Thursday, August 12, 2010

What Passes For "Conservative" At HuffPo

Leftists are interesting creatures. They are immune to reality. Logic and truth are foreign concepts to them. They are seething with hate. They love to put their ignorance on display. And sometimes, they pretend to be conservatives. Take, for example, Eric Margolis, who rants at Huffpo on occasion. Eric claims to be moderately conservative, defining himself as an “Eisenhower Republican.” You can tell me in the comments if you buy into that laugher.

To properly get a sense of who Eric is, let’s look at two pieces that he ran over at Huffpo about Afghanistan and Iraq. But first, some background: Eric is a fool with no understanding of history, no grasp on reality and an indifference to facts. He believes that “America has become addicted to debt and war,” and he seems to despise the American military, which he describes derisively as “professional soldiers” (in the Roman context) and “mercenaries.” He also thinks that using modern weapons in a place like Afghanistan is “cowardly”:

“In my view, as an old soldier and war correspondent, using heavy bombers to attack tribal levies or employing gunships and drones against tribal compounds is cowardly.”
Note the assertion that “America’s professional soldiers” are waging a war against civilians.

You may also note that Eric mentions that he is a former solider. In fact, he reminds us of this over and over because he thinks this means something. Perhaps he’s forgetting that Lee Harvey Oswald, Hitler and Alan Alda also were soldiers, and they were all less paranoid than Eric.

And speaking of soldiers, Eric has no love for “fire-breathing Gen. Stanley McChrystal” or our “Special Forces ‘mafia’.” He also hates Fox News, Republicans and the American people, as he was just sure that those morons would make McChrystal into a hero, and thereby the Republicans would “again sadly demonstrate they have become the party of America's dim and ignorant.” He also hates the Tea Party because it appeals to the “fears and prejudices” of its followers, and he rejects the Republican Party because it is influenced by the evil Tea Party.

Oh, and speaking of evil, in a 2009 essay titled “Don’t Blame Hitler Alone for World War II,” Eric claims that it was wrong to give Hitler full blame for World War II, because this was a “preventive war” forced on Hitler by the Soviets.

Ok, so that’s conservative Eric. Now let’s take a quick look at what he just wrote about Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are some highlights.

The Taliban are resisting “western occupation” of Afghanistan. . . forget that the Taliban were there long before the West arrived.

And why would we occupy Afghanistan you ask? Well, first he rants something about the US wanting to control the biggest exporter of heroin. But then he changes his mind mid-rant to alert us that the US wants Afghanistan to control its “oil”. . . which doesn’t exist.

But his real hatred is aimed at our being in Iraq. See if you can follow this:

He starts by saying that we only went into Iraq because the “Seven Sisters” have been squeezed out of their oil fields in places like Iran, and they needed Iraq’s oil wealth to get back into the game. The “Seven Sisters,” by the way, was the name given to the big seven American oil firms in the 1950s. Only four still exist and only two remain American.

But then he suddenly realizes that people might not buy the idea that we need Iraq’s oil because. . . well, we don’t. So he says that the real reason we wanted their oil fields was to gain influence over people like Japan who need the oil. Apparently, occupying Japan doesn’t give us enough influence. His proof? Well, “as the old saying goes, America’s trinity is ‘God, guns and gasoline.’” Wow, now that’s definitive!

Then he gets a little crazy. . . er:
1. He notes that “American ‘liberation’ left Iraq politically, economically and socially shattered, ‘killed’ in the words of former foreign minister, Tariq Aziz.” To back this up, he claims that “reputable studies estimate Iraq’s death toll at mid-hundreds of thousands to one million, not counting claims by UN observers that 500,000 Iraqi children died of disease as a result of the US-led embargo before 2003.” Of course, there are no reputable studies that say this, there are only a couple of far left guesses. Even the AP only puts the death toll at 100,000.

2. He goes on: “four million Sunni Iraqis remain refugees.” FYI, that’s more Sunnis than exist.

3. He says the “surge” only worked because Iran ordered the Shia Mahdi Army militia “to temporarily end resistance” and because of “deft bribery” by the Americans who spent “untold millions bribing Sunni fighters.”

4. Then he takes a quick side trip to warn us that Washington is building new “fortified embassies” in Kabul, Islamabad and Baghdad? These “may hold 1,000 ‘diplomats.’ Osama bin Laden calls them, ‘Crusader Fortresses.’” You see people. . . it’s all there in black and white!

5. And what about the “50,000 US troops left until 2011 . . . to ‘advise and assist”? Well, “to this old war correspondent and military historian, that sounds an awful lot like the British Empires employment of native troops under white officers.” Military historian? Yeah, sure.

6. Of course, he couldn’t leave the Jews out of this because no paranoid rant is complete without a little anti-Semitism. So, did you know that “Large numbers of Iraqis doctors and scientists have been murdered”? And guess who did it? Well, Eric doesn’t want to say definitively because there’s no “hard evidence,” but he lets us know that a lot of people are saying they were killed “by Israel’s Mossad.”
That’s probably enough for you to get the point. Eric is an anti-Semitic, anti-American nutjob with paranoid delusions of American schemes to conquer the world. He fits right in at Huffpo. And he is anything but a “conservative.”

I guess it’s become the vogue thing for leftists to masquerade as “conservatives.”


14 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

Wow, Hillary Clinton is more conservative than Eric Margolis!!!

I'ld hate to see what they consider a "TRUE LIBERAL".

She did back the Iraqi war.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I have no idea what they would consider a true liberal to be? I suspect that Lenin and Marx themselves would be seen as capitalist-exploiters over at Huffpo.

As for Margolis, he actually thinks of himself as a "true conservative". But when you see that he hates the citizen military, thinks ill of America, hates the Republican Party, AND hates the Tea Party which is trying to bring the Republican Party to its more conservative roots, I just don't see anything "conservative" about him -- not by any definition that I know. To the contrary, he seems to fall nicely into the paranoid-left camp.

BevfromNYC said...

He's pretty typical for HuffPo, though I can't imagine why he would want to call himself a "conservative". Maybe he means "conservative" as in conserving natural resources. Or maybe he's willing to brand himself a conservative to make HuffPo appear as if they are fair and balanced like Faux...er...Fox News.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Normally, I would leave Huffpo to you, but I stumbled upon this guy. So I'll take your word for it that he's pretty typical. Yuck.

I'm honestly not sure what he thinks makes him a conservative? I know that he claims that he was an anti-communist at one point, but that doesn't exactly make one a conservative. Lyndon Johnson was also an anti-communist.

Margolis apparently has also flirted with being a Ron Paul supporter, though it sounds like he only liked Paul's anti-war stance.

I suspect that he's like Weigel from the Journolist scandal -- thinks of himself as "a relatively conservative libertarian" but mistakes "libertarian" for "libertine" and has nothing but disdain for all things conservative.

On the one hand, it would be interesting to see why he thinks he's a conservative. On the other hand, I'd rather he just went away back to whence he came.

Ed said...

Let me state the obvious, if this had been National Review posting this guy's article, they would be accused of all kinds of racism, antisemitism, and lunyism. But no, it's Huffington Post, so it's all good. Sickening.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, I think that goes without saying. The Huffers would be all over this story of the evil National Review pushing horrible things. . . thing that they themselves believe. Hypocrisy is a liberal trait by now, after all.

Unknown said...

Andrew: The HuffPo thinks Nancy Pelosi is too conservative. Does that help? Eeeek!

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, That explains a lot. It really does!

Anonymous said...

The loons at HuffPo think Nancy Pelousy is too conservative? That truly is scary.

By the way, I love the B-52 Andrew. TJ

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks TJ, but I can't take credit for the image. Sometimes I can, I often make my own images or manipulate them. But this one I took from some leftist site.

As for the Huffers, I think they've gone insane. There's no other explanation for the multi-year temper tantrum they're throwing.

Ponderosa said...

Eisenhower conservative?

I did a little digging - so he's pro-capitalism, umm...duh.

And an anti-communist - that is just fantastic.
He'll fight the USSR tooth and nail. Great timing.

Ike left office in '61 and I would argue conservatism was at low ebb, perhaps even its nadir (between FDR & LBJ) - pre-Goldwater, pre-Reagan, pre-Tea Party and Buckley had just started NR.

Perhaps 1976 or 2008 were worse.

Either way...

/sarcasm on
Great to have him aboard!

He has inspired me to annouce right here and NOW my opposition to King George!
/end sarcasm

AndrewPrice said...

Ponderosa, LOL! I agree wholeheartedly with your sarcastic response.

I think you're right about conservatism. The 1930s-1950s were the peek of the "government can do everything" crazy (with a last hurrah under Johnson in the 1960s). Even the Republicans were on-board with that. So describing himself as an Eisenhower Republican really takes him out of the realm of being a conservative.

Also, being an anti-communist is pretty meaningless as (1) communism has failed around the world and the Soviet threat is gone (as you note), and (2) even socialists are often anti-communist.

Being pro-capitalism also is a rather generic description because even many socialists around the world have begun to accept the merits of capitalism.

What I find interesting is that where these things count, that's where he gets soft. In other words, he's pro-capitalism, but doesn't support the people who want to put in place the pillars of capitalism. He's anti-communist, but seems even more anti-American. And he seems to take at face value everything that any dictator or terrorist or leftist groups says.

That's not a conservative by any definition.

rlaWTX said...

no one is seriously expecting consistency at HuffPo, are they?

and can I be a millionaire just because I like the color green and think that money is cool and have written out a million with all the zeros a few times? if so, can someone let my bank know?? :-)

Good job, as always, Andrew. Y'all have a great weekend!

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, Thanks! No, I don't think any of us expect consistency at Huffpo. It would be nice, but we know better.

And I like your analogy. Just because you say you are something doesn't make it so.

Have a great weekend! :-)

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