US Congressmen Not the Only Leaders Running From General Petraeus
By Repair Man Jack Posted in War — Comments (63) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from diaries. - Moe Lane
The drumbeat dirge of defeatist diatribe pounds on loudly, as the humid torpor of summer descends on The District of Columbia. Everyone there believes we have no hope of winning Iraq. At least we have no hope of winning their in time to make this issue conveniently go away between now and the next election. As a result, Congress now wants to wash its hands of Mr. Bush’s War.
The national media fully supports an immediate pullout, without serious regard for the consequent slaughter that would break loose in the aftermath of our shameful retreat. The New York Times editorial “The Road Home” states the evil intentions in plain newsprint.
It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.
This goes beyond isolationist idiocy. This ranks as cowardice in the face of a determined enemy. The logical syllogism behind the arguments in this editorial can also be reduced to simple declarative sentences. The War in Iraq is unpopular. People die there that would otherwise enjoy productive lives. Therefore, the War in Iraq is wrong.
In an utter moral vacuum, with no relation to any recent US History, this argument appeals to simple instinct. It’s not until we point out that The American Civil War was unpopular and that the combined Union and Confederate Armies lost more soldiers in a handful of days, at Gettysburg, at Antietam and then again at Shiloh, than we’ve lost in four years in Iraq, that this argument is exposed as sophomoric.
What happens after the US withdraws? The New York Times believes its time to send in the United Nations Peacekeepers. The ones raping children in Sudan while open air slave markets operate near their AOs. Yes, the very same ones who stood by and gawked at the butchery in Rwanda and Burundi.
The United Nations has a bunch of funny clowns and can walk an impressive rhetorical tightrope when forced to offer justification for the waste, fraud and abuse of power that has become their organizational hallmark. Yet still, they don’t make the children smile when that particular circus comes to town. Don Surber describes the idiocy of handing Iraq over to UN peacekeepers.
Africa burns while UN blue helmets look askance and indulge themselves in child porn and petty theft. That is the Times prescription for Iraq.
The chaos would result in zero civil liberties for 25 million Iraqis. The Times clamored for extraconstitutional rights for 500 or so jihadists at Gitmo — men captured on the battlefield. Now the Times is willing to forfeit any civil justice system at all in Iraq.
What makes this even more galling is the action taking place on the ground. Two summers ago, Muqtada Al Sadr was a scourge. Attila of the Mosque was held up as the number one example of why the US could never stabilize Iraq. Now, he’s commuting back and forth between Iraq and Iran, while his Mahdi Army disintegrates into the desert as it fights among itself.
When even Prime Minister Maliki feels bold enough to demand that the Mahdi Army disarm, in the face of threats from al-Sadr’s aides, the weather has turned against Muqtada al-Sadr.
Even more telling than al-Sadr’s inability to intimidate the new Iraqi Government off of the battlefield, has been his loss of respect among his own followers. His last two fiery sermons have failed to ignite much kindling. He’s been preaching to empty pews. He’s enjoying worse ratings than a rock concert promoted by Enviromullah al-Gore.
So, in the face of al-Sadr being slowly ground into the dust, our Congress demands immediate retreat. They seem to fear gradual, painful success more than all-out chaos and genocide that would break loose in our absence. They bought the lie that Muqtada al-Sadr was a fungible good, rather than a talented religious politician. They want this over by dinner time, so that they can get a good night’s sleep.
Most of Congress lacks the open honesty of a Dennis Kucinich or a Cindy Sheehan. They don’t want to go on the record as a bunch of niggling wet-nurses to failure. So instead of openly demanding that the war end now and passing legislation with exactly that stated intent, they threaten funding games, and look for disaffected Republicans to hide behind, in hopes of claiming they are being bipartisan in their disavowal of the conflict. They seem to want us to buy the propaganda that anything bipartisan has to be good. We’re supposed to ignore the historical fact that The Fugitive Slave Act was the result of a bipartisan congressional compromise.
The New York Sun describes details of the two-prong strategy being pursued to leave Iraq twisting in the winds.
One of these amendments — from Senator Webb, who had a great record in Vietnam and in the Reagan administration but who is now in the anti-war camp — would make it impossible to relieve the GIs on the ground come January and March, by which point most would have to redeploy home. Other amendments, like one offered by Senator Feingold, would fix a date in April for the full retreat.
The Democrats are counting on a growing number of Republicans who, in respect of the war, are now opposing the president from their own party. Senators Domenici and Lugar, of Arizona and Indiana, have in the last two weeks added their voice to the caucus of waverers. It would not be surprising were the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, to go overboard on Monday.
Thus, we have an army in the field which has smashed the villainous militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and sent him running to Iran a disgraced coward. We have a mass media and a congress that wants to run in the other direction and remove all our forces from Iraq. This will create a vacuum that lies between Iran and Saudi Arabia and could give one nation or the other the upper hand in the Islamic Civil War between Shi’ite and Sunni.
Thus, if Iraq gets de-funded and left as the next battleground in Islam’s eternal self-purge, there will be no way to avoid the obvious conclusion that the United Sates of America will have committed a grave moral wrong. We will bear the label of traitor before every nation in the world that dreams of graduating from thugocratic oligarchies and feudal despots. We will have promised them deliverance; we will have given them Jim Webb’s funding amendment. We should at least have the decency to compose a proper oration to commemorate their impending mass funerals which will take place in our wake.
Cross-Posted at: THE MINORITY REPORT
to sicken me. Once a Republican gets in te Senate, there is about a 50% chance they will stop caring about right and wrong. I look an McCain, Hagel, Graham and Sphincter, and I see perhaps the worst collection of senators that the GOP has ever successfully inflicted upon the republic.
If Sessions, DeMint, Coburn and others, didn't balance them out, I'd form my own part, a third party, a wild party...(sorry for channeling Alice Cooper lyrics, but I agree that our Senators often don't fail to fail.)
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
I wanna be elected.
Nice song even though the guitar riff was lifted completely from Dolly Dagger by Jimi Hendrix.
But to your point it burns my butt that we seem to "need" to have RINOs elected in Deep Purple states in order to get a majority.
"Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose." - Ronald Reagan
of Win the War can use it as a basis to send emails to congressional leaders and local newspaper editors?
Thanks for the consideration.
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
running from an enemy that will run after us. If this happens the war will only be beginning. Iraq will suffer greater misery while we rediscover the meaning of terror at home. We would be lucky if this, to borrow a phrase, turns out to be another Vietnam. We should only be so lucky.
The interesting part will be to witness the disclaimers of any responsibility by the Democrats and the media, the last having worked assiduously towards defeat and disgrace for years.
But this one won't be so easy for them to wiggle out of, no simple "let us have no recriminations". Not this time.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
We'll find ourselves forced into bipartisanship with the pathetic, grovelling Dems.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
I'll be the one organizing a couple of guys (won't take many) to escort any elected official I can find into the latrine to do an inspection in the bottom of the "honey bucket". It will be a bipartisan effort, I'll escort members of both parties.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
The good 'ol honey bucket. A distant relative of the perfume trucks that make the corn grow taller.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
I will let my beard grow, memorize the Koran, wear a black turban and carry a big stick as I seek out the remaining elected officials and administer Taliban justice.
He wasn't a big hit at the fraternity scene, but he did make it through and graduate. I haven't stayed in touch. Perhaps he really did join the Taliban.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
Even more disturbing is the effort to place blame on our military for their political lack of will and calculations. This of course is being done obliquely since no person dare enter into factual debate which they can not win; especially when it impunes our troops.
I think this paragraph from today's WSJ-OJ captures it for me;
So let's see. Mr. Bush and al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri agree that Iraq--not Afghanistan--is the central front in the war between them. But GOP Senators looking ahead to the 2008 elections have decided that the real front in the war lies not in Baghdad or Baquba but in the Beltway, and that a "bipartisan" redeployment is a worthier goal than backing the current battle plan WSJ 7-09
Should this infection spread amongst the GOP and lead to defeat in Iraq, I for one am prepared to cut off all donations and suggest the same for others.
As was the case with immigration, the "tea leaves" and electorate these politicians are pandering to, does not represent prevailing party opinion or related voters. Giving in to this specious nonsense will certainly result in "sea change", just not the type they are looking for.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
Should the GOP really cut the Iraquis off and fail to carry this through, it's time to do what every other idiot on the internet with a bloggyhorse does. Call for a 3rd party.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
We need to take back the Republican Party. We need to identify and get rid of the RINOs. We do not need lemmings, we need leaders.
The MSM, and the pols in DC are attributing the collapse of the immigration bill to the fact that nobody liked it. The conservative base is not getting any credit (except that we are a bunch of protectionist racists). We have to show them that we are a force to contend with, and that any GOP politician that stands for anything other than supporting the WINNING of this war will not be supported by us. We cannot allow our leaders to betray America.
It's been quite a few years since I read this book, but what the blog here describes is eerily similar to the scenario that Azimov described in how the Empire(?) fell; they were engaged in a military action and after some early reversals, they gained a competent general who was successfully engaging in a counterinsurgency campaign when the Senate recalled him back because some were afraid of the consequences of military victory. Things rather rapidly unraveled after that as rebellion rapidly spread, and the Empire fell rather quickly.
Of course Azimov was using the Roman Empire as his template - and I'm not making a one-to-one correspondence with the U.S. today, but the kind of internal decay and the elevation of political advantage over national interest does ring true - and the verdict of history is scary.
It's been at least two decades since I read The FOundation Trilogy. Your reference flew right over my head. But if I find myself short of reading material....
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
As I recall (and it's been a long time for me too) this episode occurred in the early part of the first novel, Foundation. It's always stuck in my mind though.
If I were a Congressman or Senator ( I'd have to be a Republican because I'd rather be a Nazi then a Democrat), I would be inclined to vote on issues according to the majority of my constituency. I have trouble faulting politicians for voting against what I personally feel is wrong because it's very possible that they are not voting the way they feel but the way majority of voters that put them in office feel. As I've said time and again, I think we've put enough time and blood into Iraq and it's time to let them stand or fall on their own. I would feel differently if the military was handling this confrontation the way military strategy dictates, but it's not, it's being handled by politicians and I'm sure it's frustrated the hell out of the military. I'd also like to say and I cant say it enough, the problems that we are having with the conflict in Iraq is NOT the fault of our Soldiers and Marines! They've done their job and done it very very well! As a Marine I'm proud to see what those young devil pups have done over there. God Bless America!
I appreciate the spirit of your comment. It has some merit and truth. However, I still haven't seen two issues addressed.
1) What happens when, not if, Al-Quaida follows us home.
2) What will stop total slaughter from erupting in Iraq. The entire region features neighbors willing and eager to pursue their intrests at Iraq's expense. The President of Turkey didn't put 140,000 troops on the Iraq border because he is happy.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
Did they buy a Navy?
Having troops in Iraq doesn't stop them from coming to the States. They're only engaging us in Iraq to the extent that it suits their purposes.
If and when they want to come to the USA they will whether we have 200,000 troops in Iraq or 20,000 or zero.
A) You state they need a navy to follow us home.
B) "If and when they want to come to the USA they will whether we have 200,000 troops in Iraq or 20,000 or zero."
I guess they have that navy hidden in Zarquawi's bathtub. They are engaging us in Iraq because it would a PR disaster for them not to. They cannot claim to be establishing the next caliphite, if the infidels set up shop in Baghdad. That goes against over 1,000 years of Islamic history.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
we've been killing off their top leadership at an unhealthy pace (for them anyway). We pull out of Iraq, they get a breather from hiding and training new leadership. They can concentrate on planning to blow up the Paradise Valley Mall instead of a school in Baghdad.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
cnl stated that "they'd follow us home". They can't "follow us home" when we leave Iraq for the exact same reasons that they couldn't get here yesterday.
They (specifically meaning a heroin funded rag tag group of radical militant extremist Muslims loosely calling themselves AlQueda) engage us in Iraq not for some hifalutin caliphate reasons they engage us in Iraq because fighting US military targets in Iraq from their perspective is more "honorable" and thus lends itself to recruiting better than blowing up the Mall of America. They engage our military in Iraq because they want to learn US military tactics. AQ could stop attacking us in Iraq tomorrow and we'd stay there because we're engaged in the civil conflict between the Sunni's and the Shiites.
And "we've been killing off their top leadership....." for years. Is AQ's presence in Iraq stronger or weaker today than it was when we started?
The better question is would you rather have them where we can kill them with reasonable impunity or where we have to worry about their "constitutional rights".
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
I'd rather not play their game.
They want us in Iraq for the reasons stated above. I don't like giving my enemies what they want.
If you want to defeat AQ you do one thing. Eradicate the poppy from Afghanistan.
You are an idiot. You don't get to make the rules. Sheesh.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
We invaded Iraq.
As far as the GWOT is concerned invading Iraq was counter productive and staying there continues to be counter productive (unless you are arguing that AQ in Iraq is not stronger today than it was when we invaded).
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
Enough equivocating, you fight the enemy where he IS, or allow him to dictate the terms of battle when he brings the fight to you.
"The only way to negotiate with your enemy, is with your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat." - Anon.
Eradicate the poppy from Afghanistan.
Yea, we'll get right on that after we finish eradicating coca from Latin America. Now there is an achievable goal. Besides which, it seems to me AQ would be just as happy to fight us in Afghanistan as they would in Iraq.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Sure it wouldn't be easy but the Taliban kept heroin production levels at a controlled rate (more controlled than it is today), so I'm sure with the help of satellites and air reconisance we should be able to have an impact.
By the way, what makes you think the US Government actually wanted to control Latin American coke production? And how many divisions do we have on the ground in Columbia?
the Taliban kept heroin production levels at a controlled rate (more controlled than it is today)
All we have to do is start beheading opium farmers along with their entire extended family (or just gunning them down if we don't have time for the theatrics) and I'm sure we could reduce the opium output of Afghanistan. Heck, if we want to emulate guys like the Taliban or Saddam, we could completely pacify Iraq within a month.
By the way, what makes you think the US Government actually wanted to control Latin American coke production?
I suppose all the resources we've put into the war on drugs, much of it focused on Latin America, in the 20+ years we've been fighting it might be an indication.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Frankly, I could care less whether we gun down heroin growers, but assuming we don't have the stomach for that policy maybe we could just drop herbicide on the crops.
You have a different opinion of the government than I do if you think that the so called "war on drugs" is about the illegal drug trade. From that perspective it is a categorical failure (wow, who would have thought a government innitiative would be a failure?!) as illegal drugs in the US are more freely available and cheaper (in inflation adjusted terms) than ever before. However, if you look at the overall policy from a special interest angle (for instance the business of prisons and prison catering, as one example of numerous special interests) it has been a wonderful "success".
Having said that, this blog is not about the "war on drugs". My point is that the war on terror can only be effective if the focus is on funding and or recruitment. It may be a feel good policy to kill the bad guys, but if in so doing it directly leads to that person's three brothers taking up the "jihad" then it's not a winning strategy (and I know that the stock response is that we can now just kill the three brothers too, but I'd counter this is a process of radicalizing people who are currently non extremist).
For the US government to effectively impact recruitment would require a whole lot of things that are just way too pie in the sky and would take generations, so it isn't realistic.
What can be done, is the source of funding can be hampered. With less funding, the ability of terrorist organizations to harm American interests is negatively impacted. Whether you are prepared to admit or not, heroin production in Afghanistan can and must be made unprofitable if the US is serious about the GWOT.
I really don't have much of a problem with somebody taking a principled stand on anything -- be it the War on Terror, immigration, taxes, whatever.
I may not agree with their principles. But there's something to be said for sincerity and integrity to one's beliefs -- even when, perhaps especially when, those beliefs run counter to public opinion.
I really don't have a lot of patience for public officials who support the establishment of something popular, then run quickly to pull the plug on it when it becomes unpopular. If you think about it, folks like Sens. Hagel, Biden, Clinton, etal have never once been on the wrong side of public opinion on the war. They supported it when it was popular, and then ran from it when it became unpopular.
I'll never respect such a thing. I went back and read an op-ed penned by Hagel and Biden prior to the invasion they supported and helped start. They said that times will be tough after Saddam falls. They said that people will need to have patience while the pieces are put back together again.
Maybe they should've taken their own advice.
To Hagel's credit, anyway, he never supported the surge. It's a dubious credit, of course. Because he voted for the war to begin with and now refuses to see it through to successful completion.
But what's there to say about people like Domenici and Lugar -- people who did support the surge but have, once again, failed to stand behind what they voted for?
It's enough to make me cringe -- and it's all, entirely, driven by 2008 politics. The Republicans think that Iraq is once again going to be an anchor around their feet and, as such, are trying whatever they can to minimize the political fallout.
Maybe it will be. But, speaking as a Republican, I would much rather take another drubbing in the 2008 election than I would leave Iraq with the job unfinished -- which would not only not be good for Republican fortunes, but would not be good for American fortunes.
No politicians had the opportunity to support the surge, or reject it, since Bush ordered it without discussing it with them.
Same thing for this new expansion of the war to include nation building and making the Iraqis love each other. No one agreed to that in advance. During the original Iraq debate no one said we would stay there until the Sunnis and Shiites held hands and sang Kum Bay Yah together. Back then we talked about WMD and knocking Saddam out of power.
What is happening is that President Bush is destroying the War on Terror by creating a new rogue mission that has nothing to do with the reasons we went into Iraq.
Bush nominated Petraeus and his confirmation hearing was centered on The Surge. There was significant discussion before he was confirmed and it is no stretch at all to say that a vote for Petraeus was, in fact, a vote for the surge since he was clear that his only job was to implement it.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
much, much more mature man than I. (Which probably isn't saying much...)
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
I either saw this movie in 1973 or this is a remake. It's hard to tell given the senators' scripts are so similar.
..all over the place, but it just broadens the footprint of your total ignorance. Your first paragraph is a lie or an admission of ignorance, your second paragraph is based on a pathetically-woven strawman, and your final sentence is a lying, pathetic, knowingly false KnownFact™ of a Pelosiesque nature.
I suggest you go back to my previous comments to you in the threads you spambotted with your ignorance before this, and start responding to them.
Some posters are so intolerent of opposing views that they have the tendency to insult or demean other posters. The standard refrain is to accuse an opponent of stupidity, ignorance, being a liar, spambot, commie, etc.
What good is a blog site if everybody agrees on a subject?
Pertaining to Iraq, some posters are too vociferous, i.e., "either you completely agree with me, or you're an unpatriotic Commie idiot." What usually happens is a handful of posters take over, and everybody else loses interest.
How is that for being a "devils advocate?"
having a different opinion that's based on facts and having an "opinion" that's based on untruths or ignorance. The latter is what most here have an issue with.
appropriations occur in different bills. If Congress refuses to approve a supplemental, the troops come home ASAP. As they said frequently in the movie The Right Stuff: "No bucks. No Buck Rogers."
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
If Congress refuses to approve a supplemental, the troops come home ASAP.
That is correct. The only two options Republicans in Congress had were to let the Democrats stop the war entirely, or let the funding be approved. President Bush had already ordered the divisions to start moving to Iraq, and some of them had already gone.
To their credit, those Republicans did not vote for total withdrawal, and over the long term will show the country that there is a third option.
...very quickly. Your attempts to spam us in thread after thread, pushing your mind-blowingly ignorant talking points, are beginning to tire even me.
And I hate banning people.
If the non-binding resolution opposing the surge isn't enough for you to say that Lugar, Domenici, etal supported it, then what about the umpteen amendments to the first supplemental (the one vetoed) which tried to deny funding for the troop surge?
Go look up those votes. Every single one of these Senators (I'm talking about Domenici, Collins, Lugar, etal) voted against those amendments -- ie, in favor of funding the surge.
You're simply wrong on this. These guys did support the surge. But they're now declaring it a failure only 3 weeks following the final step of implementation.
Forget your own feelings on the war, etc. for a second. Do you think that's responsible leadership? If they weren't prepared to give the surge an opportunity to move the process forward, they should've voted as Hagel & Co. did.
They've had myriad opportunities to prevent the surge.
They had the Petraeus confirmation.
They had non-binding resolutions on which they could vote.
They had their supplemental funding votes -- and the amendment process therein.
There are no shortage of Senators -- including some Republicans -- who are clearly on record as having opposed the surge. Gordon Smith comes to mind.
But Lugar, Domenici, and others who did not vote for the non-binding resolution (as but one example) are now declaring it a failure some 3 weeks after the final troops arrived.
And, on top of that, they're doing it at a time when Ayman al-Zawahiri is screaming bloody murder at other Muslims for abandoning jihad in Iraq, at a time when Iraqi Sunnis are increasingly questioning their relationship with the jihad, etc.
It's bad timing, for starters. But, even more than that, it's completely irresponsible to support something and then pull the rug out from under it before it's even been given a chance.
...support the establishment of something popular, then run quickly to pull the plug on it when it becomes unpopular."
Isn't that the definition of "Public Official"? Something about "failure is an orphan"?
--furious
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
I would only add that there is both more and less here than meets the eye.
To begin with, there are two facts of which I am 100% certain.
We will win a military victory in Iraq this summer and AQ in Iraq will be vanquished.
The President will never reverse his commitment to the surge (which means no troop withdrawls until next spring).
Everything else is up for grabs..
What has galvanized everyone's attention is the interim report on progress by the Iraqi government that is to be delivered on July 15 to Congress. It is getting out ahead of this report, the reaction to it, plus debate on some Senate bills related to the war that has caused some of our rats to jump ship well ahead of September.
The report points out some advances -- improved security in Baghdad, the co-opration of the Anbar Sunnis in fighting Al Qaeda, the successful effort by Maliki to prevent another sectarian outbreak following the second bombing of the Samarra mosque, all kinds of political and infrastructure improvements, great improvements in the Iraq Security force.....but is's not enough, and it's not the improvements the MSM and the Dems think are important.
So SecDef Gates is canceling his trip to Latin AMerica to work on the report, and the White House is focused on making the best possible presentation.
This focus on Iraq led to a wildly inaccurate NY Slimes story on completely imaginary discussions to start troop withdrawals or change strategy. Drudge and others were hypervntilating and spinning this -- but there is nothing to it.
As to the next two weeks, there are some Iraq bills under consideration, dealing with troop rotations, medical care for veterans, etc. but these even if passed have no effect on strategy or current deployments. Reid may force another vote on funding or withdrawals, if so he will lose as the rat Repblicans have stated they will not support such bills.
This is not to say there will be any shortage of pusillanimous pandering and pontificating by the rat Republicans and the Defeatocrats. There will be plenty.
about the Administration's resolve. Frankly, the Republican Cut-'n-Runner Coalition appears to have received little if no grief over their positions. And to carry this a step further, the canning of Rumsfeld and Gen. Pace, plus related laments from the White House, have emboldened these turncoats. I would love to be proved wrong but fully don't expect to be. Perhaps the day the president deems fit to breakfast with the Republican caucus at the United States Senate to discuss the GWOT...naah, ain't gonna happen.
The original GOP Dhimmi is going to get the primary challange of his sorry career. His opponent outpolls and outraises him at this point int he race.
I'd rather see Gore get oxed than my ox get gored.
the Administration. I said President Bush would never back down in his support of the surge. It doesn't matter what anyone else in the Administration or any Republlican does -- the President is solid on this. I don't view the relief of Rumsfeld as a step toward surrender, but rather the opposite -- that is, making the surge possible, since Rummy had opposed increasing troops. But these things will be argues for years.
Two indicators:
The President's speech on the 4th of July in West Virginia was a stirring defense of the surge. No backsliding.
Tony Snow pulled the plug on the whole NY Slimes story on the discussions in the White House on surrender plans, dismissing the story as copletely false and without foundation.
"We will win a military victory in Iraq this summer and AQ in Iraq will be vanquished."
Are you saying AQ will be vanquished this summer?
by the end of the summer, and AQ will be driven out to more remote parts of Iraq, probably close to the Syrian border. They will be vanquished eventually, but after this year they will not be a major factor in Iraq's security situation.
If violence continues, are you prepared to change course or are you going to ask for another 90 days?
If the violence ends, i will be happy to publically admit I was wrong.
Your question is based on the premise that the purpose of our military is to prevent violence.
On the contrary, our mission in Iraq is to kill terrorists and regain control of the territory, weapons, infrastructure and population they control. We are doing this right now in Iraq quite successfully.
Our troops are not, as your question implies, a police force trying to retain order, but a military force trying to defeat the enemy.
What I expect is continuing violence (if that is your word for "war") until the enemy is defeated. The end of the surge means the end of *open conflict* between the Iraq Security force and their allies vs the insurgents, the AQ in iraq, the Mahdi army, Iranian operatives, etc. It dosn't mean the end of violence, as Iraq is historically an extremely violent country, with tribal conflicts, criminality, etc. It means that AQ, Sadr, etc will set up shop somewhere else, and violence in Iraq will return to manageable levels.
At this point (I would say in about 6 months) we would start withdrawing our troops,having ashieved our goal.
As to asking for more time, that is not part of the plan we are currently executing, to my knowledge. I would certainly oppose it, but of course it is only another of your straw men.
..and I believe that he has said in the past that come September we will have a "new strategy". Sessions is definitely not a RINO or a political posturer......
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
"It takes two people to lie Marge"
"One person to lie and one person to listen...."
I have a few questions as I have been "out of the loop" for a bit...
1.) Are their "honorable" Congressmen trying to set some sort of vote for ending the surge asap? This includes funding, change of ROE's etc? In other words, could these so-called "law-makers" end this strategy prematurely before Sept 15th?
2.)There are two reports...Sept 15th and July 15th. What are the expectations for each?
3.)When is the next vote on a war funding bill?
I really don't believe that those against the war/surge are going to be swayed by any positive news in the coming months. I believe that the Dems and turn-coat Republicans spend more time studying polling numbers than any report on the situation concerning the war. Pelosi and Reid refuse to even meet with Patreous for f**ks sakes, does anyone really think that they even know anything specific and detailed about the war in Iraq?
why the money isn't pouring in for Republicans... why would we doonate money to turncoats with ony thier best interests in mind, and not that of the country.