Consensus on an Iraq plan
that works will come a lot harder
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
THAT OLD GUARD sure can get things done — so long as you don’t expect too much.
On the very day that the Iraq Study Group released its much-anticipated report, it produced results. Politicians from across the spectrum aligned themselves with a bipartisan unanimity that would do credit to the worthies on the study panel itself.
“I appreciate the hard work and thought that the distinguished members of the Iraq Study Group put into their final report,” said Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful.
“The Baker-Hamilton report is a first step toward a bipartisan way forward in Iraq,” wrote Sen. Joe Biden, a Democrat who would also like to occupy the White House.
“I commend the Iraq Study Group for offering a serious contribution to the discussion of how we should move forward in Iraq,” concurred independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who used to want to be president.
The man who actually is the president couldn’t have agreed more. After noting that the report was “prepared by a distinguished panel of our fellow citizens,” George W. Bush promised it “will be taken very seriously by this administration.”
No one could deny that the panel was distinguished. And bipartisan. And serious.
But before we line up for the victory parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, note that few elected representatives were promising more with regard to the report than what Rep. Jim Clyburn promised: “We will use it for what it is intended to be — recommendations… .”
Many expected the group’s report would provide cover for both the president and the newly Democratic Congress to… well, to do something, and the most popular “something” was to get us the heck out of there.
But the release of the group’s report helped clarify again what we learned in the days after the election that many of our antsier citizens had hoped would settle this business: There is no way to conclude our involvement in Iraq that is both quick and satisfactory.
The 10 elders on that panel brought some sorely needed qualities to the debate — collegiality, maturity, pragmatism and a sincere desire for what is best for our country. The nation will be well-served if everyone involved adopts those same virtues as the debate continues.
And the job will be a lot tougher than the panel made it look. They labored in obscurity, left in relative peace for most of the panel’s existence — without the frantic, insistent pull of unavoidable constituent groups. Our elected officials won’t enjoy such luxury. But it is, after all, their job to do. It can’t be delegated.
And approaches that will work will be harder to agree upon than the ones the panel adopted.
Take the widely reported proposal to draw down U.S. combat troops by early 2008 to the point that none are left except those “embedded with Iraqi forces.”
According to The New York Times, the panel achieved the miracle of agreement on that point via a simple expedient: “The group’s final military recommendations were not discussed with the retired officers who serve on the group’s Military Senior Adviser Panel before publication, several of those officers said.”
Advisers that the Times spoke to said the prediction is not based in reality. One noted that the panel’s assumption says more about “the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”
Not that the panel didn’t leave wiggle-room. Few have noted that the 142-page report actually says that “all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq” by the stated deadline. That’s a loophole big enough to drive several divisions through, if you can find the divisions.
As for working with Iran and Syria, Sen. McCain exhibited his mastery of understatement when he said, “Our interests in Iraq diverge significantly from those of Damascus and Tehran.” Sen. Lieberman and others have rightly echoed that assessment.
The panel leaders’ defense of the idea has been lame. James Baker said if Iran is uncooperative, “we will hold them up to public scrutiny as (a) rejectionist state.” Ooh. I can just see the mullahs trembling over that one.
Lee Hamilton said, “We do not think it’s in the Iranian interest for the American policy to fail completely, and to lead to chaos in that country.” Really? It’s hard to imagine an outcome more likely to generate welcome opportunities for Tehran. A weakened, discredited United States and a power vacuum in the Shi’a-majority nation next door? They would see it as final proof that Allah is on their side.
The fundamental truths about our involvement in Iraq have not changed. The security situation has worsened greatly, and with it the political environment back in the United States — the “absence of political will” described above by retired Army Chief of Staff Jack Keane.
Well, we’re going to have to muster some to come up with something more realistic than the Baker-Hamilton approach, because here’s what hasn’t changed: As Sen. Lieberman put it, “There is no alternative to success in Iraq.” Sen. Graham said, “we have no alternative but to win.”
And how are we going to accomplish that? I’m inclined to think Sen. McCain has it right when he says we need a lot more troops over there. You say it’s impossible to make that happen with our current defeatist attitude? You may be right.
But note that on Wednesday, it was the conventional wisdom that the president and Congress had little choice but to embrace whatever the study group came up with. By Friday, many of its core proposals had been declared toast by the president, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and most of the folks quoted above.
As unlikely as it sometimes seems, attitudes change. In this case, they’re going to have to.
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Brad, the drive by media had a nice kumbaya session when they read and heard the “blame this all on the Jews” report, and whatever isn’t blamed on the Jews, let’s blame the rest on Bush. Those with any amount of common sense, like Graham and Lieberman, have already round-filed this useless report. For one thing, most of the elite members of this group need to retire to The Villages in Florida and take up goofy golf. That is a nice replacement for goofy war management. It’s interesting that this group wants Iraq’s Arab neighbors to “support” Iraq. Does that support include sending in suicide bombers and IED materials? And then we have the request for Kofi Annan and the UN involvement. Someone sees a chance to turn a few bucks with that gesture. Meanwhile, James “I love Arab oil dollars” Baker can now go back to the Saudis and earn some more money defending them against 9-11 lawsuits. But, he wasn’t biased was he. No, he is a statesmen for sure, we just aren’t sure which state he is supporting.
On another note, we learned that one Muslim was plotting to slaughter mall shoppers in Minnesota and another was trying to get a truck driver HAZMAT license presumably to drive a tanker truck into a crowd and detonate it. Don’t worry, as soon as our new Congress shuts down our ability to intercept phone calls a few of these stunts will be pulled off. Then, we could re-engage the ISG hasbeen group to figure out a way to stop domestic terrorist violence. Stay tuned.
I hope we have learned something from all of this. Our problems in Iraq are ultimately the result of long standing systemic political inefficacy at home. We’re once again in an untenable, un-winnable situation. You can’t go spreading democracy when you’re not a democracy yourself. You can’t spread democracy at the end of a gun barrel.
Democracy (including Representative Democracy) requires equality among its participants. Capitalism by its nature makes people very unequal by redistributing the wealth generated by the people to a tiny, powerful minority. Over time, our political system has been co-opted by this minority because they control the flow of money. In turn, this means that a wealthy minority controls the media, corporations, and ultimately the government.
The so-called neo conservatives and neo liberals who planned and started the war gained power through corporate funding that started in earnest back in the early nineties. Corporate funded “think tanks” (e.g., The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, etc.) had a free reign to spread their propaganda with virtual unlimited funding. Politicians became beholden to corporate and moneyed interests for re-election. Corporate funded lobbyists began writing the legislation that corporate funded politicians enacted into law. The major media was deregulated at the behest of Corporate America-today seven or so major media conglomerates control about 80% of the news that you and I watch and hear. So in effect, corporations and business interests control the culture.
Legitimate democratic civic groups have been for the most part eliminated from the process. Instead, were left with local Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs across the nation that again are controlled by business interests-and as a result these groups have disproportionate control over state legislatures, and inevitably they oppose legitimate democratic reform. In practically all of the South, and increasingly in most of the rest of the US, it is impossible for workers to form unions and to participate in collective bargaining-rights that are givens in the legitimate democracies of Northern Europe. It is impossible for citizens to form unions because of entrenched resistance of inherently undemocratic business groups that control local legislation. What happens when the system has been so corrupted by moneyed interests to the point where the editors of your local paper are little more than corporate apologists and propagandists? What happens when this scenario plays itself out over and over again nationwide?
Well, things like the disastrous war against and occupation of Iraq happen. Things like 15% of the population not having health insurance happen. Things like having a bought off political system happen. Things like the “public/private partnership” (literally fascism) happen.
If you support a system where 80% of the people have their wealth usurped by a wealthy elite through the “leadership” of a placated, privileged professional middle class, then please don’t say that you are advocating or somehow “exporting” democracy, because you are not. Rather, you are advocating corporatism instead. There’s a big difference!
My sentence in the piece above should read as follows:
“Instead, we’re left with local Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs…”
Brad writes:
“There is no way to conclude our involvement in Iraq that is both quick and satisfactory.”
I would add, there is no way to conclude our involvement in Iraq that is both drawn-out and satisfactory.
Dave writes:
“Those with any amount of common sense, like Graham and Lieberman, have already round-filed this useless report.”
Ok Dave, what’s your plan? Since you’ve been wrong about every single aspect of this conflict why should anyone care what you think about the Baker report or anything else. And of course the blame is almost entirely on the president. This blame the media nonsense is really outrageous. NBC and the NY Times didn’t order us into this fiasco. They’re just reporting on the results.
Brad, you and Sens. Graham & McCain seem to share an interesting view. We sent enough force to Iraq to wipe out their nation in a matter of weeks, and now you think just a little more…or maybe a lot more…will turn the tide if we have the “political will.” How? That’s what I don’t understand about that view. How will more troops on the ground make this situation better? How is it smarter than what we are doing?
Here’s a question: How can we make/induce/cajole/buy whatever Iranian and Syrian cooperation in Iraq? Because right now it just sounds like YOU guys are the defeatists, giving up to a proxy war over a country we don’t want! Baker is right : we could talk to the Soviets, we can talk to the Iranians. Do we have no leadership left in the State Department?
And you have helped me come up with a truism: “The burned hand teaches best unless you have the political will to overcome it.”
Bud, the plan is victory and only that. Total defeat and capitulation by the insurgents who are committing suicide happily to stop democracy. I say lets make them happier faster and kill them. That is what it will take to have victory. For starters, lets kill everyone in Sadr’s illegal militia, including him. That is the start, then the Baathists who want to commit violence in the Sunni triangle are next. Now that is a plan.
After reading the op-ed quotes on page A19 in today’s “State” from St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the decidedly non-leftie Chicago Tribune urging Bush to embrace the report, and David Broder’s column which ended with, “Bush rejects the report at his peril,” I looked with optimism over to page A18 with optimism about the Unparty’s founder’s take on the ISG report.
So I was saddened when, after a few perfunctory nods to the “10 elders,” Brad Warthen basically dissed the report outright. His objection to the bipartisan commission’s recommendations seems to be…surprise…they don’t all agree with his view of the war and odd take on the geopolitics of the region (anybody notice the words “Israel” and “Palestinian” appear nowhere in Brad’s column?)
Now, Brad is entitled to his view. So was Ned Lamont and all the others he accused of divisiveness and partisanship. But at least Brad’s figleaf of non-partisanship is gone.
I’m afraid it’s time for an obituary:
THE UNPARTY
born Nov. 27, 2005
died Dec. 10, 2006
R.I.P.
This bogus committee is yet another cop out by legislators who don’t have the backbone to do the job to which they were elected. They want to appoint someone, anyone, to take the blame.
No matter what any committee wants to say, the FACT remains that Muslim terrorists have declared war on us, like it or not, and we have to defeat them, or be defeated by them, on their homeland or ours.
Take you pick. Anything that does not keep that fact in the forefront is out of touch with reality.
The only workable solution to this situation is to finish our quasi-imperialist adventure with a standard reformed-imperialist answer.
(1) Forget the sovereignty of the current Iraqi government. It depends on us and we’re leaving…
(2) Convene a “reconciliation” conference composed of the U.S. and representatives of Shiites, Sunnies and Kurds.
(3) Declare that we’re creating a tripartite Iraqi confederation. Draw the boundaries and allocate oil revenues according to per capita representation.
(4) Declare Baghdad as an “open city” with sectors for Sunni, Shia and Kurds.
(5) Provide security through a nine month “adjustment” period.
(6) Withdraw to our bases for an additional four years to prevent mass incursion from the neighbors or AQ domination. Make it clear that our forces will NOT police a civil war. Secure the borders and let the Iraqis decide the fate of THEIR country.
(7) Leave entirely after 57 months.
John McCain said it best recently when asked about the overfatigued and demoralized US troops. He said there is one condition worse than that, defeated troops. Winning and total victory is our ONLY real option for Iraq. Conferences, treaties, commissions, envoys and the like are all nonsensical diversions of the appeasers. The war we have in America is the one where the left WANTS us to lose in Iraq. Amazing but very true. They hate Bush enough to want their own military, their own soldiers, to go down in history with a defeat. Now that is what you call hatred, real hatred. Its sick too.
RTH, I like your thinking. You’ve offered some constructive ideas. Dave, a lost soul who has gotten everything wrong about the Iraq war, offers yet another flawed idea: mass genocide.
A couple of points: First, the U.S. probably does not have the political capital to redraw the boundaries. That would have to come from the U.N. or a combination of middle-eastern nations. Second, any plan that relies on our military providing security is doomed to fail since we’re part of the problem. If we haven’t been able to bring about security by now I doubt we ever can. We’ve already stayed way too long and our presense only seems to make things worse.
I believe the best option we have right now is to pull all our forces back to friendly nations in the region in order to help prevent the Iraqi civil war from spreading and just let them duke it out on their own. As I’ve said before that’s risky. But so is everything else.
Liberals are delusional if they think they can , in a conference, undo the boundaries and tensions created by Woodrow Wilson’s creation of Iraq 86 years ago.
We have to totally defeat the terrorists there, and only then can we work our way into a long-term structure for lasting peace.
Lee, I’m going to partially agree with you. Redrawing the boundaries is probably not going to end the violence in Iraq. If the U.S. plays a lead role in any “conference” to redraw political boundaries my guess is it’s doomed to failure simply because we’ve poisoned the “goodwill well” with our imperialist occupation. But RTH’s plan is at least something different to try. All plans have risks, few offer a great deal of hope for a positive outcome any time soon. But the worst plan of all is to continue on the path we’re going. “Stay the course” simply cannot be argued by rational people any longer.
Well, I can see THIS study group isn’t going to come up with a consensus plan.
America is not “imperialist” or it would have seized Iraq as a colony. Stop using that 1960s Marxist jargon.
America did not create the modern problems in Iraq – Saddam Hussein, Iran and Syria did. Saddam is gone. Syria wants Iraq divided so it can seize part of it. Iran wants Iraq divided so they can seize part of it.
If we pull out of Iraq, we will have to fight Iran to protect Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
Can we at least agree that we cannot continue as we have for the last 3 years? That seems obvious to me.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
—Albert Einstein
The only solution for Iraq is a political solution. Iraq is a nation in the same way Frankenstein’s Monster was a human. The course of post-WW II history has been the devolution of artificially created nation-states into more stable groupings based on ethnicity. Iraq, the nation was an accident of history– a whim of colonial powers.
We’re witnessing a multi-lateral civil war among tribes and religious sects in Iraq unleashed by the deposing of a brutal dictator. This is roughly parallel to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was predicted by many experts but not prepared for by the architects.
Only a solution similar to the Balkans will create stability in what is currently known as Iraq.
Powell’s “Pottery Barn” analogy is useful but incomplete. Instead of trying to glue back together the “broken” pottery, we should help create new states which are internally cohesive and protected from neigbors’ aggression.
Iraq was never a “central front” in the war on terrorism. Now we can only hope to keep it from becoming (more of) a failed state-incubator for terrorists.
It’s instructional to recall just how 100% wrong the architects of this war were: Iraq had NO WMD nor programs to produce them readily. Iraq had NO operational ties with AQ. The Bush Administration had NO plan to “win the peace” after we defeated a bankrupt, and demoralized third world military.
Most illustrative of the neo-con incompetence, ignorance and delusion is Paul Wolfowitz’ pre-war statement: “I think that the ethnic differences in Iraq are there but they’re exaggerated.”
Anyone still following the neo-cons’ plan should check into a mental health facility– except for the political architects who should be impeached, tried and sentenced to a ward for the criminally insane. They’ll be lucky if they (and the U.S.) aren’t tried for war crimes by an international tribunal.
Lee writes:
“America is not “imperialist” or it would have seized Iraq as a colony.”
That’s exactly what we tried to do. But it didn’t turn out very well. Simply put, we invaded Iraq in order to create an ally in the middle-east who would be run by a puppet government. That is a de-facto colony.
Oh please, can we use terms with some exactness? No, America doesn’t want a “colony” in the Middle East. Very few Americans are aiming to settle there. I’m pretty sure that, deep down in our hearts, Americans are isolationists who got shocked by WWII.
It would sure be nice if the rest of us would refuse to stoop to Lee’s level of using terms in any old way that he likes (e.g., his use of “liberal” to refer to “America haters” and everyone who disagrees with him).
Herb, surely you jest, I had planned for my retirement villa right smack in downtown Baghdad. Dog, Bud is on to me!!!!!!!!!
From dictionary.com: Number 3 fits Iraq perfectly.
col·o·ny /ˈkɒləni/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[kol-uh-nee] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -nies. 1. a group of people who leave their native country to form in a new land a settlement subject to, or connected with, the parent nation.
2. the country or district settled or colonized: Many Western nations are former European colonies.
3. any people or territory separated from but subject to a ruling power.
4. the Colonies, those British colonies that formed the original 13 states of the United States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
5. a number of people coming from the same country, or speaking the same language, residing in a foreign country or city, or a particular section of it; enclave: the Polish colony in Israel; the American colony in Paris.
6. any group of individuals having similar interests, occupations, etc., usually living in a particular locality; community: a colony of artists.
7. the district, quarter, or dwellings inhabited by any such number or group: The Greek island is now an artists’ colony.
8. an aggregation of bacteria growing together as the descendants of a single cell.
9. Ecology. a group of organisms of the same kind living or growing in close association.
——————————————————————————–
[Origin: 1350–1400; ME colonie (< MF) < L colōnia, equiv. to colōn(us) colonus + -ia -y3] —Synonyms 6. body, band. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
“….can we at least agree that we cannot continue as we have for the last three years?”
You bet your bippy we can. Fight this “war” to win it at all costs, or just get the hell out. Either option is ok, but stop the pussyfooting that has passed for fighting the last three years.
Yeah, OK, quote the dictionary, but I’m pretty certain that this is not what it means with
If it were more or less a continual situation, then yes, maybe, but not when you’re trying to get in and out as quickly as you can. It is simply a misnomer to try and apply “colony” to Iraq. How long did we stay in ’91? The whole idea was that this was going to be quick and easy, right?
This simply doesn’t fit the idea of a colony. Sorry.
Or was Germany a colony 1945-1949? I don’t think so. There is a difference between colonizing and occupying. The dictionary is loopy here.
bud offers a perfect example of the hate and lies about America that the communists were spreading about us in every war where we sought to defeat them, from Korea to Iraq.
Lee, much has been written about the war in Iraq but this is the first reference to communism. I thought we already won the cold war.
From John McCain:
BAGHDAD (AP) — Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence, and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction.
And to think, I used to respect this man. He’s become just another delusional war-monger.
Bud, how does a person who wants to stabilize the Iraq situation be a war monger? McCain is finally talking some common sense and you diss him. Some day, you, Cap A, Hurl, and Mary will see the wisdom of your elders like me, Brad, and Lee. Count on it.
Dave, let’s disect your logic for a moment. John McCain proposes that we send in an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq. The goal is to try and stabilize the situation. You claim this is common sense. However, all the evidence, and I do mean all of it suggests 2 things: (1) 30,000 is insufficient to actually stabilize the situation and (2) our military resources are stretched very thin already and it will be extremely difficult to raise that number of men. In addition, only 12% of the American public actually support increasing the number of troops in Iraq.
Now if McCain, Leiberman and Bush had actually been right about anything in Iraq I might take them seriously. I did back in February, 2003. But given the complete failure by these men to actually get anything right it should at least raise doubts about any proposal they make. Your claim that McCain is “talking common sense” flys in the face of history. We’ve attempted, on several occassions, to increase troop strength in selected areas of Iraq, most recently in Baghdad, and these past efforts have failed to “stabilize” the situation.
Since this is likely a proposal that will both fail, and, is impractical, both politically and logistically, it cannot be classified as common sense. Rather, this is a foolhardy recommendation that cannot be seen as anything other than war-mongering. That’s not dissing, that’s calling it like it is.
bud, obviously the answer is to mobilize 80% of the law enforcement agencies at every level in the U.S. We could put an officer into every household in Iraq like we’re talking about putting trainers into every unit of the Iraqi police and armed forces.
Would we worry about crime and looting at home? Pshaw, as Rummy would say, freedom is messy, after all.
Given the mass exodus of Iraqis out of Iraq plus the number getting killed the number of officers needed for RTH’s proposal will decline. If we wait another year we may only need 50% of law enforcement agencies.
Those who want us to surrender to the terrorists in Iraq have no answer to the question, “Where and when do you intend to stand up and fight the terrorists?”
The problem we have now is that our military are running a police action, as the Democrats wanted. They were wrong. The solution is to mount a military offensive and wipe out the remnant of terrorists.
Lee, I don’t know who you’re talking about when you write “Those of us who want to surrender to the terrorists in Iraq…”
A better phraseology would be “those of us who are willing to deal with reality instead of what we wish or what our ideology would delude us about…”
Face it, Lee. Your boys– Der Decider, Rummy, Dead-eye Dick et al– had a free hand since May, 2003– ever since we invaded Iraq. The Dems have been powerless to stop or alter anything the administration proposed. The Dems have been shut out of even oversight of this train wreck.
Dick’s pals at Halliburton got all the no bid/cost plus contracts that they could handle. Rummy got his chance to show how his “transformed” army concept could work and how his Pentagon could handle reconstruction without interference from the namby-pambies at the State Dept. The neo-cons got to thumb their noses at the U.N. and “old Europe” while throwing American military might around. The doctrinaire free-marketeers, libertarians and flat taxers almost got their chance to build an Ayn Rand paradise.
Many of us in the reality-based community wanted to finish the job in Afghanistan. We wanted to corner and capture Osama and the AQ cadre. We wanted to actually make Afghanistan into a stable country instead of a failed state re-run.
Your pals left Afghanistan to fall back into the hands of the Taliban and AQ while we wasted American lives deposing a tinhorn dictator with a third-world military in Iraq.
Your pals didn’t plan to win the peace in Iraq and so lit a flame to the obviously flammable sectarian civil war tinderbox.
It’s bitterly ironic– but not really surprising– that the political party which trumpeteted the virtue of personal responsibility refuses to accept one shred of responsibility for screwing up the entire global war on terror.
Try peddling your blame game in 20-30 years when eye-witnesses to your pals’ stupidity and incompetence have died or are senile. It’s your only hope.
Reality is that the Islamic radical declared war on America during the Carter administration, and Democrats cannot deal with it. They can’t handle the responsibility that comes with holding office, and their baggage of screwing up Vietnam renders them unable to wage war to defend America.
Hurl, the Clinton admin. gave contracts left and right to Halliburton. Get off that tired moveon.org silliness about this great company. Further, what do you think those 5 Immans were up to by purposely disrupting the US Airways flight recently. That was a trial run for another terrorist event with an airline. Count on it. The enemy never sleeps.
Clinton gave no-bid contracts to Red China.
Face it, Lee. Your boys– Der Decider, Rummy, Dead-eye Dick et al– had a free hand since May, 2003– ever since we invaded Iraq. The Dems have been powerless to stop or alter anything the administration proposed. The Dems have been shut out of even oversight of this train wreck.
No argument against the principal point of my post, eh.
Your only solution (and Dubya’s and McCain’s) is “more of the same.”
Is it 2008, yet? (And, how many more Americans will die in vain until we get the nutcases out of power?)
As I predicted before the election, the Democrats lied about removing our troops from Iraq, and now are calling for SENDING MORE troops, even though all the generals say it is not necessary.
They just need a free hand to eradicate the few thousand remaining terrorists.
Lee, as usual you are correct. Dems will say anything that anyone wants to hear to get elected, but they have no scruples or principles so now they will try to do what they really thought all along. But the American electorate, led by the drive by media, is dumb enough to fall for this act.
The Dems keep importing more illegal illiterates to keep the dummy vote high.
Funny, Leest, that’s probably the a similar sentiment shared by Native Americans as they spotted your ancestors knuckle-dragging down the gangway.
My colonial ancestors happened to come here with college educations. I never heard of the natives in Virginia having colleges in the early 1600s, but who knows what you were taught in public school. You’re definitely a victim.
Now try to face the fact that criminals are pouring across the Mexican border by the millions, and the Democrats want to reward with with instant citizenship, along with giving the vote to convicts in prison. Even you recognize that is indefensible, so your “argument” is to cast slurs about my ancestors. I guess you learned that in public school debate class.
As I predicted before the election, the Democrats lied about removing our troops from Iraq,
I guess that I missed your prediction. The Dems have yet to take power and, if you haven’t noticed, the Dems haven’t removed Bush from CnC (despite having great evidence to support impeachment).
Dems have rather limited methods to influence tactics. You’d be the first to go postal and scream “treason!” if the Dems cut funding for the Iraq Disaster, the only lever that they have as a (slim) majority.
…and now are calling for SENDING MORE troops, even though all the generals say it is not necessary.
Who’s calling for more troops? McCain, Joe Loserman and, maybe, the new chair of the House Intel Committee? Where’s the big movement to send more troops among the Dems, Lee?
They just need a free hand to eradicate the few thousand remaining terrorists.
WHAT’S STOPPING THEM, LEE? WHAT’S STOPPING BUSH FROM CLEARING THEM OUT? You keep repeating this same, tired, unsupported statement without explaining why der Decider just won’t GET THE JOB DONE after three years.
Maybe you ought to personally advise Bush about your “plan.” I hear that he’s asking for advice, finally.
Harry Reid has said he will support more troops in Iraq. For one.
Maybe one day soon der Decider will re-decide. No doubt his decision will be “Stay the Course” with a different nickname.
12/17– AP on Reid
[…]
“If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we’ll go along with that,” said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.
“The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically,” Reid said.
At least three other Democrats did not support Reid’s position on the additional troops. [Kennedy, Biden and Reed]
12/19– Reid’s Blog
Frankly, I don’t believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq. It’s a civil war and America should not be policing a Sunni-Shia conflict. In addition, we don’t have the additional forces to put in there. We obviously want to support what commanders in the field say they need, but apparently even the Joint Chiefs do not support increased combat forces for Baghdad. My position on Iraq is simple:
1. I believe we should start redeploying troops in 4 to 6 months (The Levin-Reed Plan) and complete the withdrawal of combat forces by the first quarter of 2008. (As laid out by the Iraq Study Group)
2. The President must understand that there can only be a political solution in Iraq, and he must end our nation’s open-ended military commitment to that country.
3. These priorities need to be coupled with a renewed diplomatic effort and regional strategy.
I do not support an escalation of the conflict. I support finding a way to bring our troops home and would look at any plan that gave a roadmap to this goal.
It’s been two weeks since the Iraq Study Group released its plan to change the course and bring our troops home. Since then, the President has been on a fact finding tour of his own administration — apparently ignoring the facts presented by those in the military who know best. The President needs to put forth a plan as soon as possible, one that reflects the reality on the ground in Iraq and that withdraws our troops from the middle of this deadly civil war.
There are only about 10,000 to 15,000 hard-core fighters causing the terrorism in Iraq, and most of them are Sadar City. The solution is a constrictor assault on the city that eradicates these terrorists. Give the women and children 24 hours to leave, then bomb.