Matt Ortega

In attempts to justify a prolonged, likely permanent, American encampment inside Iraq, conservatives continue to make silly comparisons.

The most first and most common comparison points to the continued U.S. presence in Germany and Japan following the collapse of the Third Reich and the Japanese empire in the Second World War, or Korea following the three-year war on the peninsula in the early 1950s. Stupid, I know, but that is what they claim. (For why this is a stupid argument, there is plenty of reading on that subject.)

The conservative blog, Red State, unveiled a new and even dumber argument. From their e-mail to supporters:

Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence … Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we’re still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.

Here is what Bill Scher wasted fifteen seconds of his life writing:

But hey, at least Germany and Japan are like Iraq in that they are other countries.

I can’t believe I am wasting 15 seconds of my life to type this, but having military bases in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina does not constitute a permanent occupation. Does RedState really believe that 140 years after the Civil War, American troops have a “peace time standing presence” in the American south?

There you have it — the “Union” is still occupying the “Confederacy” because, apparently, the “Confederacy” never applied nor were accepted back into the “Union” during Reconstruction.

April 9 marks the 143rd anniversary of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender that effectively ended the Civil War.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The views expressed are of the author, and the author alone, and do not reflect the views of the Democratic National Committee.