130 U.S. Army advisers, who live, train and work with the Iraqis. For many of these advisers, the past six months have been a disorienting experience, putting them at odds with their fellow U.S. soldiers and eroding their confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to build an Iraqi force that can stabilize this increasingly violent country. Army commanders back in the U.S. “told us this was going to be the most thankless and frustrating job we have ever held, and boy, were they right,” says Lt. Col. Charles Payne, who until last month oversaw about 50 Army advisers. He and fellow advisers say U.S. troops on the American side of the base saddle Iraqis with the least-desirable missions and often fail to provide them with the basics they need to protect themselves against insurgent attacks. “They treat the Iraqis with utter scorn and contempt,” Col. Payne says. “The Iraqis may not be sophisticated, but they aren’t stupid. They see it.”

Another colonel disputes that interpretation of course (see the full story here). Keeping Americans and Iraqis separate is a matter of security. Keeping them separate is a matter of resources. Keeping them separate is a matter of logistics, language, survival, god’s plan. What bunk. The separation is symbolic of the American effort’s inherent failure in Iraq.

Yeah, that makes sense. America is failing in Iraq (he’s already wrong on this) because American taxpayers aren’t feeding Taco Bell food to Iraqi soldiers. Effing brilliant. Although it does sound like some of the Iraqi troops are living in poor conditions, it’s not the responsiblity of the U.S. military to provide for them. That would fall squarely on the new Iraqi government.

And as if this bit of genius wasn’t enough, Mr. Tristam manages the impossible by shoving his other foot into his mouth.

So let’s say it again: two American soldiers go missing. The reaction in America is nearly hysterical, especially with the added spin that the men were captured by “al-Qaeda,” a hysteria not dissimilar from the kind that greeted the killing of Zarquawi, the capture of Hussein, the killing of his two sons, the “rescue” of Jessica Lynch, the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Fidros square: all set pieces on a stage controlled from a make-believe war room in Washington the way the Air Force controls its unmanned drones over Iraq and Afghanistan from a small hangar at the edge of a runway in Las Vegas. In that context, the story of the missing Americans, the way it’s been told, the way it’s been hyped, is more of those piled-on insults on Iraqis’ daily fate, more of that attitude Iraqis have had enough of—that Americans count, they have names, they have faces, families, stories to tell, while Iraqis don’t. But even that distinction should be qualified by another divide.

I began writing this when news of the two Americans’ death was announced this morning. They were found dumped on an Iraqi street, after being tortured, the very same way dozens of Iraqis are found dumped with signs of torture day after day. I deliberately did not mention their death until now because in the end, their fate, the way the press plays it, is also irrelevant.

Even if this guy thinks the press plays up the coverage of the American soldiers’ deaths too much, I fail to see how the manner in which they were murdered is irrelevant.

Why does this ‘tardo think it’s wrong to be outraged when one’s countrymen are found tortured and beheaded? But wait, it gets better.

It is secondary to the story the White House and its acolyte press want to tell.

This guy is actually an adherent to the theory that the media is conservative!

That’s ok, I’ll wait while you finish laughing.

Ready to continue? Ok, good.

Should they have been found alive, it would have been another one of those fantastic rescue scenarios. Now that they have been found dead, it’s the other scenario—the one that reaffirms the need to “get the job done,” to not let their death be “in vain,” to (and that’s the best one yet) “stand by” our Iraqi friends. Even when it comes to American deaths and survivals, the names are becoming interchangeable, the faces irrelevant except as tear-jerking props for the newscasts and the magazine narratives. But in truth Americans couldn’t care less even about their own boys dying pointlessly.

Umm, anyone ever heard of projection?

The stories don’t touch them in the least, except for those few military families that are feeling the destruction in isolation, to the tune of parodies of sympathy and yellow-ribbon gimmickry. The divide is not only in Iraq. It extends all the way here, to between those few who live the war’s losses and the many who glance it once in a while as an episode of CSI-Ramadi.

The two soldiers’ names, by the way, were Thomas L. Tucker of Madras, Ore., and Kristian Menchaca of Houston. Tucker was 25, Menchaca was 23. They’ll be forgotten by this evening’s ESPN recap of interleague baseball scores. By then their story will have fed a few news cycles well enough to profit a White House starved for fresh public fear and rage at “the enemy,” to give the president’s approval rating a little bounce on the back of corpses choreographed just so. But the one thing Tucker’s and Menchaca’s death will have been for sure is in vain.

This pathetic pessimism is a slap in the face to all the American soldiers who have served this great nation and given their lives to liberate Iraq from a murderous tyrant!

Is it any wonder I find myself opposing Liberals more often than not?

The only way those soldiers’ deaths would be in vain is if President Bush gave in to cowardly twats like Mr. Tristam and surrendered Iraq to Al Qaeda.

Luckily, the asshats aren’t in charge.

Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT

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