Missing from your clever calculations is whether the surge would cost more Iraqi and American lives, especially since the calls for the surge seem to be coupled with calls for more brutality to smash our "enemies" once and for all.

And suppose it turns into half a surge -- more troops in, and then staying in. Gotcha again!

Can't we ever support something simply because it's the right thing to do?

You're right that what counts isn't what conservatives think about who's to blame for Iraq but what moderates believe. Diehard conservatives will hate Democrats in general and liberals specifically no matter what happens.

It's popular right now to talk about how conservatives act as though America could have won in Vietnam but liberal peace activisits made us lose the war. They may honestly believe that, but how many moderates agree with them? I mean, when was the last time you had a conversation with a genuinely independent or moderate Republican friend who suddenly said to you, "I'm sorry, but I can't vote for that Democrat because you cost us Vietnam." The conservative dominance of the past 25 years owes far more to Jimmy Carter-era stagflation and the bull stock market of 1982-2000 than it does to any defeat in Vietnam.

The problem I have with that position is that it implies you're giving up trying to protect the lives of 20,000 additional soldiers in order to give conservatives more rope to hang themselves with. From my perspective, that is playing politics with soldiers lives. Even if we know the chances of influencing Bush's war policies are extremely remote, we have to try, because what we're playing with isn't federal budget dollars or votes down the lives, but rather the lives of our sons and daughters. Thus, we should push with all of our vigor and strength to get every American soldier out of Iraq and back in their homeland, where they belong. Frankly, if we can get the soldiers home, I'd be more comfortable defending ourselves against the theoretical charges you put forth, knowing we saved many troops' lives, then I would be pointing at a higher body count and saying "We told you so."

I don't buy the premise that conservatives have had success in blaming the debacle of Vietnam on the hippies. We are far too worried about what these cranks think. We should spend far more time pointing out that they are wrong- about everything.

I apologize for continuing the debate over the media's anti-US military bias from another thread, but this AP headline was too appropriate to ignore:

U.S. claims top bin Laden commander killed

To me, the word "claims" implies that one is not to believe the official US statement.
Actually, that headline is germane to this post of Kevin's. IMHO, given the media's pro-Democrat and anti-war biases, you don't have to worry that the public will blame liberals for losing the war in Iraq.

Once again, Kevin shows the only thing he cares about is damaging the Bush administration.

He doesn't care whether our leaving will result in Al Queda establishing more training camps in Iraq.

He doesn't care that withdrawing too soon will damage USA credibility for years.

He doesn't care that if we withdraw too soon, terrorist groups will overrun many cities in Iraq and take them over.

He doesn't care whether the new Iraqi government wants us to leave.

Ironically, withdrawing too soon will guaranatee the next President - even a President Hilary or President Obama - may face a larger, more aggressive threat than we now face.

Thanks, Kevin, for exposing yourself as an irresponsible Bush Hater.

He doesn't care whether our leaving will result in Al Queda establishing more training camps in Iraq.

Don't you mean that Bush didn't care whether our attacking Iraq would result in Al Queda establishing more training camps in Iraq? I mean, that seems to be the corollary to your logic.

Once again, Frequency Kenneth shows that the only thing he cares about is fellating the CinC. He doesn't care that leaving troops in to mitigate a civil war will lead to thousands more deaths.

He doesn't care that continuing the attempt to "pacify" Iraq will damage US credibility for years.

He doesn't care that when Iraqis overrun their own cities, our troops will be left needlessly in harm's way.

He doesn't care that the majority of Iraqi's want us to leave.

Ironically, committing to this infantile "surge" concept will guarantee that the next President - even somebody more delusional than the current one - will certainly face a larger, more aggressive threat than we face now.

Thanks, Frequency Kenneth, for exposing yourself as a kiss-ass brainless tool.

Jackass.

Public opinion is key, and if they go ahead and do their surge, and it fails, it's going to make the conservative story a lot harder to tell. The public just isn't going to buy it.

Kevin...its clue time. The public already doesn't buy it. There is no need to let the salesman get his foot in the door again --especially with the lives of American troops at risk.

λ is just about the silliest sonuvabitch to ever annoy us with his presence. Another waste of band-width.

I'd be secretly happy to see a surge happen since it would deprive conservatives of an excuse to blame the Iraq fiasco on something other than the war...

So how many more dead Iraqi babies will be enough for you?

Why waste their lives? Why not roast them on a spit? I hear our grunts over there are having problems getting fed.

He doesn't care that withdrawing too soon will damage USA credibility for years.

Bush's non-stop stream of lies, culminating in the thoroughly debunked claim of an nonexistent axis between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda being an imminent threat to global security because of an nonexistent stockpile of WMD, has wiped out American credibility a long time ago.

Why do people buy into this administration's euphemistic nonsense? Journalists and bloggers reflexively refer to Bush ordering a "surge" of troops, because that's what Bush says. But, what the hell is a "surge" of troops? Escalation. Since that word is loaded from Vietnam, Bush wants to avoid it at all costs.

Bush intends to escalate the number of American troops in Iraq. Buy escalating the number of troops, he will cause the violence in Iraq to escalate. The obvious result of escalating the violence is that more Americans and Iraqis will die violent deaths. Bush's escalation of troops will serve not only to directly lead to more deaths, but indirectly by fueling terrorist recruitment.

We must oppose this escalation vigorously or be complicit in the horrors that will surely follow.

The public just isn't going to buy it.

I have had this exact thought, and spoken it out loud, at least a hundred times since the Reagan administration. I've been wrong almost every single time. I guess I forgot this one:

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public - Mencken

Since that word is loaded from Vietnam, Bush wants to avoid it at all costs.

Just like he avoided serving in Viet Nam, as did all his cronies.

And those Generals going along with this bullshit lold their souls. They were junior officers during the Viet Nam war, they know what it cost us then and they know what it will cost us now. They are feckless to capitulate to the idiot prince.

But they were bought-and-paid for. Generals and Admirals will get an 8% raise 01 January. Those boots on the ground? They will get 2.2%.

A point that Frequency Kenneth and his ilk should consider, is whether this 'surge' is the Tet Offensive of this war.

Now, Tet was definitely a surge - an attempt to intensify operations, aimed at securing the capital against foriegn fighters, with other secondary operations in regional cities.

Frequency Kenneth and his ilk regard Tet as a really huge defeat for the LAVN, so it's goanna be interesting to see how they spin this.

On the other hand, the Surge has been flagged well in advance, so the other side will already be stockpiling the sinews of war (ie cash, detonators and explosives) and waiting for the Surge to go away.

conservatives will blame the loss in Iraq on liberals no matter what happens.

It's popular Conventional Wisdom among liberals that their actions, both in this war, and Vietnam, had absolutely nothing to do with our setbacks and losses.

Do you really think that the actions of the Left in this country, including the Democratic Party in recent times, really have nothing at all to do with convincing our enemies that we can be defeated? Made to withdraw unconditionally? Encouraging them to think that maybe the biggest military on the planet can be made to run away with their tails between their legs?

The war in Iraq (and Vietnam for that matter), was full of mistakes. But the Left doesn't get off scot-free in this either.

Almost an entire political party advocating unconditional surrender--and face it, that's what "redeployment to other countries" or "withdrawal" is no matter how much icing you slap on it--goes a very long way to convincing our enemies to keep fighting.

You can keep going "who, us?" all you like. A lot of people, particularly in the military, still remember who cut off the funds to South Vietnam before the North made their final thrust.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders go to Syria and other governments currently actively supporting the fighting against us in Iraq, and kiss their butts. I'm not that happy with Bush right now, but thank God Kerry didn't win.

You know ... we actually DID win the fuucking midterms.

To claim impotence wrt the mismanagement of this war and to give the war criminals MORE troop lives to play with without even trying to stem the bloodshed seems to be a betrayal of whatever principles the Dem majority was elected upon.

Only the 30% of mouth breathing, foxnews nazis still support this war. Why validate their position? So they won't call us names? Treat them like the gutter-trash, bloodthirsty, out-of-touch minority that they are, and treat their opinions the same.

Kevin, what makes you think the "surge" will be temporary and that widthdrawl will surely follow once its understood that additional boots on the ground does not translate directly into better security?

Why are you so confident that once we escalate the war we can simple de-escalate it? Isn't it obvious that military action leads to unforseen consequences, and if so, what will be the consequences of a bigger war? (I mean, aside from more death for all sides, especially Iraqis?)

There is an incalculable downside to Bush's desperation strategy, and your cynical acquiesence to it seems quite lame.

It's insant to attempt to fight a transitive verb militarily.

The British didn't defeat the IRA with tanks in the streets of Belfast. Politicians ended the Troubles.

Only the 30% of mouth breathing, foxnews nazis

Those troglodytes walking around with the perpetually-purple upper lips.

Do you really think that the actions of the Left in this country, including the Democratic Party in recent times, really have nothing at all to do with convincing our enemies that we can be defeated? Made to withdraw unconditionally? Encouraging them to think that maybe the biggest military on the planet can be made to run away with their tails between their legs?
Posted by: elmendorf

Do you really think that the actions of the "Right" in this country, including the Republican Party, really have nothing to do with convincing our enemies that we can be made to abondon military objectives?

Reagan withdrawing from Bierut.

GHWB not supporting the Iraqis who rose up after the Gulf War I.

The Republican congress who pressured Clinton to withdraw from Somalia.

The Republican Congress who tried to block operations in Bosnia.

... and like clockwork elmendorf reminds us what a minority position looks like.

why would we cater to asshats like this guy ... who haven't been right about any foreign policy for over 30 years? why crave his respect? these people just need some more minorities to kill crouched in their orwellian nationalistic rhetoric. chickenhawks like this will ALWAYS blame the libs, so why bother?

the immorality of escalation aside, even politically dead-enders like the aforementioned aren't in the Dem target demographic, anyways ... so why bother with them? they're trash, their positions are trash. their positions are better marginalized or ignored, not validated.

Is this "surge" 30K ground-pounders or 30K total?

Why do people buy into this administration's euphemistic nonsense? Journalists and bloggers reflexively refer to Bush ordering a "surge" of troops, because that's what Bush says. But, what the hell is a "surge" of troops? Escalation. Since that word is loaded from Vietnam, Bush wants to avoid it at all costs.

Posted by: Shocked on December 23, 2006 at 3:08 PM

It does bother me how readily liberals and moderates buy into right wing memes. Once again, the idea that the "hippies" lost Vietnam is not that accepted outside of right wing circles. The conservative movement just came to a screeching halt. They failed and we won. What I find silly about Kevin's position is the idea that we should give any credence to these losers or do anything except oppose their failures.

Nads, it seems comical to hear Kevin gripe about our powerlessness to stop a president whose approval ratings are in the toilet, whose slimy little war is supported by a mere fraction of the electorate, and who is "opposed" by a Democratic Senate and House.

Or is Kevin being honest in implicitly acknowledging that the mainstream Democratic party has ceased being an opposition party? Given Murtha's defeat and Reyes call for additional troops, I would think the answer to that question would be "yes".

GC, dunno. Their math doesn't seem to adding up on this one. Here's what Kagan said:

"We're proposing a surge of 4 brigades, which is about 20,000 American combat troops into Baghdad and a number more, totaling about 35,000 American combat troops into other places in Iraq."

I reading that as 55,000 combat troops, but where are their support personnel going to come from? That should mean at least another 100,000 bodies in addition to the grunts.
[scrathes head]
The worry I have is that BushCo will parley the roop increase into an up-ended escalation and the Dems won't have the nads to curtail it.

Reyes thinks al Qae'da is a Shi'ite group.

We have to be hyper-vigilant and not take our eyes off these goofy mother-fuckers for a second. Just because the Armani suits now outnumber the Brooks Brothers suits doesn't mean we can relax.

I understand Kevin's position the way I understand that of a dog or child that's been whipped too frequently. I don't respect it, but I do understand it.

He's gotten used to a certain subservience, and an unconscious (or conscious) desire to be taken seriously by the conservative elite which have defined the terms of the debate in recent years.

After a few more elections, he and many other dems will find their testicles again.

To the person named Global, give it a break about the 8 per cent pay raise. How else will I be able to secure a membership in a posh golf club before I retire? After I retire, I will be caught in a pickle - either shill for the White House as an expert on CNN, Fox or MSNBC and be able to afford green fees, or go on the anti-Bush speaking tour and, thus, get kicked out of the club. Then what? Play on the publics with former NCOs? Pitch and putt with my grandkids?

You have no heart, whomever you are.

Yeah, 10K ground pounders wouldn't go very far toward mollifying a civil war. Good rule of thumb is that for every foot-soldier we deploy, we send two support troops.

Keep that equation in mind, folks, and ask the appropriate questions.

Oh - and don't forget Desert Crossing. We knew in 1999 that 400,000 troops might not be enough going in. Now it's a clusterfuck and we are going to put it all back right with less than 200,000.

I'm sorry, but even that dude on couldn't balance this equation.

Reyes thinks al Qae'da is a Shi'ite group.

Fer chrissakes. Oh well, you govern with the Congress you have, not the Congress you want.

And on that note I gotta go see if I can *find* some fresh morels for dinner tomorrow (and by find I mean go to the one grocer that might have them, not go out into the hills looking for them).

Mmmmmm...Morels.

cyntax,

Glad you said you were not going to look for them in the forest - As an old morel hunter, they follow the spring thaw up the hill - and try to check with the Forest Service about the locations of any fires from the previous summer. Although, every professional morel hunter will be there before you. Easiest mushroom to identify, although not always the easiest to observe - Have to keep looking at a slant. But, far more fun to find - snakes are still asleep and you don't have the crazies running around with AK-47s as one finds in matsutake season.

Morels with omeletes - Does it get any better?

Lakeoff must be wringing his hands in despair. Everyone is talking about the "surge" as if this is the only alternative to staying the course. I personally think that if they took the money for military expenses and spent it on the rebuilding of all that we destroyed--water, sewage, hospitals, etc. etc. (and let the Iraqis do it) it would be the best PR we could do now. When man is in the position of being totally concerned about his survival, he will do anything, including killing their perceived enemies. When normalcy returns, communication and diplomacy can work.

Seems to me that that was not exactly what Arios said. His point was that if the neocons are given a "surge" and another 6-12 months (2 friedmans), at the end of that time (a) things will be no better and probably worse (b) the neocons will claim that we are on the brink of "victory" and they just need to be given another 6-12 months.

The dolschstosselegende isn't going to be uncorked until at least the 2008 presidential campaign, and possibly held in reserve until 2012.

Cranky

I concede that Bush and Rumsfeld's obstinate refusal to correct course is what has made this war a failure to date. No amount of blaming the useful idiots of the MSM and the left can detract from that. That said, if this country someday has a liberal president with traits as mediocre [and sub-mediocre] as this one, and he gets us into a conflict as difficult to disengage from as this, I hope we on the right will be seen as trying to support the mission and the troops better than you folks have been.

Could we stop insulting Kevin and be civil, perhaps? Kevin, as someone said above, the public already doesn't buy it. How much more will the public have to not buy it before Bush and his ilk stop selling it to us? Answer: No amount of adverse public opinion will stop them. We need to pull the plug on the surge now by political action.

Right, MOR. You mean like the support Clinton got in Kosovo and when he tried to bomb Al-Qaeda camps?

Methinks that when the tombstones of the neocons are etched, they will all read, "But, I was almost there"

Minion, you are usually one of the reasonable conservatives, but even you appear to engage in selective memory. Kosovo ring a familiar bell, perchance? How about Somalia - and Clinton inherited that mess from Bush 41 - who launched the mission after losing his bid for reelection.

Kevon is premising his conclusion on the "surge" being unstoppable. I disagree. The Dems are in power now -- they have to stop enabling the Fuckwad-in-Chief and put a stop to his compulsion to fight his inner psychodramas with the lives of millions of innocents.

I just heard the stalemate machine grind into 3rd gear.

Walter Crockett: Kevin, as someone said above, the public already doesn't buy it. How much more will the public have to not buy it before Bush and his ilk stop selling it to us? Answer: No amount of adverse public opinion will stop them. We need to pull the plug on the surge now by political action.

Amen, brother.

Voters threw out Bush's rubber stamps for a reason.

Yeah, minion is drinking the koolaide just like all the rest, or he's a 12 year old who hasn't covered the 90s in history class yet. Anyone who remembers what the GOP congress did vis-a-vis Kosovo would never pretend to claim that Republicans are more supportive of troops (much less the mission).

Disputo is correct. It takes months to deploy 30-90K troops. They have top be trained and equipped and the logistics of delivering them to the theatre of operations must be worked out.

They can't do that in two weeks, so start emailing Ike Skelton and Carl Levin today.

I don't care if you put in 200,000 more by co-opting Navy and Air Force enlisted personnel to train as infantry -- and don't think for a nanosecond that hairbrained notion hasn't crossed someone's mind in the Pentagon!

If nobody has any sense of a rational, achievable objective other than merely trying to look like something's being done, thi latest exercise is doomed to failure, just like everything else George Bush gets his grubby paws on.

I remember the Kosovo debates and my rancor toward Republican hypocricy surges. Don't tell me about Republican'ts support of the troops. My husband was there. Does any fucking Republican't want to have this debate with me?

Frequency Kenneth: "Thanks, Kevin, for exposing yourself as an irresponsible Bush Hater."

Go blow it out your ass, F.K.

The holidays always makes me depressed, but this “surge” nonsense has me downright morose. This article might have it “about right”, to use a Kevinism.

Merry friggin' Christmas!

I thought someone would bring up the slugs of the Repub Party - Santorum, DeLay, Trent Lott - that tried to hamstring Clinton on Kosovo. I agree there are cheesy politicians in both parties. I said that policy was wrong at the time, and when Lott was neutered after his Strom Thurman remarks I said good riddance.
Notice none of the slugs listed above are in the NeoCon Cabal.
If your tired of shopping, why don't you rent Three Kings tonight and watch it. It has your hero George Clooney and shows why we NeoCons still believe this war was justified.

Support like this?

Randy "Duke" Cunningham House of Representatives - (May 05, 1999) Rambouillet was an agreement. I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, would you take this agreement in hand? First of all, if you were going to allow a foreign power to occupy what you considered your country. Secondly, that that foreign power would hold that country, yours, in its hand for 3 years and then turn it over to a country like Albania that since 1880 has not only tried to take Kosovo in expansionism but also Macedonia, Montenegro and even parts of Greece. That is why the Greeks are so petrified. The ad hoc air campaign is no strategy. It is a disaster in my opinion. The strategy of bombing until they capitulate is poor foreign policy and is not a strategy. For us that have fought in wars, unlike many of my colleagues in this body, it is easy to kill but it is very, very difficult to work to live.

Kevin, you're starting to sound like a neocon, in the sense of treating war and peace as a political-intellectual pissing match. If we surge, more Americans and Iraqis will die. The only moral reason to support a surge is if you really believe it will work, not hoping it fails in order to win a political or intellectual point, especially one as lame as you're suggesting, since a vast majority of Americans have never bought that Vietnam was winnable, let alone that the Democrats caused us to lose it.

Think about it like this...is Vietnam a threat to us today? Has it been since we withdrew? Is the Soviet Union gone?

Noone cares about blaming Democrats for Vietnam except a small minority of idiots.

As that staunch liberal Sean Hannity said on FAUX on April 6, 1999, "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

or that far out lefty from loonie tunes world, Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of one George W Bush about the war in the Balkans, "If we are going to commit American troop, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

Sen Trent Lott, "I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

Thanks to yellowdogdems.blogspot.com and,
thank you, Al Gore for introducing legislation that would allow the public to have access to the Internet. And thanks to former Pres GWHB for signing said bill.

Then watch Beyond Rangoon and we'll get ready for our impending liberation of Myanmar.

Uncle Paul, you forgot what the former Texas Guv said about the Balkans. As George the lesser said, "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strtegy is."

Does the Pres have anything to do with the neocon cabal, Uncle Paul? Do they drop by for non-alcoholic beer busts?

Or this support from Senator Voinovich?

(Senate - May 03, 1999) In my opinion, our State Department, President and NATO are allowing their egos to get in the way of their common sense and good judgment. I believe it is time to stop the bombing, reduce hostilities on both sides and resume negotiations to bring about peace and restore stability to the region.

MOR: ...I hope we on the right will be seen as trying to support the mission and the troops better than you folks have been.

Your assumption that liberals and Dems haven't been supportive of the Iraq misson or U.S. troops is counter to the reality of the mid-term election results. Review your assumption. It's faulty.

When you say "you folks", you're talking about most Americans who support the troops but not Bush's war and who desire withdrawal as soon as it's feasible. IOW, you're knocking not only liberals, but moderates and some conservatives.

Let's cease and decist this nonsense of Republicans ever taking the high road, shall we? It just rings hollow. Especially if one is astute enough to follow the program.

By the way - if you let a film, a work of fiction, influence your views on foreign policy, don't even get out of bed in the morning until you put on a helmet.

If my brother, sister, son, daughter, father, mother, friend, neighbor was in Iraq, I'd "support" them by wanting to bring them home before killed or maimed (for what?).

Period.

Kevin has resorted to muddled thinking.

What if the surge works?

What is the definition of works in this case? Normally we all understand what these words mean, but in case of the current administration, I don't think that they have the same meaning in mind as what we all think it means.

So before making such vague statements, Kevin would do well well to define the terms.

There have been some devastating films, some of the Vietnam ones for instance, that have profoundly helped shape American perceptions on foreign policy, and in a positive way. Not everyone has time to read up on this stuff, and a lot of the "non-fiction" is "fiction" in nearly every sense of the world as far as I'm concerned. There are very few original thinkers in the foreign policy world who have any clue at all, while there are plenty of pretenders.

[sigh]

It's Christmas. I'm not in the mood to fight.
When we debate surges and ebbs-and-flows and cuts-and-runs let's try to remember there are tens of thousands of Iraqis that have risked their lives for a vision they and we shared two years ago. I admit I'm pessimistic if a surge will make any difference, but I think we owe it to the democrats in Iraq to try a little while longer.

I'm not in the mood to fight either, but I am not giving an inch, and if I have to fight to hold it, well, so be it.

minion: "If your tired of shopping, why don't you rent Three Kings tonight and watch it. It has your hero George Clooney and shows why we NeoCons still believe this war was justified."

If "this war was justified", then why aren't you walking point in Sadr City instead of trying to nonsensically validate your failure with a George Clooney movie?

The only applicable cinematic moment you NeoCon clowns should reference right now is Princess Leia's immortal words that she recorded in R2D2's memory chip at the beginning of Star Wars:

"Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi! You're my only hope!"

How many flag-draped coffins will be acceptable in this Friedman you propose, Minion?

Nice of Minion to mention "slugs" of the Republican Party - Guess you could put Cheney into that category as he complained about Milosevic's electoral defeat not justifying the war in Kosovo. Bill Kristol, who called that war Clinton's greatest achievement, criticized Cheney.

However, none of this justifies sending any more of our troops into Iraq. We need to continue Operation Backward Together - Cap Weinberger should have been tried as a war criminal - He started this mess when he ordered the USS New Jersey to fire upon Muslim villages - They have never forgotten and it has been a constant series of actions and reactions from day forward.
Yes, we overthrew the Iranian government in 53 and we had problems in Iran in 79, but the real war in the Middle East began, when Cap Weinberger said, "Commence Firing" - As long as we keep troops in the Middle East, the war against us will continue.

More importantly - is there any chance you might know any of them?

When I answer that question, the answer is "yes" so no, I do not support any troop-builups or escalations or any action other than getting the fuck out as soon as possible. Those of you with nothing on the line...feel free to shut the fuck up at any moment. It will still be too late, but better late than never.

"You can support the troops and not the president." - 1999

"we owe it to the democrats in Iraq"

Do we also owe it to the Republicans in Iraq? You know, the toadies of Shrub.

Global Citizen: "By the way - if you let a film, a work of fiction, influence your views on foreign policy, don't even get out of bed in the morning until you put on a helmet."

minion did -- but his bedroom is probably right next to a 138KV powerline, and the helmet instead acted as a conduit for the resulting surge in electro-magnetic frequency.

minion: When we debate surges and ebbs-and-flows and cuts-and-runs let's try to remember there are tens of thousands of Iraqis that have risked their lives for a vision they and we shared two years ago.

hmmmm....2-years ago....

Kerry Says He Would Add 40,000 to Army - Washington Post - June 4, 2004

The Administration opposes increases in minimum active Army and Marine Corps end strengths.. - Bush White House June-2006

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/109-2/s2766sap-s.pdf

Which one among you had no idea that the whole game was rigged from the beginning, and that as soon as the President came upon the brilliant idea to add more troops, a process was set in motion to ensure that the Generals independently come up with the same recommendation?

It hardly need be said that the Washington establishment together with its enablers among the Brahmins of the media is rotten to the core, and that their main criterion in making such decisions is self preservation and aggrandizement rather than any consideration, even the slightest consideration, of the lives of people who are going to be sacrificed for these people's sicknesses and immoral behavior.

Who the hell cares if Dems are blamed for the evntual failure or not?

FWIW, I supported McCain in 2000. I cringed when Bush said America should try to be a more humble country during his debates with Gore. I believe there is evil in the world, and sometimes evil has to be confronted by force. I think history will decide that Saddam was the bad guy in this conflict, not Bush, and that our fumbling in Iraq was, in the long run, better than allowing him to go down in history as the new Saladin by turning Tel Aviv into another Auschwitz, or New York into another Chernobyl.

Or Shrub turning America into another Guantanamo.

Okay, I retract that reasonable remark I made up thread. I was wrong, the delusion is truly pervasive.

Sorry you feel that way, but if I didn't think Saddam was in a special class of his own, I wouldn't have supported this war. The Auschwitz quip was not mine, it was one of Saddam's promises during Gulf War I. Saladin, by the way, was Tikrit's most famous son before Saddam, and he frequently thought of himself in comparison with him.

Call me crazy - seems to me the Democrats and the Republicans should be focused on finding a solution to Iraq.

Kevin Drum and most of the Lefty Loons who post here are only focused on bashing Bush.

Well, I'm a fetching redhead with a charming smile, so I guess i could fancy myself as Rita Heyworth. I would be more accurate than Sadam fancying himself as Saladin.

In a perfect world there would be a deserted isle somewhere with Cap Weinberger, Saddam, Shrub, the leader of the Munich Olympics massacre, Cheney, Osama, and Rumdumb sitting around a campfire after a day of pulling weeds, telling war stories for eternity.

Or a better thought - sitting together on an ice floe as Global Warming becomes a reality to them.

Actualy, a surge will help conservatives blame failure on the liberals. Every action of the Bush Admin at this point is designed to dump the mess into the laps of the next Admin. To make the next president have to pull out the troops.

The surge is a way to delay. 3-4 months to surge (or fake it), 6-8 months to give it long enough to 'work', continued scrapping over whether its 'enough' (and blaming one and all if its not 'enough'), and then ... well, then we're in 08, and you know what that means.

So the next President has this mess dumped in his/her lap. If it's a D ... well, that's easy, isn't it? The D president pulled them out, therefore, the D president 'lost'. It's a little more complex if we elect an R, but not that much.

GC,

I'll bet you're a firecracker, but Rita Hayworth was in a class of her own.

Kerry Says He Would Add 40,000 to Army - Washington Post - June 4, 2004

Hah! I totally forgot that and they crapped all over him about it!

Two years too late --and it wouldn't have worked then either.

People like Minion of Rove confuse support the mission with support the troops. The mission was wrong from the start and has never deserved our support. Support the troops means getting them out of an untenable situation such as being in the middle of a civil war. I will never understand the Dems fear of calling for troop withdrawal as not supporting the troops. And the majority of Americans want the troops brought home within the next year. If the Dems fail to heed this clear directive they need to be permenantely out of power.

minion: "I think history will decide that Saddam was the bad guy in this conflict, not Bush ..."

Based upon what -- Three Kings?

You best grow up and realize that the world is full of bad actors prancing on the world stage. While I might sympathize with the Iraqi people, let's not forget that Donald Rumsfeld was doing business with Saddam Hussein for the Reagan Administration as far back as 1983 -- so this recent concern for Saddam's bad nature rings painfully hollow.

Further, Saddam is no better or worse than Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov, one of our erstwhile allies in the SCWT (so-called "War on Terror"), who has shown a marked penchant for boiling his political opponents alive and gunning down his unarmed critics in the streets of his capital.

So please spare us your pious pronouncements about how Bush was doing the right thing. A man who verbally mocks death row inmates pleading for mercy is most assuredly not motivated by any concerns for human rights. He just wanted to secure the oil for his political benefactors, and was perfectly willing to bullshit the country and world to get his way.

Your Three Kings refernce aside, you seem like a reasonable person. So stop insulting your own intelligence with this claptrap about exercises in international morality. Life in the world is hard enough, but it's a lot harder if you insist upon validating ignorance with nonsense.

Ignorance can be cured, if you dare open your eyes and ears to the world around you. Stupidity, on the other hand, is more often than not terminal -- unless, of course, your daddy has lots of rich Saudi friends can bail you out.

Aloha a mele kalikimaka.

if saddam thought of himself as saladin, then surely the analogy must extend to the invading americans as crusaders, right MOR?

in which case, bush is the "bad guy" in your pissant example.

for those of us who see the world beyond the good/bad dichotomy of a pre-adolescent with undescended testicles, I would suggest that neither bush nor saddam are exactly admirable, although ironically, in the past 5 years, bush has actually lied MORE than ha saddam, although MOR seems willing to give him a pass on that.

probably because it allows us to kill a few more arabs who he finds scary.

As was Saladin.:)

Everyone does Mayilyn at halloween. I put on a silver dress and use my own hair, and go as Gilda.

Call me crazy - seems to me the Democrats and the Republicans should be focused on finding a solution to Iraq.

While it's tempting to call you crazy, "dim" is probably more accurate.

1)Democrats and Republicans aren't the commander in chief and so have no direct control over this country's Iraq policy.

2) As Bush doesn't listen to ANY of the advice given him, be it from generals, diplomats, allies or Daddy's friends, were there a solution to the quagmire that as Iraq he clearly wouldn't listen anyway.

He is Nero, fiddling while our soldiers die and Iraq burns.

Appologies to the forum for all of the speed-typing infractions.

Every part of this is the Republican's baby. They had carte blanche to handle it exactly as they wanted to. It's a showcase of Republican policy and Republican character.

For the rest of eternity you can say that something is like the Republican way of doing things and everyone will know what you mean. Utter corruptedness, utter stupidity, utter failure, no sense of who they are and no sense of who other people are, but absolute egotism.

As they are so functionally detrimental to normal human life, I think this kind of character is speciating.

I'd agree if the escalation weren't going to cost more lives. Since it is ... I'm not happy to see it.

Nads,

Nope, he saw Israel as the new Western Crusaders, and he intended to exterminate them.

GC,

What movie is that famous poster of Rita from?

I think history will decide that Saddam was the bad guy in this conflict, not Bush, and that our fumbling in Iraq was, in the long run, better than allowing him to go down in history as the new Saladin by turning Tel Aviv into another Auschwitz, or New York into another Chernobyl.

Oh for Christs sake. You're right, Saddam is a thousand feet tall. He flew all the jetliners that crashed on 9/11. He breathes fire and pulls nuclear bombs out of his anus. He is history's greatest monster, more evil than Hitler, Pol Pot and Jimmy Carter combined. Trees wither and dogs whimper around him. It is good that we stopped this monster before he destroyed the universe.

It's because of social conservative personality disorder --their first experience of foreign policy was hearing about Vietnam, and getting freaked out about it, and internalizing the 'lessons' of Vietnam as that everything about Vietnam was right it was everyone else who failed.

So in Iraq they recreated their dream Vietnam.

Sorry to leave now that the party's getting good, but I gotta take my boys to the movies.

Bruce,

I'd agree Saddam was a pissant if he hadn't killed a million people in two unprovoked wars of aggression, if he hadn't demonstrated his recklessness by trying to assassinate a former US President, if he hadn't sheltered fugitives from the first WTC bombing, and if he hadn't cheered the second WTC attack and declared himself an ally of whoever had accomplished that triumph.

I'm not sure - The Lady from Frisco?

The conservative dominance of the past 25 years owes far more to Jimmy Carter-era stagflation and the bull stock market of 1982-2000 than it does to any defeat in Vietnam.

Sing it brother. This needs to be more widely understood.

minion: "I'd agree Saddam was a pissant if he hadn't killed a million people in two unprovoked wars of aggression ..."

You know, I'd agree that you might actually have a point, if you and your fellow neocons weren't so hell-bent on waving a flag of convenience, by never acknowledging who it was that blatantly encouraged and armed him throughout that first unprovoked war against Iran.

We have now been in Iraq for 45 months, 45 months during which things went great for three weeks, and went steadily downhill ever since.

It's hard to imagine that, over the long term, the success or failure of the "libruls kept us from winning Iraq" narrative will depend on whether or not Bush (and it's 100% Bush's decision) gets his surge.

Surge or no surge, the basic fact remains: Bush, Cheney, Rummy, etc. were denied nothing that they asked for in this war. Hell, they had to be forced into accepting money to armor Humvees to keep our soldiers from getting blown up by IEDs.

If we can't get it straight in the public's mind who lost Iraq, by repeating that over and over again - "we gave them all the troops, all the equipment, all the money they asked for, and they still lost," then heaven help us.

It's an escalation--not a surge--and it is going to cost many, many more lives. Playing semantic games with peoples lives is disgusting.

last comment and I'm out the door --

HawaiiDon,

It's not the things you don't know that scare me, it's the things you know that just ain't so....

Maybe Saint Jiminy did give Saddam a wink and a nod to attack the Ayatolla, but that doesn't make the US responsible, at least not us dastardly neocons. As to your tired factoid about us arming Saddam -- nope, it was the French and the Soviet Union. He would have been glad to buy US weapons, but to our credit we would not sell him any. Less than 1% of Iraq's weapons were of US origin in Gulf War I.

Oh it is beyond disgusting. I don't think the word has been coined that encapsulates that level of crass, craven, perfidy that this represents.

Nads and I, unlike most of you, (and you should be thankful you have escaped this, we all puke at least once that first month) know first hand what happens to human flesh when bullets tear into it and things blow up nearby it. Ron Beyers reads my local paper. He can verify the tales I tell about the trauma team I was a part of until I had knee surgery a year and a half ago and just didn't go back because I'm sick of bullets in kids and don't think I could take another one.

Maybe that is why he and I are especially scathing in what we have to say about this?

I'd agree Saddam was a pissant if he hadn't killed a million people blah blah blah

Saddam did not "kill a million people." Your history book is apparently defective and in need of return. Iraq and Iran had a border dispute over a region whose pedigree was in doubt. The revolutionary government in Iran was calling for a bloody overthrow of Saddam's secular regime. War ensued -- and the United States supported Saddam with money and weapons.

Also, there is no conclusive proof that Saddam Hussein tried to kill G.H.W. Bush. It is merely an allegation based on incomplete evidence. You may want to reserve your condemnation until the identity of the person behind the plot is known.

Finally, a former ally whose army we repelled, whose weapons we destroyed, whose military might and standing in the region we took away, and whose country we drove into utter financial ruin for over a decade "cheered" the WTC attacks? Truly inexplicable.

kevin, you are a fucking jerk!!! you are triangulating about people's lives. Quit playing your STUPID FUCKING GAMES and start thinking about reality. What it means for more REAL PEOPLE TO LOSE THEIR LIVES OR LIMBS FOR A FUCKING DIASATEROUS WASTE!!!!!!!! Have you no empathy man????

God you are craven.
.

Liberals can't do anything? Maybe not liberals in particular, but if some 70 plus percent of the people are for ending the war, maybe it's time for a general strike.

12 yr old in the ER last night with a single entry and no-exit wound to her buttock. She was just asleep until some random intruder at the door.

keivn's is an especially easy position when you aren't personally invested in this war, and it remains an abstract poli sci mental mastrubation-fest.

As to your tired factoid about us arming Saddam -- nope, it was the French and the Soviet Union. He would have been glad to buy US weapons, but to our credit we would not sell him any.

Wrong again. We did sell him chemical and biological weapons precursors and Bell helicopters which were used militarily; that is a matter of Congressional record.

Further, the United States pulled strings and arranged the sales of weapons to Iraq via other nations. The CIA oversaw and even coordinated many of these transactions.

Half of being a winger seems to be just not having your history straight.

Kevin, the people who are going to blame liberals and Democrats for losing Iraq are the same people who don't think that sending an army of 500,000 troops, fighting for ten years, losing 58,000 American lives and killing millions of Vietnamese was enough. They blame the Democratic Congress for cutting of aid to South Vietnam before the final North Vietnamese push.

So to satisfy those people, we'd have to do more than we did in Vietnam.

No more American troops or Iraqi people killed for the sake of a surge, please.

I agree that the republicans and perhaps the media will blame the democrats no matter what. It goes along with the stereotype of the dems. "losing" wars and the reps. "winning" them, unless the dems. somehow undermine the cause.
Stereotypes are just a whole lot easier than thinking.
And wasn't it proven that repeated falsehoods work in the case of this war? Despite Bush eventually saying that there was no connection between 9/11 and Al Quaeda there were polls that showed that most Americans believed the connection did exist. This may well have been influenced by the fact that Cheney kept repeating this story even after it had been stated by the President that it wasn't so.
BUT, I was heartened by the results of the mid-term elections. Too many usually-Republican voters I know actually had relatives in Iraq. They know bullshit when they run into it firsthand.
They may even remember it for awhile - like when vets run into program cuts put into place by the rep-controlled Congress in favor of high-tier tax cuts. Who knows?

I was a green paramedic when crack hit the streets of America and people started getting shot over 10 dollars. The most helpless I had ever felt in my life (up to that point) was a thru-and-thru to the ass that went through both femorals. He bled out in front of me, and back then Poly-Heme (I was part of that) hadn't been developed, let alone tested.

Saline has no ability to cary O2, so they still die. They just last long enough to know it's happening.

Shall Nads and I just cut lose and let those who thing this is a swell idea know just exactly what the fuck you are wishing for?

Minion,

Glad you have your logic worked out. Who was the bad guy in Hitler vs. Stalin?

And tonight for the re-opening of the Grand Emporium, back by popular demand, Global Citizen will reprise Rita Hayworth as Gilda singing "Put the blame on Mame, boys, put the blame on Mame".

The San Francisco earthquake was not caused by Mother Nature. Put the blame on Mame.

The greatest non-strip tease number in show biz history.

How do we know we armed Saddam?

We kept the fucking receipts, that's how.

"And if the surge works"

What? And they start throwing flowers?

You shouldn't have wasted any skin cells typing that last paragraph.

What a bogus proposal for a discussion thread.
Iraq started out as a list of "causes" unrelated to reality. Nothing has changed.

F-18's sold to Pakistan.
Nuclear tech to go to India.
Arming traditional enemies in different ways and pocketing the profits.

Afghanistan complaining about Pakistan not closing down Taleban training camps in the area which was once Afghanistan except for European meddling : which they have never accepted. Meantime NATO predicts a shitstorm of fighting come spring.

What is winning ? Especially when the "objective" is either undefined or incompetently sought.

Distraction is the key to a magician's trade. George's pals know how to keep attention away from what is really happening.

Minion,

You are out of your league when you come with flat BS about the US not being involved with the buildup of Saddam during the 80s - Yes, a great deal of material came from the Soviets and the French - Aircraft and missiles - But, the deals were made through international arms dealers - One was a Lebanese-Armenian living in Miami - Cluster bomb technology went from Pennsylvania, through Chile, to Iraq - Companies from the US and Europe were heavily invovled in the transactions - The Italian bank, BNL, supplied and laundered the money - All of this was done under the nods and winks of the Reagan Administration - GWHB was very much involved in seeing that Saddam was able to build his weapon systems - While this was going on, Isreal was selling weapons to Iran -

None of this would have happened, if the US had stepped up to the plate and put a stop to the sales and transfers - They knew about it and allowed it to happen.

You really ought to do, at least a minimum, of homework on this subject - You have not even approached Head Start in beginning to understand what happened - By the way, it is all over the web. - Don't really have to peruse a public library.

Don't embarass yourself any more than you have to date.

Often, the military names an operation with a roman numeral, like a movie sequel.

We can, regardless of the 'official' name, call this escalation "Together Forward II"--and I would urge that we do so.

Donald from Hawaii, I'm a neocon who will acknowldege that the US sold arms to Saddam during the war he started against Iran. What puzzles me is where you go with this fact.

IMHO the fact that we armed Saddam put an extra responsiblity on us to overthrow him. You seem to think that because we wrongly armed Saddam in the 1980's, we are then obligated to keep him in power.

Dell - You just gave me the title of my post on this topic. Thanks.

Its going to be a disaster. Hes like one of those Biblical figures who hardens his heart to the truth and makes his failures more catastrophic. He should have taken the advice of the study group and gotten out.

ex-liberal: Morons like Donald from Hawaii think everything is the USA's fault. It's out fault that Saddam gassed the Kurds, it's our fault that Saddam launched SCUD missiles into Israel. It's our fault that Kim Jong Il is starving his people and threatening the free world with nukes.

It's our fault that people in the Third World are poor. It's our fault that the president of Iran talks about "wiping Israel off the map."

Morons like "Havlicek stole the ball" think that the Republican Party is identical to the USA, and therefore holding the Republicans accountable for their vicious and non-functional foreign policy is actually somehow blaming the USA.

ex-lib writes:

To me, the word "claims" implies that one is not to believe the official US statement.
Actually, that headline is germane to this post of Kevin's. IMHO, given the media's pro-Democrat and anti-war biases, you don't have to worry that the public will blame liberals for losing the war in Iraq.

First, the headline of that article says "Taliban leader killed in U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan, military says -" I don't see the word "claims" anywhere in the headline. Second, it's entirely possible that AP couldn't verify what our military says. The military has shown in the past to exaggerate their successes, and stayed silent on their failures. It's completely reasonable that the press is skeptical about something our military says, and in fact, they would be irresponsible if they weren't. The real bias here is shown by you - who doesn't want the media to do its job, but to parrot everything the administration and the military says. Many conservatives need to learn that just because you disagree with something doesn't make it not true.

The FDR administration created an agency, I've forgotten its' name, with the authority of a Ken Starr to investigate every single allegation of corruption or misuse of funds in New Deal programs and later in WWII. FDR had the most rigorously accountable adminstration in American history.

The Republicans have created exactly the opposite situation. They've done everything they could to limit or eliminate accountability in everything. To what purpose? Because it's a a virtue?

Matt Yglesias w