Right-wing talk show host Hugh Hewitt interviews General William Odom about Iraq, and it is a thing of beauty:
HH: And so the purple finger elections of 2005, of no counterargument to you?
WO: Oh, look. Elections are easy to hold. I grew up in Tennessee, where Boss Ed Crump rigged the elections every year. We knew that. Mayor Daley, the Pendergast machine, boss Tweed? Come on, don’t tell me about elections in the U.S. being honest.
HH: I didn’t make that … I was saying what did that mean, the people, the millions that turned out?
WO: It meant that we held an election out there, and people came and voted.
HH: And what did that, do they aspire to order, General?
WO: Sure, they want order, but voting doesn’t produce order.
Retired General William Odom argues for immediate withdrawal in Iraq, regardless of what happens next (Hugh Hewitt Show, via LudicKid)
I didn’t know what to excerpt, and that’s probably not the best sample. But seriously, go and read the interview. It’s full of things you need to know right now.
He schooled that poor, twittering wingnut on the differences between liberal and illberal democracies, and quite a bit else about order, constitutional governance and the nature of the state. Great stuff. I honestly didn’t expect that from a general. They’re almost always more like politicians, who master talking points without any real understanding.
You excerpted the right thing. There’s too much there to do better than that. Regular consumers of Clownhall’s bilge are not going to be too happy with any of it.
Excellent read. Thanks.
Thanks for the info!
Hewitt got his but spanked so bad it will be blue for months.
It is amazing to me how many people still have not considered this basic question: What are truly constitutional democracies, how do they form, and over what time frame?
Once that basic question is considered, the folly of our plan and our continued presense there becomes obvious.