Just got a heads-up that two of my favorite senators have sent this letter to President Bush. I pass it on you; maybe you’ll even read it before W. does.
As usual, I generally agree with what Sens. Graham and Lieberman are saying. When I don’t, I’ll elaborate.
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All I can say is WOW and thank goodness there are still some people in Wash. DC who possess patriotism and common sense, two sometimes seemingly rare commodities. As soon as I read Losing is NOT an option I thought these guys are on the right track. I may have to rescind my wavering support for Lindsey, he has just restored my confidence fully. Maybe he and Joe should form their own ticket. Now there’s a pair that could beat four of a kind.
Four of ANY kind, in my book. That’s the great thing about these guys — they are not of any KIND; they think for themselves.
Idon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGraham…as much as I hate to admit that this letter to the president is good…Idon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGrahamIdon’tlikeLindseyGraham….I’ll never cast another vote for Mr. Graham. In 2008, I will support any republican challenger to Mr. Graham. If Mr. Graham gets to the general election and faces a democrat challenger, I will vote for the democrat. If Mr. Graham runs unopposed, I will abstain rather than cast a vote for Mr. Graham. I am pushing another straight pin into my Lindsey Graham doll as I write this. Ed
One thing’s clear: Graham needs a staffer who can actually write.
I too noticed that this letter, as good as its’ substance may be, is full of grammatical and syntactical error. Functionally illiterate staffers worry me, but so does the fact that Mr. Graham simply signed the letter and let it go, errors and all. I suppose he was too busy looking for a TV camera to stand in front of that day to take time to edit and correct this letter. After all, it was only going to the President of the United States. Have I mentioned that I just hate Lindsey Graham? Ed
What’s all the hoopla about? This letter says nothing new. It’s just support for warmed over “stay the course”. Too bad Ned Lamont didn’t win. Then Connecticut would have a real United States senator instead of this blowhard war monger. Frankly, a full-blown civil war is exactly what Iraq needs right now. Let’s just get out of the way and let them have at it. This whole business of the middle-east devolving into some sort of hell on earth if we leave is utter nonsense. The place would quickly stabilize if we re-deploy to other parts of the region. You guys on the right are just clutching at straws. Your plan has failed. Americans continue to die because of the Grahams and Liebermans of the world. Your president is an incompetent idiot. The “stay-the-course” option is nothing more than a recipe for continued killing. It just makes me sick to see how so many people with so little actually at stake continue to support this failed disaster. Bring the troops home (or redeploy) NOW! Now, let me head to the peace rally.
What nonsensical spin. Graham, Loserman, Brad and the rest of you homicidal “stay the course” partisans are in deep denial.
The time to increase troops and maintain order in Iraq was before invading.
We have broken Humpty Dumpty and NOTHING we can do now will put him back together.
If Loserman and Graham were serious then they would be proposing a draft for a million soldier occupation/nation-building force– to be stationed there indefinitely.
And, it still wouldn’t work. The Brits tried in the early 20th Century. They failed.
Bush, Cheney, Rummy et al have failed.
The sole question now is how many MORE Americans will die for us to save face.
We should divide Iraq into three semi-autonomous loosely federated regions; give it to the U.N.; declare “victory;” and, withdraw. Immediately.
OK, Holy Joe is now Sen. Liarman.
November 4th Courant article:
From ConnPost.com editorial
Brad writes:
“That’s the great thing about these guys — they are not of any KIND; they think for themselves.”
The problem is these guys don’t think at all. They support a failed president’s failed policy.
Brad, I’m extremely disappointed in you. You keep offering up these meaningless little pep talks that, in your own mind, shores up your pro-war position. But what you don’t do, ever, is provide any sort of valid strategy options. What would you do to achieve victory? You don’t even articulate what victory is.
On the Iraq war Graham and Lieberman have been consistently wrong, yet you trot out this letter as if it magically makes everything alright. Yet it actually says absolutely nothing new, nothing.
They’re supporting a policy that only 11% of the American public supports. Practically everyone agrees that another 20-30k troops will only make it more difficult to withdraw later and make it worse now. Any talk of more troops is about 3 years too late.
Bud, is “disapponted” the right word? Doesn’t that word suggest that you had, or had reason to have, a different expectation?
This is from the Stamford Advocate, relating some of the pronouncements on the Iraq war made by Joe Lieberman:
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In a July 6 debate with Lamont, Lieberman said he was “confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops.”
In the same debate, he said he expected more than half of the troops in Iraq would be home by the end of 2007.
After losing the Democratic primary to Lamont and forming his own party running as an independent Democrat, Lieberman outlined a 10-point plan for Iraq in which he called for increasing the number of U.S. troops embedded in Iraqi units two- or three-fold. But he said this should be done by redeploying existing troops “not adding new troops to the region.”
A supporter of the Iraq war, Lieberman and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after a December trip to the Middle East, began calling for an increase of about 24,000 troops.
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And this is what Graham said on Meet the Press:
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“Well, I hope we will hold the generals accountable for their work product. I respect General Casey and Abizaid, but the strategy they’ve come up with for the last two years has not worked. Iraq is not more stable than it was when they took over two years ago.”
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Those are Warthen’s heroes. Those are the guys who, according to Warthen, think for themselves. A guy who says one thing to the voters, and does a different thing after the election is over, and a guy who blames the generals for the failure of the strategy set by the commanders.
I think Warthen’s choice of heroes tells us everything about him that we need to know.
Mary, what can I say. I’m an eternal optimist. I just don’t understand how people can actually graduate from college and still believe it’s good policy to continue in Iraq.
Bud, what scares the left the most is the fear that many will soon recognize we have WON in Iraq. Each day, more and more of the Al Qaeda and terrorists die in Iraq. This is what victory is all about. Then we move onto victory in Iran, let alone the Somalia campaign. We owe that bunch of scum a delayed payback for Mogadishu. That is the Clinton failure that even Obama Bin Laden identified as the event that made him think he could beat the USA.
Ok Dave, I’m convinced. We’ve won in Iraq. Let’s through a victory party and bring the troops home.
Dave, what quantifiable and objective standards indicate that we’re winning?
My last post should have read “… throw a victory party” instead of “… through a victory party”.
Seriously, either we’ve won, in which case we should set a time table for bringing the troops home. Or, if we’re not winning, we should simply give the Iraqis a deadline in order to cut our losses and … set a time table for bringing the troops home.
Hurl – Several factors indicate we are winning. Insurgent death counts, Iraqis taking responsibility for more security, Saddam’s departure, Al Qaeda memoes admitting that they are suffering huge losses, among many other factors. Fighting will continue but the Iraqi military, police, along with the coalition have the upper hand. They are securing the Iran and Syria borders now. On a recent sweep, 9 Syrian terrorists (paid Muslim scum) were captured in Bagdhad. This news makes you want to hurl I know.
Bud, we won in Germany and Japan and still have troops there. We will need military in Iraq for at least ten more years.
Dave, why do we still “need” bases in Germany and Japan? During the Cold War there might have been some justification.
Has “Islamofacism” taken taken the place of Eastasia– I mean, the USSR?
Dave, I would be surprised and encouraged if your version of Iraqi-reality were true.
This may come as a shock to you and Brad.
What are your sources for this info?
From US News:
Dave, I think you unwittingly undercut your argument by pointing out our continued troop involvement in Germany and Japan. After all, if we win a war and continue, indefinately, to be burdened with maintaining troops doesn’t that suggest we should try and avoid wars? At some point the cost becomes prohibitive. It seems to me if we’re supporting troops throughout the world that can only undercut our economic prosperity and our financial ability to pay for our security.
The price of being a superpower is you have to literally defend the world. As far as paying for it, for far too long we have let the Euros and the Canadians get by without paying for our military. Add the Japs to that. If we aren’t there, the void will be chaos, communism, more future troubles. For example, without our close presence, Castro and Chavez would begin to claim territory throughout Latin America and S. America.
Hurl – it is not difficult to count body count. Every one we kill is an insurgent, period. Also, Bush should pardon every Marine convicted of ANYTHING in Iraq or elsewhere, along with Scooter Libby. If he doesn’t, his legacy goes down the drain with me, but he will. However, he will not pardon terrorists and pedophiles, like the Slickmeister.
–sigh–
Dave, just when I think that you might have the slightest grasp on reality or, really, decency, you make statements like the one above.
So being a “superpower” in your world means transforming into some sort of hyper-imperialist. Your concept of the American Experiment is truly nightmarish.
Hurl, in a war where the enemy doesnt wear uniforms, there are no noncombatants. I guess we should first arrest people, read them their rights, get the ACLU involved. That is why leftwingers can only lose in the war on terror.
RTH, at first I was disappointed in you for responding to Dave’s obviously insane notion that everyone we’ve killed in Iraq is an enemy combatant. But then I realized there are so many people that buy into this nonsense that we simply must respond every time someone utters this nonsense.
What ever happened to Lee and Lex?
Bud, ever since St. Ronnie was elected espousing voodoo economics I have concluded that we, like the liberals in 1920’s-era Germany, ignore murderous stupidity at our own peril.
The election and re-election of Der Decider has merely been the most flagrant confirmation of this fear.
Just to re-cap: in Dave’s World, open season is declared on Iraqis. American soldiers are given a no-limit hunting license with automatic immunity so that we can bring the blessings of democracy and freedom to the victims, I mean, the liberated.
Dave’s contempt for human rights– much less constitutional rights– and his espousal of hyper-imperialism suggests that he’s not all that interested in our spreading democracy to beknighted furriners.
“We must destroy it in order to save it.”– Dave’s motto.