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July 11, 2007 07:07 PM UTC

Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Republicans

  • 143 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The debate on how to end the Iraq war is heating up among Democrats, threatening to expose deep divisions between liberal and moderate wings of the party.

Liberal bloggers and commentators are outraged by what they see as a “capitulation” to the Bush adminstration by certain Democrats–led by Colorado Senator Ken Salazar–who are seeking to implement the goals of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan report submitted late last year that calls for increased emphasis on training Iraqi forces and the removal of American combat troops from Iraq in 2008.

Many liberals are demanding an immediate withdrawal of forces regardless of the consequences, or failing that a locked-in timetable for withdrawal that takes no account of the situation on the ground in Iraq. Their arguments from our experience typically devolve into an emotional appeal over the wrongness of the war to begin with, and generally conclude with an angry denunciation of any Democrat who doesn’t agree 100% with their “solution” of immediate withdrawl. The terms we’ve seen employed recently to describe some Democrats–national blogger Matt Stoller’s recent characterization of Rep. Mark Udall as an “immoral coward” comes to mind–are sweeping and breathtaking.

In the four and a half years since the invasion of Iraq, all sides of the debate have hardened their positions to the point where reasonable discussion of the situation is barely possible. But even prominent liberal politicians like Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a longtime Iraq war opponent, are coming forward to explain, at the risk of themselves ending up on the anti-war shit list, that the situation isn’t as clear-cut as Cindy Sheehan (or David Sirota) would have you believe. As the Washington Post reports:

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said today that despite growing Republican discontent with the Iraq war, convincing GOP members to support withdrawal legislation remains a daunting challenge that so far has netted few results.

Durbin said recent speeches by senior Senate Republicans signaling a sharp break with Bush’s Iraq war strategy might not necessarily translate into votes for Democratic measures setting target dates for withdrawing U.S. troops. Durbin also conceded that the Democrats, with a bare majority in the Senate, won’t be able to placate liberal Democratic calls for a specific end date, including a funding cut off.

“Obviously there are folks who want the war to end today, and all the troops to be home tomorrow. And even though I think that is a worthy goal, it is not a realistic goal,” said Durbin. A major redeployment of troops will have to be done gradually and in a responsible manner, he noted. “We also understand that just leaving cold turkey, with everything gone, could have the whole region descend into chaos,” Durbin said.

Durbin, an early booster of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, singled out former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) for helping to fuel unrealistic anti-war expectations for congressional action. Edwards has chastized his fellow Democratic candidates who are currently serving in the Senate, for not pushing hard enough to end the war.

“I recall when John voted for this war. So it’s understandable that he feels badly about that decision and wants to see something done to undo the harm that has happened,” said Durbin. “But it has to be done in a sensible way.”

Which leads us directly to Sen. Salazar and his proposal to implement the ISG recommendations, and his hope to engage wavering GOP politicians belatedly looking for a solution to the worsening situation in Iraq. As the Rocky Mountain News reports this morning:

Support for his bill has gained momentum as prominent Republicans have begun to look to it as a way out of Iraq without appearing soft on defense. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was one of those to recently sign on to the measure, saying Tuesday, “It is time to rethink our military policy in Iraq, and force the Iraqis to do more for themselves.”

The non-partisan Iraq Study Group in December recommended an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.

The amendment setting those recommendations into law would: establish a goal of removing most soldiers from Iraq by spring 2008; set benchmarks for the Iraqi government as conditions for continued U.S. military support; and engage Iraq’s neighboring countries in an “Iraq International Support Group.”

“If you look at it from a purely political standpoint, it’s smart,” Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer said of Salazar’s amendment.

Colorado is a divided state, Straayer said, with an electorate that leans Republican and a large military community countering a very vocal opposition to the war.

So, “shooting down the middle – from a political standpoint – is the place to be,” Straayer said.

However, Straayer said he doubts that politics alone explains the motivations of Salazar and the other centrist senators from either party.

“I think there are, in this mix, issues of significance where members are taking positions because of what’s right for the country and not for political pay dirt,” he said. “This whole Iraq thing has been tough, because it’s a mix of your political fortunes, your conscience and your sense of history.”

Our view: Salazar is doing the right thing. Unlike some pundits who seem to object terribly to the idea that a bipartisan effort could ever be a good thing, we think Salazar is putting such pettiness aside to find a solution that might actually pass Congress with a veto-proof majority. We believe despite the angst about it on the blog-left that the Iraq Study Group goals, derided for months by war hawks and the Bush administration, could move the nation towards a responsible end to the war in Iraq–which is what Americans say they want, not a headlong withdrawal that creates an even bigger crisis in the Middle East.

We believe that these anti-war bloggers are making a terrible, arrogant mistake by attacking fellow Democrats who are trying like hell to do the right thing. We reject the often-bandied assertion that Congress is empowered do something it doesn’t have the votes to accomplish just because “only 30% of Americans support the war” as purposefully ignorant of how our government works, to the point of calling it duplicitous–they know it’s not that simple. And we believe, above all, that the need to find a solution to the debacle of the Iraq War is far too important to reject potential solutions simply because they might not involve a wholesale condemnation of the Republican Party.

Discuss.

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143 thoughts on “Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Republicans”

  1. of whether implementing the ISG provisions really is the right thing. The situation on the ground is so bad right now that even the ISG report is looking quaint. One of the problems the left is having with Salazar is that he is just whistling past the graveyard, while giving cover to some vulnerable Republican senators.

      1. It does a great job of showing how the Salazar proposal isn’t “implementing the ISG recommendations,” but “if the Iraqi government can suddenly meet all previously failed benchmarks, we have the option to begin talking about implementing parts of the ISG recommendations starting in 2008…unless something changes, and then all bets are off.”

        CoPols seems not to be aware of the details.

        1. “Reading” and agreeing with Aravosis’ vapid, biased, premature and alternative-free analysis are two different things, however.

          We note that the post at 5280 ended with “I don’t have any great wisdom to share on how to exit from Iraq but…”

          1. 5280 discusses the substance of the Salazar proposal.

            CoPols discusses only the meta-topic of Democratic infighting over the proposal, using sketchy “evidence.”  When you twice call it Salazar’s “proposal to implement the ISG recommendations” with no further detail, it begs the question of whether you were actually familiar with the bill’s text before you wrote today’s provocative missive.

          3. What political world are you reporting from?  Did you post that before or after Senator Snow, REPUBLICAN, defected from Bush, Senator Lugar, REPPUBLICAN, said September was too far away to wait for a change in policy and the House of Representatives passed a bill calling for troop withdrawal within 180 days….and there MIGHT, just MIGHT be a veto proof majority in the Senate…

            And your lead is about the Democratic party divided and  in trouble over the war policy? Are you guys nuts? Or has that Aspen sun baked your brains….
            It looks like MAYBE the Reid-Salazar strategy might possibily be working….much to my surprise, by the way.

            And, by the way, that is Saint Cindy Sheehan.

            1. Are you talking about a “veto-proof” majority to pull troops out in 180 days?!?!  That’s insane…simply insane.The senate will never even get to 60 votes to even CONSIDER the measure the House passed today  I sincerely hope you dont think the Senate will ever pass the same bill the House passed today…it will never happen…

              1. Repeat:  I said that there MIGHT be a veto proof majority in the Senate.  The big news is the continuing defection of Republican Senators from Bush.  I don’t think the Senate will pass the House bill; I think the Senate is moving toward a withdrawal strategy which the Republicans can support and the House pass….

                Gee.

    2. “The situation on the ground is so bad right now”

      That’s the popular line, of course, but it’s also dead wrong.  If you bothered to actually read what’s going on there now, you might not fall for such hollow talking points.

      And because that initial assumption is wrong, everything that follows (namely the far-left’s insistence on Monty Python’s Arthurian “Run Away! Run Away!” strategy) is also wrong. 

      Base your analysis in reality, rather than the spin of the spin of the spin, and you might be closer to a solution on Iraq.

      1. I have talked to guys coming back from there and a couple have been in the thick of things, and I have heard that things are getting worse (in fact, we are supposedly losing afghanistan at a fast rate). Now, the last one was more than 6 months ago (in fact, I think it was about 8), but where are you getting your information? Since the surge has started, 3 have gone back (in spite of being promised that they would not be sent back if they re-upped) and have not returned.

        From what I am seeing, few rotations are happening. Everybody was extended. So where exactly are you getting your information? And if you differ with what the press and troops are saying, what is your assesment? Bear in mind, that if you read my earlier postings, I back the surge as we have new ppl in place (rumsfield and the top brass that W had in place were the absolute worse that he could have; gates, et. al are by definition far better). But I suspect that we have already lost Iraq and afghanistan, but with republicans not willing to say so, for fear of being absolutely CRUSHED in the next election.

        1. First, of course, is personal experience.  I just got back myself.  But most of that is bordering on the, umm, “not open source” level, and, besides, it’s not going to convince anyone, so I don’t like to go there.

          The two best resources I’ve found are Bill Roggio and Michael Yon.  Roggio is a blogger, but he does an *outstanding* job of rounding up all of the primary sources and reports from his contacts in MNF-I and MNF-W and the like.  He reports lots of stuff in a strategic sense the mainstream media simply doesn’t do – from posting graphics of the Order of Battle to talking directly to contacts in the various headquarters across the country.  Yon is currently a self-employed reporter embeded in Baqubah, a former Special Forces-type guy who hasn’t always been a fan of the war but has been there reporting on it from the beginning.  His commentary is really good for the close-in, high fidelity reporting on one operation. 

          As for the overall picture, basically, my take on it is as follows:
          The country has been becoming politically self-sustaining from the outside in – namely, the southern Shia and northern Kurd provinces have been increasingly handed over to Iraqi control (the strategic end state of the whole country).  In addition, recently, Anbar province has been pacifying itself from the west to the east, down the Euphrates.  Basically, the tribes have been forcing out Al Qaeda with American support.  Indeed, Ramadi, capital of Anbar, and once the most violent city per capita in Iraq, is calm. 

          In addition to that, General Petraeus’ Surge is aimed at securing Baghdad from the inside-out.  The last report I saw had it at about 50% of neighborhoods in the city secure. 

          The result is Al Qaeda had to move away from the centers of gravity into the no-man’s land surrounding Baghdad, yet not yet affected by the outside-in pacification and “Awakenings.”  First, of course, it extends their operational chain, requiring them to drive their bombs into the heart of the city, through more and more checkpoints, decreasing the likelihood of a successful attack.  Second, is the recent operations aimed directly at the heart of the “seams” the AQIZ-types found – Arrowhead Ripper in Baqubah, Marne Torch and Commando Eagle in the belts south of Baghdad, and Alljah in the western area, from Fallujah up to Lake Thar Thar.  The intended effect is to deny those areas to AQIZ as well, supporting the tribal counter-insurgency, the overall security picture, rolling up bad guys and their caches, and further extending their lines of operation to carry out their spectacular attacks.

          Basically, the Baghdad Belts operations are going to end the Al Qaedist insurgency, at least in removing from it any real strategic capabilities.  (The psyop capabilities still exist, however.  The good news is that their psyops against Iraqis in trying to re-ignite the sectarian violence by blowing up the minarets at the Golden Mosque – a desperate act if ever there was one – didn’t work)

          The next phase is going to be dealing with the Iranian/Shia extremists.  The latest stuff I’ve seen has the Iraqi police down south (supported by my SWAT boys) have been attacking the JAM shadow governments, and al Sadr just ran away to Iran again.  (Also big-time good news, because it shows he is weak, out of control, and weakens him further by showing he’s *not* some Iraqi nationalist).

          The picture I see is ugly (when hasn’t war been ugly?), but positive on the whole. 

          1. what is your opinion on the operational pace.  How long can we maintain it. Will it require shorter training cycles? longer deployments (over 15m)?  When will the Iraqis be able to at least secure areas pacified by US forces?

            You casually throw in Sunni/Shia extremists, which is actually the long term problem.  Al Qaeda types are like family members that came from the wedding and won’t go home, of course the locals are turning on them.  I see the civil war as the actual problem.

            1. The OPTEMPO sucks.  As I alluded to, however, the fact that AQIZ is on the run and we’ve shown we’re willing and able to support the tribes in their actions to keep them that way, in addition to our continued support of turning out better and better Iraqi security forces, I think we’ll probably be in a better situation (certainly better than it has been for 4 years).  Of course, pulling out and removing our support (either apparent or actual removal) of the tribes, well, that’ll make things bad.  Real bad.

              I think the civil war is largely overrated.  The Sunni extremists have largely either fallen back under the tribal sheiks, or they were AQIZ.  The Shia extremists are splintering on their own – Sadr’s run to Iran twice this year, JAM is falling apart into Sadr-loyalists and Iranian-intel-backed groups.  AQIZ couldn’t even recast their most powerful spell with any success (namely, re-exploding the Golden Mosque in Samarra).

              The real problem will be maintaining the will to handle the Iranian influence into the events.  It’ll clean up Iraqi politics, keep out not-nice weapons, and remove any legitimacy from the “shadow governments” some of the JAM-types have set up in the south.

          2. I appreciate hearing from those that have been there.  Like I said earlier, the guys I talked to gave a very negative view, but that was with all of W’s idiots (rumfeld, etc).  Gates and Petraeus are quite a bit brighter and seem to have the right idea. The hard part is really going to be that towards the end, AQ will get VERY desperate and will go wild with attacks. IOW, this is going to look FAR worse within another 3 months. 

      2. ….37 mortar and missiles fired into the “safe” green zone.  Deaths of both Americans and Iraqis at an all time high.  An ineffective Iraqi government.

        Oh, yeah, just swimmingly.

        Hey, didn’t we hear this line from you after your previous tour?

      3. Glad you are back and it is always important to get perspective  from someone who has been on the ground….but exactly how long were you in Iraq? Didn’t you have a very short tour?

    3. I’m quite partial to removing troops from Iraq, but it’s sure as hell not because I’m worried about giving cover to vulnerable Republican senators.  If Salazar’s plan is the most realistic way to get Americans out of danger, then let’s do it!  If it’s a choice between making Republicans look bad or saving lives, why the hell wouldn’t we save the lives?

      Politics has its place, but I wonder who would be willing to explain to someone why their son died because we were more interested in making a political statement about Republicans supporting the war, and causing the whole minority caucus to dig in and protect themselves, than taking a compromise road to end the war.

  2. So Colorado Pols accuses the anti-war faction of oversimplifying the situation and then does the exact same thing.

    Pot…meet kettle…

    1. Pols wants Boulder Mark to actually win next year.  Sorry, pal, we ain’t Vermont and Vermont style politics just won’t fly here.  Udall is doing exactly what he needs to and Jason knows it.

        1. His politics aren’t any more conservative than Wayne Allard’s or Bill Armstrong’s.  That meme just isn’t gaining traction because it is pretty much untrue.  He’s a conservative and he doesn’t feel guilty about it.  I think Colorado will have no problem voting for Bob. 

          You won’t win this election by by making Bob out to been a right-wing loon.  That works in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island–not Colorado.  You only win by presenting a credible alternative.  That burden falls on Mark Udall.  By standing up for our troops in Iraq, Udall is charting a course that will, indeed, make him a credible alternative to Schaffer.

          The Kos crowd won’t like it.  But the people of Colorado will.

          1. Is very much like Wayne Allard’s, but the public perception of what a “traditional conservative” is has changed quite a bit. But, who am I stay what Coloradans believe. They will vote for the best candidate (hopefully) based upon the record. I’m more comfortable with Udall.

          2. You mean Wayne “Potted Plant” Allard?  Sponsor of amendments to our fundamental charter, the U.S. Constitution, to ban flag burning and gay marriage?  That moderate?

            1. Yes, amendments that the majority of Coloradans support.  Sorry, we’re all just a bunch of redneck Bible-thumpers, apparently.  Our bad.

              You guys crack me up.  Joe Lieberman was too extreme for you.  Why should I be surprised that Bob Schaffer is.  Frankly, I’m surprised y’all haven’t jumped overboard the Udall loveboat.

              Just be sure to keep me afloat when it happens.  =)

          3. – one has to remember the source that’s trying to convince those of us who still are trying to learn about the candidates.  I mean come on, there once was a little snake that told this one woman that it would be okay to eat the fruit…not totally truthful was it? 

            Sometimes people just open their mouths so often, nothing can be believed, credibility gone.  Wasn’t there a lesson about that with a boy and a wolf?

            1. Is that referring to the number of beers you’ve polished off today?  If you’re going to write something–and you’re more than welcome to, of course–please have it make some sense.  You mixed about four metaphors and I think you just compared Bob Schaffer to Adam of the Bible. 

              Speaking of mixing, I’ll have a screwdriver.

          4. as I guy who lived up in Larmier for quite some time, I think that I can say that Schaffer is a great deal more conservative that Armstrong. Now with that, Both Allard and Armstrong are conservative. Though Bill made things happen (unlike allard), generally for the better. In addition, he is more of a Republican, and less of a neo-con like Schaffer. Me? I will take Udall over Schaffer.

          5. You never saw Allard or Armstrong sandbag an R running for office over an issue they disagreed on causing the R incumbant to loose the election and the R’s to loose the seat in the House and, in fact, to loose the House.

            That’s extreme cleansing. 

          6. You never saw Allard or Armstrong sandbag an R running for office over an issue they disagreed on causing the R incumbant to loose the election and the R’s to loose the seat in the House and, in fact, to loose the House.

            That’s extreme cleansing. 

      2. As a policy, we don’t disclose the individual authors responsible for posts made under the “Colorado Pols” moniker, but you shouldn’t blame everything you see here on Jason Bane. He didn’t actually write this.

        1. like facts, gotten in the way of Dr. Dobsen? (Sorry, dude, your name is simply too long and you are way to boringly repetitive for me to retype the whole goddamn name.)

  3. “Many liberals are demanding an immediate withdrawal of forces regardless of the consequences.”

    That’s an absolute lie. If there are many, I’m sure you can name and source them. Ward Churchill doesn’t count.

    Now, back to reality: things are changing on the ground in Iraq almost at blogospheric time. Salazar’s amendment may have made sense at one point, but with Republicans filibustering everything right now, more determined measures should be supported. Events have passed Ken, and CPOLS, by on this one.

  4. I don’t consider myself a moderate, I consider myself a left liberal…but there is a difference between dreaming and reality. One of my biggest criticisms of the GOP as of late is that they are willing to take their rhetoric to the extreme despite the consequences. Now some people on our side have gotten so used to being absolutely partisan that they are doing the same thing.

    It is astounding to me that some of these so called “liberals” don’t seem to care a bit about the loss of innocent life that may occur if we jet out of Iraq tomorrow. Sure the war should have never started in the first place, but now we are there and need to make decisions with that in mind. Bring home our troops and screw the rest of the world sounds almost as stupid as send our troops over there and screw the rest of the world.

    Sadly, as John Kerry found out in 2004, the general public is not ready for such nuanced approaches. Apparently neither is some of our party. The simplistic mentality of “your either bring troops home tomorrow (or at least voting to defund the war) or you are for the war, is the same type of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. Trying to paint Mark Udall, one of the few Democrats who stood up and opposed this war when that was an unpopular choice, a coward is just plain stupid. Now he is making the unpopular choice again and trying to support the plan that will minimize violence to not only our troops, but innocent Iraq women and children (and men). I would propose that the so called liberals refusing to consider the delicate nature of the situation are the true cowards for simply following along with what is popular at the moment (many of them ironically supported the war in the first place).

    In short, quit being stupid like the pro-war supporters were in 2002-2003.

    1. If we keep the troops there, are we really helping the situation?  Or conversely, would withdrawing the troops to over-the-horizon bases really make the situation much worse?

      And finally, do we have the resources to continue this occupation?  Our troops have equipment issues that the President doesn’t seem to be willing to deal with; he’d rather spend the taxpayer money on 180,000 contractors.

      1. I don’t know. I could have predicted, and did, that if we invaded things would go bad (although it took about a month longer to start going downhill than I though). Now? I just don’t know. There are so many different factions and variables that it is very difficult to predict what will happen.

        What I DO know is that the insurgent groups aren’t going to put down their weapons the moment we leave. They want control. If we are gone, the bloodshed will almost assuredly increase. I think we should have a massive troop reduction, but in an orderly way where we are backing out…seeing how things go each step backwards.

        In addition, I think we should set a goal for Iraq. Whatever it is…then at least we can decide what to do based on that goal? Is it putting down the insurgency? Well then our military presence is required for a long, long time (and we will likely never accomplish such a goal). Is it stabilizing the region? Well then we need to bring other regional countries (yes, including Iran) to the table. Once they have control of the situation, we leave right away. Do we want a non-Islamic democracy in Iraq? Good luck.

        Anyway, I think we need to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. That said, we caused the mess there. Unlike Vietnam, we are solely responsible for the current instability there. Maybe it will come down to defunding the war…in which case Bush will simply keep the troops there without proper funding and blame it on the Dems. But why in the world would we bash people trying to end the conflict in a way that might have a chance at working. And that means 60 votes in the Senate.

        1. getting troops out immediately is never all that immediate.  It’s not like 300,000 troops and mercenaries, I mean “subcontractors”, are just going to pack up and hop on some planes.  Getting out will be very dicey.  We’ll have to have an effective plan for fighting our way out and getting billions of dollars worth of our stuff out in stages, won’t we?  And we also owe it to all those Iraqis who worked with us to get them out, too. 

    2. “liberals” don’t seem to care a bit about the loss of innocent life

      It’s the Bush Admin that doesn’t count civilian Iraqis killed, so you’ll have to get your body count elsewhere.  This horrible civil war is going to immediately escalate the day we leave – be that tomorrow or on 1/20/09. Bush could have gone in with overwhelming force, but he was the coward who didn’t.

      1. “…some of these so called “liberals” don’t seem to care a bit about the loss of innocent life that may occur if we jet out of Iraq tomorrow.”

        As long as you take what I said in context, I agree with you. Bush doesn’t care and some of these so called “liberals” don’t seem to care. Notice, I call them so called “liberals” because of course true liberals do care. The people I am talking about are partisans pure and simple, and they are taking advantage of the fact that the war is unpopular to push their own agenda.

  5. A few years ago a good friend went through a divorce. I was close to both the husband and wife. For two years both of them, when speaking about the problems they faced, they spoke right past each other, using the same tired arguments.

    Remind you of anyone we know?

    Salazar has the guts to stake out the middle ground in the partisan playground that is Congress. He’s looking for a solution rather than framing arguments with words like ‘capitulation’ or ‘defeatists’.

    I agree 100% with COPols assessment that Dems are ‘making a terrible, arrogant mistake’ by attacking those (of their same party!) who are working the problem and not working the polls. The Dems have an opportunity to show that they can lead in Congress and forge a way forward that includes both parties.

    1. Ken’s proposal would be reasonable – if the ISG assessment were still valid.  IMHO, Ken needs to revamp his proposal to put forth suggestions based on a revised understanding of the conditions on the ground.

      1. but I’m afraid that an updated revision would be another call to study the situation leading to further implementation of a way forward.  If Salazar is able to gain consensus on some revamped benchmarks and dates that would be good. Personally, I think Ken has the skills to pull that off, if he’s able to find enough Dems to listen.

        1. If we don’t have some serious thinkers already studying Iraq on a day-to-day basis, then this country is more sunk than I thought.  We don’t need to do an assessment – we already have a zillion of them from many different viewpoints.  It’s time for everyone to put their egos aside, come up with some basic reality-based agreements on the situation, and then actually brainstorm some real solutions.  It shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks if people check their egos at the door.

          1. Not only must they check egos at the door, they must check preconceptions, stereotypes and partisanship at the door. Can’t happen in DC.

            In the absence of ‘facts’ from our new and old media outlets, I rely on what I hear the military commanders saying and what the soldiers say who are there or have returned. I trust Yokel’s point of view, let’s say, more than I trust Cindy Sheehan’s.

            I’m a smart guy, but I’m not military. I haven’t studied Iraq enough to know the answers but the politicization of this war has gone on long enough. Judging by the replies on this thread the moderates are getting fed up as well.

            Let’s hope Salazar can breathe some life into the debates and it won’t wind up like the last round with a veto and the Dems looking silly.

            1. I trust the views of the streaming horde of retiring generals who all seem to think Bush is certifiable.  Most of them have been in the chain of command re: Iraq, and most get to read the reports.

              Yokel is good to read, but frankly I can read opposing views from other troops and I can read the news reports (if I can find them).  Petraeus had it right when he wrote the counter-insurgency manual – and we don’t have the right number of troops, or the right conditions in the country, to satisfy the procedures he himself specified.

              Sorry, but I don’t see the rosy sunrise around the bend.

              1. and I’m posting and working at the same time which is always hard.

                We don’t have the resources to achieve what Bush wants, never have.

                We don’t have a rosy sunrise around the bend either.

                We DO have an opportunity, albeit rapidly diminishing, to find a way both sides can save face on this issue. Bush won’t budge, Pelosi/Reid won’t budge, so if Salazar brings the ISG recommendations to the table, and those are the basis for the discussion (as you mentioned below in your post re: Center for Amer Progress), the country may be able to move beyond ‘stay the course’ or ‘immediate withdrawal’.

        1. The ISG recommendations were based on their research which started some time ago.

          Since then the Iraqi government has gone downhill, we’ve stopped focusing on training Iraqi police and soldiers, the Iraqi police and soldiers we’ve trained appear to be largely unwilling to do the job they were trained for…  The list goes on and on and on; the situation on the ground is Not Good, and it’s not looking good for the future when PM al-Maliki is facing a No Confidence vote.

          There may be solutions for Iraq.  But they aren’t the same solutions with the same goals as they were a year ago when the ISG started to tackle the issues.

          1. I feel like understanding what is going on in Iraq is like trying to watch scrambled TV. You occasionally get a clear picture, but more often than not, you’re not sure what you’re looking at and waiting for the next instantaneous glimpse. 

            If anything, I have sympathy for policy-makers whose job is to look at the scrambled Iraq picture all day. 

  6. “Many liberals are demanding an immediate withdrawal of forces regardless of the consequences, or failing that a locked-in timetable for withdrawal that takes no account of the situation on the ground in Iraq.”

    Not even remotely true–I note you offer zero evidence to back up your “many people say” claims.

    To get our troops home, you have to commit to…uh…getting our troops home.  In a more concrete way than saying “we all want the troops home”–even the Chimperor is doing that.

    Udall continues with deliberate vagaries and Salazar is wasting everyone’s time with abstract posturing.  Those are simply the facts, and if you’re at all interested in ending the war and bringing American troops home, it should bother you.

    But I’m sure the “liberal vs. moderate” Democrat story will get you more clicks.  Good for you.

    1. it seems you’re basing your assertions on some gestalt measure of blog comments, and an article by Matt Stoller.  That’s my best guess, since you don’t really specify who “some people say” are.

      Shame on you.  The Internet is literally useless as a barometer of public opinion in general.

      According to the Internet, Ron Paul is a GOP contender, and “Serenity” was the greatest science fiction film of all time.

      Recent phone polling indicates 60% of Americans favor either immediate withdrawal of our troops, or withdrawal according to a specific timeline.  I think that’s more trustworthy than your assessment.

      1. A majority of Americans supported the war when we went in. It was the wrong thing to do. Immediate withdrawal is wrong despite 60% of Americans supporting it.

        The situation is more complex than the average American has time to ponder. We need to get out but with so much at stake risks and consequences must be considered. I applaud any in congress willing to find an intelligent approach despite the 60% clamoring for a simple fix.

        Excellent post Pols.

        1. “The situation is more complex than the average American has time to ponder.”

          In other words, most Americans are too stupid to understand, eh?  This democracy thing is nuts, I tell ya.

          Bush tried that line of argument once, but surprisingly people don’t respond well to condescension.  Especially from someone who has had five years to ponder, yet still manages to see the complex situation in the same childlike terms with which he began it.

            1. a majority of americans agreed five years to invade Iraq. Today is different story, since the “facts” are finally seeing the light of day.

              1. the situation is different now and continues to change. I didn’t think it right to start the war and the decision was much simpler then. My point to Oscar was that just because the majority of Americans is for getting out, thought still must be put into what is a complex decision with ramifications not only for our country but the rest of the world for many years.

                For the record, I am a passionate believer in democracy and our form of government. I just wish we’d pay more attention. You get the democracy you deserve.

          2. and it isn’t their fault.

            With elections coming up, with a strong ‘new’ media promoting short attention spans/ rewards for confrontation/ shallow analysis, and the ‘old’ media adopting the ways of the ‘new’, Americans when polled are going to say the country is on the wrong track. They are going to say they are against the war. How do they answer when asked if they support a troop reduction if the result is civil war or increased conflict between Turkey and the Kurds?

          3. As the saying goes, it’s a lousy system, but simply the least lousy system available.

            The fact is, pure democracy is neither what we have, nor a reasonable choice. Instead, we have a representative republic, in which the democratic element elects representatives, who then are supposed to mobilize the best analyses to act on the public’s behalf. It was never the intention of the founding fathers to create a country ruled by plebiscite, and movements in that direction are not a good idea.

            Ms. Ives was right that few Americans have the time and training to collect and analyze the massive amount of information required to make intelligent decisions about complex matters. Do we sometimes have elected officials who make worse decisions than we would have made by plebiscite? Sure, and Bush/Cheney may well be the archetypical example (Johnson/MacNamarra come to mind as well). But, over time, the complete surrender of expertise to popular opinion is a losing proposition.

            Those of us not in public service have to make a living doing something else, which leaves us precious little time to analyze social/economic/political/military issues. That, combined with the fact that few of us are trained in those sciences, argues against government by plebiscite.

            This country was designed specifically to be a blend of the classical three forms of government: Monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy, with checks and balances among them, in order to exploit the strengths and avoid the pitfalls of each. It’s far from perfect, but it is a relatively successful formula.

            The challenge is to balance two opposing demands: One, for democratic constraints on government in order to ensure that it serves the public’s interest rather than exclusively or primarily the interests of those in power, and two, for the utilization of professional expertise in the formation of policy decisions. Just as I wouldn’t want a public referendum to decide how to proceed with my open-heart surgery, I don’t want public referenda to decide similarly sophisticated policy matters.

            1. ….average Americans understood how the system worked and spent time analyzing events and people.  Toqueville noted that “simple” farmers with what is today a minimal education actively listened to politicians and made decisions from what they knew.  Ordinary Americans traveled several days to hear Lincoln and Douglas debate.

              Today, we have almost no training, as it were, in schools. Civics has gone by the wayside, I think partly as a matter of PC thinking….God forbid we think our system might be superior to some others.  Also partly as intentional by the cons to gut our students in order to prepare them for low wage jobs and not understand what is going on around them. 

              Then we have important things in the media like American Idle (intentional), Fox “News” sans Fairness Doctrine, and Paris Hilton. 

              As said above, we are getting the democracy we deserve.

              1. though I think the “American Idle” phenomenon is strictly profit-motivated rather than a conspiratorial dumbing of American citizens. In fact, the only conpiratorial phenomena that actual exist are small-scale, non-sensational conspiracies. Large scale, sensational conspiracies are logistically impossible to sustain (There is an increasing and accelerating probability of one or more of the thousands of people who necessarily know and can prove SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT exploiting the opportunities for fame and fortune by disclosing what they know as the size and sensationalism of the conspiracy grows. That’s why, in spite of the cottage industry to the contrary, the Warren Commission’s conclusion is actually accurate, as a recent independent academic analysis concluded).

                There are some quasi-conspiratorial phenomena, that are actually organic rather than conspiratorial, but that have the appearance of conspiracy: Wealthy politicians and CEOs, for instance, who share tight social circles, and coordinate their interests and advance their children’s welfare through mutual cooperation (Mill’s “The Power Elite” of the 1950s). In fact, social phenomena in general, and the emergence and evolution of social institutions, has the appearance of “conspiracy” while really being an organic phenomenon. It is, not conincidentally, just like Nature itself: The product of ecological evolution has the appearance of being “Intentionally Designed,” while in fact being an organic phenomenon.

              2. despite the fact that ordinary americans were much more willing and able to consider subtle political debate a century-plus ago than they are now, those same ordinary americans never-the-less advocated some extremely dumb positions (the inflationary policies of “free silver” and “the greenback  party” being chief among them: These would have led to an economic catastrophe far exceeding that of the Great Depression!), and the social sciences, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary, have advanced considerably in the meantime (witness the spectacular reduction in the amplitutude of boom and bust cycles, along with the equally spectacular expansion of their longitude, the combined effects evidenced by the avoidance of a major world depression for the past 70 years -an unprecedented record, and one due largely to the implementation of Keynesian economics).

                1. I think having some 80% of the voters being farmers, and many of the rest working in the “natural resource” industries, gives a different perspective, too. 

                  Paul Krugman did a long, very analytical look at Friedman’s economic philosophies vs. Keynes not long after the former’s death.  As might be expected, he sees some “successes”, some failures, and mostly, hard to pinpoint.

                  1. post WWII economic prosperity in Europe and America under a regime of Keynesian economics is pretty compelling. Granted, it is impossible to isolate the effects of Keynesian policies v. the effects of the millions of other variables in play at the same time, so the historical record is completely inconclusive. But there is more than a possibly incidental correlation to argue the point: The pattern of economic growth appears, upon close inspection, to owe a lot to strategic government spending, as Keynes predicted. Even the effects of war spending itself, while not an intentional Keynesian economic policy, supports the thesis. (It is almost a cliche that WWII, not the New Deal, ended the depression. But, though the evidence is inconclusive, it can certainly be argued that the New Deal was having a significant ameliorative effect before the war broke out. In either case, it was government spending that ended the Great Depression).

                    But, since I haven’t read Krugman’s analysis, I can’t address his take on these issues.

                    (Just to be clear for any and all readers, government spending involves economic liabilities as well as benefits, particularly spending that does not have a possitive rippling effect through the economy, and accumulating debt due to spending creates the most dangerous liabilities of all).

                    4. My lack of macroeconomic expertise hit a somewhat embarrassing stumbling block. Maybe you (or another reader) can help me out here:

                      Is a government spending its way out of a depression identical to increasing the monetary supply? In other words, what is the precise mechanism for increasing the monetary supply? (I used to know the answer to that, but just don’t remember now). If the two are seperate, and my understanding of Keynesian economics to include government spending as a means of stimulating the economy is correct, then we (the article and I) are talking about two different aspects of Keynesian economic policy.

                    5. …sort of like reading A Brief History of Time…

                      While I poking around for that story, I found a page that said economics should be called a theology. It has it’s dogma’s, adherents, rituals, and nothing is provable.

                      Not bad.

                    6. and, since it is focused on underlying dynamics, or process, rather than on generalizations, I think it is as much a science, and very much the same kind of science, as the Life Sciences (as I’ve said elsewhere, the underlying dynamics of human history and human social systems are mathematically almost identical to the underlying dynamics of natural history and ecosystems).

                      I don’t equate macroeconomics with theology either, simply because the former is an basically a collection of empirical generalizations: It is less (rather than more) theoretical than most sciences. In fact, it is largely just refined description (i.e., if people spend more, they save less…). As you collect more and more such descriptions, including statistical correlations, it begins to take on the appearance of a science. But since it has little explanatory power (just as describing a turbulent sea does little to explain the dynamics of turbulence), it is compared to theology.

                      There is a big difference between accepting postulations about the unseen on the basis of faith, and accumulating a bunch of observations and statistical correlations and using them to create imperfect models of how the variables interact.

                      Your quote, of course, can and has been applied to Science in general, with some justification. Theology and science are not polar opposites: They are both cosmological models based, in varying degrees and in varying ways, on accumulated experience and on the inferences drawn from that experience. Science simply includes a set of techniques for reducing the amount of “noise” that enters into that process, and thus increases the degree of correspondance between the cognitive models and the external reality they purport to represent.

                    8. “The Queen of Sciences,” but I would assert that they are qualitatively different entities: One belongs to the “Blind Faith is Good/Doubt is Bad” tradition, and the other belongs to the “Doubt is Good/Blind Faith is Bad” tradition. Of course, neither tradition is purely what it purports to be. But the guiding principles of each have a very significant effect on the form of the models produced.

                      The main reason economics has so relatively little predictive power is that it is comprised predominantly of non-linear, “chaotic” (i.e., “complex dynamical systems”) phenomena. As I’ve argued on other threads with you, such phenomena (which include social phenomena in general) do not yield well to two-or-three variable analyses that claim to describe accurately the umpteen-million-self-reiterating-variable reality from which they are extracted. But, just as in the Life Sciences, the lack of predictive power does not mean that there is a corresponding inability to discern the often astoundingly simple underlying dynamics that generates that prediction-resistant complexity (nor does it mean that no useful guides to human involvement in these complex systems are generated).

                      The theory of evolution, for instance, is very simple, very elegant, a very powerful insight into how the process works, and completely useless for predicting where evolution will take any species or ecosystem in the future, near or far. Similarly, mathematical graphs of complexity (fractals), that look like psychedelic visions reiterating with seemingly endless variation on smaller and smaller scales, are generated by very short and simple mathematical functions.

                      Admittedly, microeconomics, more than macroeconomics, is about discerning that logical simplicity generating the empirical complexity. Macroeconomics is more about observing statistical and “econometric” correlations and trying to use them to generate models of how variables affect one another. Macroeconomics takes a much more broad-brushstroke look inside the “black box” of how those interactions occur. But neither really resembles theology. The nature of the underlying assumptions from which both (economics and theology) begin, the process by which postulates are generated and tested, and the ends to which they are directed, place them in two completely different epistemological camps. Economics is definately a modern science (though not a predictively powerful one), while theology is not. It’s that simple.

                      It’s like comparing Bush to Hitler: A polemically appealing, but historically empty, package. (The only real similarity between Bush and Hitler is that both are/were leaders projecting Western/Aryan domination, which means just about any two western leaders are as similar. The only real similarity between theology and economics is that neither has much predictive power, which is par for the course in sciences that deal with “chaotic” phenomena; and that there is no single absolutely dominant paradigm in economics, which is periodically true of even highly developed sciences. The recent war in Physics between String Theorists and those who adamantly deny the legitimacy of String Theory is one example).

                      As for suggesting a similarity between theology and economics because they shared a moniker (“Queen of the Sciences”), that’s like suggesting that George and Denzel are similar people because they’ve both been called “Mr. Washington.”

                    9. Fiscal policy (government spending) is seperate from monetary policy (federal reserve).

                      The FED has many tools for changing the money supply, but they mostly revolve around manipulating the short term price of money (fedfunds rate).  Howver the main dseterminant in the money supply is the velocity of money.  The velocity of money is the average frequency with which a unit of money is spent. Friedman felt it was stable, but as banks and non bank financing sources became more sophisticated velocity became less stable.  In good times too much credit is created (high credit-high velocity), leading either to asset inflation or price inflation.  In bad times the opposite occurs.  This is why he later abandonded monetarism (stable money supply).

                      If a recession is particularly bad monetary policy breaks down.  A liquidity trap occurs when the economy is stagnant, the nominal interest rate is close or equal to zero, and the monetary authority is unable to stimulate the economy with traditional monetary policy tools. In this kind of situation, people do not expect high returns on physical or financial investments, so they keep assets in short-term cash bank accounts or hoards rather than making long-term investments. This makes the recession even more severe.

                      Even Friedman advocated Keynseian fiscal stimulus in this situation.

                      If you want to know how the Fed Funds rate actually works I can explain that too. But that is a little bit short term trader inside baseball.

                    10. That’s what I thought (that fiscal policy and monetary policy were separate entities), and, in fact, I had first written an (unposted) response on that assumption, but when I realized that I didn’t know exactly how the monetary supply was increased, decided not to go out on a limb (better to ‘fess up from the get go, then to risk talking out your ass!).

                      The reason why I wondered if government spending might be considered an increase in the money supply is because, it seems to me, that by stimulating the economy, it increases the velocity of spending. If you don’t mind continuing the tutorial, do economists identify any relationship between these two concepts (the fiscal policy of government spending to stimulate the economy, and the monetary policy of increasing the money supply), and, if so, what is it?

                      Sounds like you’ve had a bit of economics, Danny. Care to share a bit about your background?

                    11. I’m trying to do this from memory and it is a bit of a 3 sided doctinal dispute.

                      Actually loose fiscal policy (taxcuts or spending) has a counter action to loose money (low fed funds).  Loose money “should” force rates up decreasing velocity.  Two things have weakened this relationship over the last 20 years; foriegn funds and confidence in the central bank.  foriegn funds suppress rates through a couple of mechanisms (I wont’t go into that).  Confidence suppresses rates because long rates are bootstrapped aggregations of short rates plus expectations.

                      Though fical stimulus does influence velocity, the impact actually reverses over the medium term.  Velocity is more influenced by the price of money (interest rate) since bank lendng and corporate spending are generally based on some version of ROIC (return on invested capital) exceeding cost of funds (interest rates).

                      But the truth is, nobody agrees on much.

                      My background: I was getting my PhD in Econ until certis paribas and the lack of applicabilty drove me nuts.  I eventually went to work trading Repo, time deposits and other short debt.  Best job ever.  Then I got promoted to analyst focused on international banking, special purpose entities and public sector finance.  I was particularly interested in risk management and regulation.  That evolved into managing fixed income portfolios.  After 9/11 I decided to do something different and got a law degree.  Then I had a baby and now I’m looking for a job.

                    12. And I like the combination of having studied both economics and law: It seems likely that your job search will land you something both interesting and lucrative before long.

  7. Ronald Reagan was considered far too conservative to win.

    Because he had the courage of his convictions he won big.

    Same with George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and whomever the Republicans nominate in 2008. Clinton had the guts to stand up for civil rights and to talk about ending the scourge of poverty. His courage was rewarded with two terms.

    If, Democrats keep nominating gutless wonders they will continue to lose. The American people are opposed to the war and our candidates want to hide from that issue.

    1. That’s an excellent point.  It can also summarized as “strong and wrong beats weak and right.”  (Although I’d argue we’ve got “strong and right” here, with popular support to boot.)

      President Kerry would not have us “surging” in Iraq right now, for example, but he didn’t communicate simply or with conviction, so he lost.  Democrats do that a lot.

    2. Newsflash: Democrats, along with 70% of the nation oppose this war. Republicans are blocking any action to change the course, and are hiding from every important issue on the table.

  8. I hate how it has weakened us.  I hate how it has divided us.  I hate how it has cheapened us.

    Some people have paid more than others, some have yet to get their bill. 

    Truth is between replacing equipment, TBI, and PTSD we will be paying for a long time.

    We can not win in Iraq, but we can not pull all troops out of Iraq or things will get worse for us and Iraqis.

    Bush and the GOP fear machine has served us a Faustian sandwich.

    There are plenty of people who want all troops out of Iraq as fast as possible.

    Some would be happy if we had cats hanging off the skids of choppers as lines of people begged to come with us.  I’m just old enough to remember the fall of Saigon.

    Others take a more measured approach.

    The reality is we have strategic interests in Iraq and they will not be served by pulling all troops out and hoping for the best.

    At the same time the military, in partiular the guard and reserve, can not support the pace and intensity of operations in Iraq. 

    Only a middle way serves our interests.  I will avoid armchair quarterbacking force structure, but more limited goals, means more limited troops.

    It is too late for the ISG in whole, but parts still have merit and it is better than the path we are currently on.

    1. I hear this a lot:  we can’t leave or things will get worse.  What I don’t hear is how any other alternative is going to be better.  How do you see this working?  What will the diminished troop presence accomplish?  What bad things will they prevent?  Please be specific.

      1. Turkey is poised to invade northern Iraq to clean out PKK terror camps. A us presence in Iraq prevents that.  The US needs to drive diplomacy between the parties, but we have to have a credible presence in Iraq (kurdistan is fine).

        I have posted elsewhere the bones of a paper I started developing because I was so conflicted that has others goals. I need to get that paper done and post it so I don’t keep repeating myself.

        Unfortunately I don’t think a limited presence will be better than now, I just think we can maintain the operational pace better.  I do know things will be worse for our interests and the Iraqis if we leave.
         

  9. I see what this post is aiming at, and I have a lot of sympathy, but there is a fallacy at the heart of it.  The fallacy is this:  If group A wants to pull out all of the troops and group B wants to keep all of the troops in Iraq, the right answer must be to keep half of the troops in Iraq.

    This is seductive, because often the right answer is between the two extremes.  But sometimes – and I submit it is the case here – the compromise is wore than either extreme.  Take my example above.  Leaving half (or anywhere near there) of the troops in Iraq is worse than removing them all *or* leaving them all.  Half of the troops will be much less capable of stopping any aggression or atrocities, but will be held responsible because they are there.

    So when you take the attitude that people who don’t want to compromise must be stubborn and wrong, you are missing something.  People like me don’t reject the idea of leaving half of the troops in Iraq because we are stubborn or irrational or hate Bush.  We take this position because it is a terrible idea!

    Now, regarding pulling out all of the troops “now”.  There is no “now” – it takes months to move that kind of troop buildup and longer to do it safely.  The most anyone could press for is to start planning the removal and stop sending more troops.  So this is the extreme position*.  Again I submit that the so-called compromise position is worse than either of the extreme positions.  Leaving the troops there until, say, Iraq is stabilized has the same practical effect as leaving them forever.  But it is even worse, because it makes us look weak and inneffective, raises hopes that won’t be met, and encourages the insurgents in their efforts to try to make us leave.  So again, I take the position that we need to begin the process of leavig now, not because I am irrationsl, etc., but because it is in my view the best position available.

    * you may find a few commenters on lefty blogs who say remove all the troops now, but I submit you are just “nutpicking” and no serious progressive thinkers suggest any such thing.

    1. my position on troops is based on limiting policy objectives, not out of a sense of Solomanic sense of compromise.

      I started with defining what are actual goals are and built up from there.

      I accept that some people reject violence, I respect pacifists.

      I also respect people who opposed the war from the start, heck I was one of them.

      But the level of venom from people opposed to the war towards anyone who displays any heterodoxy is disturbing, especially since we were on the same side a year ago.

      1. I can see leaving some troops in the Kurdish areas, if they want us.  What other possible objectives can we meet with, say, 50.000 troops?  I see it being like when the UN was so undermanned in Bosnia, and the Serbs kept overruning the “safe” areas and killing everyone.

    2. First being that your solution means going through your “worst case scenario” to make it come true.  To “begin the process of leaving,” you’ll have to come to a point where half of the troops are there – a point you managed to explain rather clearly would be a Bad Idea.  How do you intend to avoid that problem?

      That’s the softball. 

      Beyond that, you beg a big-time question in assuming that letting the troops continue to do their job would be entirely pointless (they’d never get anything done – “the same practical effect as leaving them forever”).  There’s no proof of that, and, indeed, there is mounting evidence of the opposite (namely in Ramadi and Anbar province as a whole, as well as the popular support in Baqubah during Operation Arrowhead Ripper where Iraqi civilians are *very* forthcoming in support to make sure we *don’t* leave their city prematurely). 

      Furthermore, you suggest that the insurgents will redouble their efforts in trying to make us leave so long as we’re committed to staying, thus implying that as soon as we’re committed to retreat, they’ll stop?  The picture on the ground is quite different from that.  Al Qaedists are, in fact, not attacking our *troops* to get us to leave in the first place.  They’re attacking *you and me.*  For them, it’s one big psyop, with the primary victim is the will of the American people.  Indeed, the big-time caches they’ve been rounding up in the Battles of the Belts haven’t been anti-aircraft weapons, or even lots of IEDs.  They’ve been ammonium nitrate and other big-boom household explosives.  This suggests that the strategy is to focus the big, “spectacular” attacks, and rely on a continual flow of Iranian EFPs to harass American counter ops.  The second tactic of the Al Qaedists is bullying the Iraqi people to 1) stop supporting us and 2) stop fighting them.  The second obviously implies that the civilians are banding together to fight the Al Qaedists primarily.  That’s a good thing.  The first is easy enough to defeat – secure the people and prove that they’re safe in supporting us.  That’s the whole strategy behind the Surge – and apparently it’s working.

      Fortunately for us, the only open battleground is one which we are in full control of – our own wills and minds.  We have two options – despair in and capitulate to the spectacular attacks, demanding withdrawl, or renew our will to prevent them, maintain and redouble our support of the Iraqi victims of the attacks, and end the lives of those who carry them out.

      1. Your sig line I mean:

        “The Democratic Party – Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory since 1870”

        Yeah we really hosed up WWII, didn’t we?

        As to the rest of your post – most of it is really disingenuous.  I said that we can’t accomplish anything with half of the troops there.  Demobilizing isn’t intended to accomplish anything, other than demobilising.  No contradiction.

        And Al Qaedists are attacking “you and me” to get us to leave Iraq?  Hello, they were attacking us long before we ever showed up there.  Remember 9-11?  Iraq was a big distraction from fighting Al Qaeda.

        This surge is doing what all of the other surges have done (and there have been several).  The insurgents leave the area where we build up and come back after we’ve left.  I understand that you are really, really sure that you are going to find the pony in there any day now.  Most Americans now realize it’s just more manure.

        1. First, “Demobilizing,” by any understanding of warfare, has to accomplish something more – every retreat needs a rearguard.  You yourself admitted the rearguard with half-power would be a suicide mission.  I can’t see how you think that’s a good idea.

          Second, Zawahiri continues to call his troops to battle in Iraq.  Are you saying they’re “distracted,” too?  Or do you think that a military defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq followed by a free, mixed, and modern government in the heart of the Middle East would make things *better* for them?  The fact that you ignore is that they’re there, and that fighting them in Iraq is, by definition, not being “distracted” from, uh, fighting them.

          Third, that’s the point of the Surge – clear and *hold.*  The stories Michael Yon tell about Arrowhead Ripper in Baqubah emphasize the civilian support of our operations, warning our troops about dozens upon dozens of booby-trapped houses.  You see, they want to make sure that we *don’t* leave, and they’re sticking their necks out because this time, we won’t.  Further, the tribes themselves are taking it up on their own to fight AQIZ, which, in concert with our “hold” tactic and the surge itself acts as a force multiplier, increasing our ability to keep out AQIZ.

          Fourth, very good.  You remember the one time the Democratic Party hasn’t lost a war that had been won.  Now remember all  the wars they lost.

          1. What amazes me is how far republicans will stoop to defend war, but will do nothing to defend this country, our constitution and our rights.

            What you are forgetting is why Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism If you want to discuss “reargaurd” why are you leaving the fact out that we, our military, is currently arming almost all 15 sides of those divided in Iraq enflaming anti-american sentiment even more.

            Almost 2 million Iraqi’s have fled the country and are now living in refuge camps. I don’t call that winning.

            As for the “Surge – clear and hold” being a new strategy, sorry to inform you but it’s not. It’s more of the same stay the course strategy to leave this debacle to the next administraiton (aka the Gotcha strategy). The Bush administration and his lemmings in the Republican party haven’t listened to the Generals or the American people.

            Sloganeering isn’t going to the win war Yokel.

          2. You just blew your credibilitiy.  Korea? The North invaded the South and Democratic president Truman got  UN support and drove the North back across the 38th parallel. That is a defeat? Republican President IKE negotiated the ceasefire, if you don’t like the terms.

              Vietnam? Republican presidents from 1968 until 1975…..remember, the President is the “decider,” the commander-in-chief….again…just how long were you in Iraq?  I seem to remember it was just this Spring you were sitting around waiting to be deployed and you are back, already? I don’t understand.

            Clinton and Wesley Clark did okay in the Balkens.  Just what kind of crap are they feeding you in the military…

      2. The surge is not working, if your goal is long term stability or serving US interests.  We are having success against Al Qaeda influenced Jihadists, but that is a fairly limited policy objective.  This is one place I agree with the out at all cost crowd:  If we left Al Qaeda would be gone in 6 months.  Of course the OAC crowd neglet to mention it will be because of genocide.

        Strange side note.  I had a professor who was a former CIA analyst.  He was a young geeky guy and a bit tone deaf to acedemia. Typical of a liberal poly sci program some one asked him what was the best way to ensure peace.  He joked “Genocide” then he laughed.  CIA jokes don’t go over well with naive college students.  I thought it was funny though.

        Back to the point.  Why the surge is not working.

        We can not maintain the operational pace we are currently on.  So eventually we must stop or slow or operations. Then what happens?  Without a long term plan, short term “success” is meaningless.  The is no point of “surging” if the Iraqis can’t backfill.  What happens if we “give it a chance to work”? If by that the GOP means we continue operations at this pace until the Iraqis are able to backfill, our ground forces, particularly guard and reserves, will be destroyed through attrition.

        The erosion of our striking power has deep strategic implications.  The GOP’s prideful, almost plaintif, “it has to work, it has to”, neglects that there is an opportunity cost to disapating our force in Iraq (note what is happening with a resurgent taliban). 

        I’m not sure what to do, but I know that the first rule when you are in a hole is–stop digging.

        1. From Above:
          “We are having success against Al Qaeda influenced Jihadists, but that is a fairly limited policy objective.”
          From Below:
          “we need to establish more limited objetives in Iraq.”

          Which is it?  Limited objectives?  Or Limited objectives?

          Seriously, your assessment that Al Qaeda would just melt away in our absence, well, I’ll pose this question:  Did Al Qaeda in Afghanistan just melt away in the absence of the Soviets?  Did Al Qaeda in Somalia just melt away in our absence? 

          Al Qaeda thrives on failed states.  To prove that won’t happen in Iraq, you’ll have to prove that it won’t become a failed state after we leave. 

          As for your worries that the Surge isn’t working because, umm…  because you don’t think the Army can handle being at war, well, I’ve dealt with that previously in this thread – The tribes and Iraqi security forces are already beginning to fill in that duty, and, by virtue of the strategy, that capability will continue to grow as we continue to prove that we’re staying for the duration.

          Now, all we have to do is actually stay for the duration.

          Heh.

          1. Just to clarify I do not believe in a full pullout. We need a smaller presence so that the operational pace is not eroding our warfighting capability.

            I agree that al qaeda thrives in failed states, but Iraq is already a failed state.  If we pullback I suspect it will become a Shia police state (not good, but not a haven for al qaeda.

            1. al qaeda never fought the soviets.  It was the Taliban, Shah Masood, gul hekmatyar, some others and finally Dostam.  Al Qaeda was a logistics operation run out of Pakistan.

            2. Afghanistan differs from Iraq.  In Taliban controlled areas and Pakistan waziristan Al Qaeda has the support of the local population and no one is interested in rooting them out. In Iraq Shia militias and government troops will root them out once we are out of the picture. We beat Al Qaeda, but failed to beat the Taliban, that is why Al Qaeda’s back.

            3. I’ll give you Somalia.  when are you deploying?

            As for your worries that the Surge isn’t working because, umm…  because you don’t think the Army can handle being at war. 

            Ummm…. no. I’ve said before that my issue is with the Iraqi forces and political commitment.  You are the first person I heard say that they trust the Iraqi’s to watch their back.

            1. You seem to assume that Iran won’t stand to have Al Qaeda cells growing and training in Iraq.

              This is the same Iran that invented proxy warfare by way of Hizb’Allah. 

              I frankly don’t think the Iranians are all that interested in rooting out the Al Qaedists should we leave a failed state in our wake.  Indeed, I think they’re likely to support them, like, well, like they’re doing now.  That would be doubly bad juju – I hope we can agree on that.

              The only option we’re left with is a surviving, free Iraq with a culture willing to root out Islamist influence.  I don’t disagree that it’s a long shot – but I haven’t heard any other solution that’s acceptable on shorter odds. 

              Fun Fun.

              2. You are immune to reason and there for all I can say is.

                Thank you for your service, and I pray for your safe return on your next deployment.

                1. Zawahiri sure doesn’t mind Iranian influence.
                  Al-Zawahiri’s message also attacked Pakistan’s President Musharraf and praised a terror attack on Spanish peacekeepers in Lebanon: “Those who conspire against jihad and the Mujahideen in Lebanon through American weapons, Zionist corruption, and Saudi money must start to dig their graves with their own hands.”

                  Ah… Aren’t we told that Sunni al-Qaeda and Shias backed by Iran don’t get on?

                  Don’t be so quick to believe the lines in the sand are so solid, particularly regarding Jihad – they’ll have enough time to decide who the infidels are after the rest of us are all dhimma or dead.

                  And here’s Senator Lieberman on Iran in Iraq.

                  But I suppose the man who would be Vice President is too Right-Wing for folks around here.

                    1. Linking the *Primary Source* of Zawahiri’s tape.  The point is not the source, but The Source – Zawahiri himself lauds the *Shia* movements in Lebanon.

                      Which is something different than a blog linking a reporter spouting his own interpretation of events.  (See Below)

                  2. is here. He’s shown himself to be an uninformed fool who has just one goal: support the president no matter the facts.

                    I predict he will go R during the week of the D convention here next year. That’ll get him some high profile interviews…

              3. There is ZERO chance of that. OBL hates Iran almost as much as he hates us. Iran IS helping a number of Shia’s and even some Sunni’s. As it is, do you think that Iran will help out somebody who is blowing up their holy places? Worse, if AQ were to win Iraq, then they would focus on winning Pakistan. From there, Iran is surrounded by AQ. So, do u think that AQ will go into S.A or will they go into Iran? They will attack Iran. Why? Because few countries will come to their aid. But a LARGE number of countries will help S.A. against AQ.

      3. No despair here….just get the fuck out.  Now, soon, scheduled, whatever. 

        Millions of Americans like myself knew that this invasion and occupation was a big mistake when it took place.  Millions of Americans want to get the fuck out now, soon, whatever.

        We were right.  “You” were wrong.  Now we are supposed to keep throwing money and blodd down that Bush dug rat hole.  You can talk until you are blue in the face, throw “facts”, but the bottom line is that if anything has changed since March 2003, it is that everything is worse.

        As I go into my alleged Golden Years, all I see is a cutting back of services that I’ve been paying into for a life time, an indebtedness that my children and grandchildren will be paying for, a disrespect for America never seen before in world history, and a BILLION fucking dollars a day wasted.  It makes me literally sick to my stomach.

        You and Bush and your ilk need to sign up for a 12 step program, Idiots Anonymous. I know that in real IQ you are not an idiot, but your conclusions in the face of all reality leave me no other conclusion possible.

        1. I’m sick and tired of waking up every fucking morning of my all too short life knowing our childrens childrens futures are being gambled away for Bush/Cheney crony profits bought with our tax dollars! Impeach, NOW!

        2. And I have no tolerance for the idiots who continue to try to find an end to justify the means, and something to make the “What-Me-Worry?” Prez come out looking okay (no matter how many deaths, injuries,refugees and billions of dollars it takes to get there).  It just ain’t gonna work.  And endless dialogue about military strategy is just a smokescreen – there is no military solution to the mess the Administration has created in the Mideast. 

          1. What IS your solution to preventing a failed state in the heart of the Middle East with the creator of radical Islamism on one border and of proxy warfare on the other?  Because that’s exactly what the cost of “No Solution” is.

            1. There is no other alternative.  It’s violence loving fools that have often said, “Just shoot everyone, let God/Allah? sort them out.”  Maybe it’s time.  We broke it and have not way to fix it. 

              Bush and his dick suckers took a perfectly functioning nation and ruined it.  Yes, it had a nasty dictator, but it also had clean water, electricity, and stability.

              There is not enough glue in the world to put Humpty back together again….nor dollars.

              So, should we just continue down this path for the next 20 years?  Where is the money to come from?  Certainly not the rich.  Where are the tools, I mean soldiers to come from?  Certainly not the rich.

              When will we ever learn?  Some of us do, others obviously don’t.

            2. “Both Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, have repeatedly said that there is no military solution to Iraq and that the sectarian strife and the insurgency can be resolved only by the Iraqi government.”

              http://www.washingto…

  10. The goal of the Bush Administration and many in Congress was never to win the war in Iraq but to perpetuate it.  They’re looking forward to another 18 months at $2 billion-per being siphoned off by their leeches.

    Mission accomplished.

    The rest of us, however, are faced with the impossible task of unifying a multiple sectarian population that apparently was only being held together by a brutal dictator. 

    Good luck and I wish you well! 

    The Iraqi troops aren’t motivated unilaterally and never will be because they too are comprised of various sects, insurgents, and beliefs.  Our presence in Iraq therefore only serves to delay an inevitable civil war. 

    Oh and if you want to secure Iraqi oil, why don’t you place it under U.N. control and security with proceeds to be shared with the surviving Iraqi population.

    1. Current estimates place the combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars at $3 billion per week.  We think 80% of that is for Iraq, which is substantially more than the $2 billion / month you imply.

      Either way, there are better things our tax money could go towards.

        1. Not my intention at all.  🙂  We all need to be looking for the positive…somehow…in this messed-up world, but sometimes that’s Hard Work.

    2. “The Iraqi troops aren’t motivated unilaterally and never will be because they too are comprised of various sects, insurgents, and beliefs.”

      Dead wrong.  In fact, Iraq is a deeply nationalist country (or what passes for it in the Arab world), and the most experienced Iraqi units are *completely* mixed, and, indeed, they’re indistinguishable from some of our own special ops units.

      Of course, beyond being dead wrong, your statement is racist.  So there’s that.

      1. Actually that portion of my comment was plagiarized from an Iraq report on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 which aired last night. Did you see it?  Such hostility and no I’m not a racist, but I am a realist.

        1. I’ve been a glorified taxi driver for said Iraqi units for a few years now, and I’ve seen their skill and professionalism first hand.

          Anderson Cooper can read news from a teleprompter.

          You make the call.

      2. Some Iraqi units are indistinguishable from our own special ops units?

        Was that a typo? did you mean special ed units?

        If it was what you meant, were you attempting to insult america’s most elite warfighters?

        Even my friends in marine force recon would hesitate before mouthing off to seals.

        1. Some of those dudes are certified badasses.  Almost 4 years of American training, American nutrition, and American support, along with being one of the most combat-experienced units in history, will tend to do that.

          But you can denigrate our brave allies and the mentally challenged as long as you want.  It helps you look *so* much better.

          1. So you are not talking about regular army within a division, brigade or other large unit structure.

            Battalion?
            Company?
            platoon?
            squad?
            one cool Iraqi Superhero?

            The Pentagon estimates that at least one-third of the Iraqi Army is on leave at any one time; desertion and other problems bring the total to over half in some units. Of the 11,000 Iraqi soldiers assigned to the recent U.S.-led offensive in Baquba in June, only 1,500 showed up. Infiltration by sectarian militias into the Interior Ministry has been identified as a severe problem. Many Iraqi security forces have been implicated in sectarian violence, most notably the National Police and certain elements of the Iraqi Army. Allegations have emerged during the Baquba offensive that Sunni and Shiite soldiers cooperated with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, respectively. Some have even tried to kill American troops.

            Those aren’t my allies.

            I think it is insulting to compare the quality of our troops to that.

            1. CNN also did an interesting story about what the money being wasted in Iraq could pay for – you know, schools, hospitals, Medicaid benefits, things that would actually do us and our children some good.

              So spare me the platitudes about how this is all worth it. We have a narcissistic psychopath and his Igor who invaded a country that was no threat to us, plunged us ass-deep in debt for generations to come, created absolute chaos in the middle east, flushed our moral authority down the Abu Gharib toilet, and bred a hatred of the United States that will take several decades to overcome.

              To paraphrase Bill Maher, these idiots couldn’t have done any worse if they were on the other side.

            2. Got a source?

              Here’s the commander’s take on your accusations.

              Hunzeker said that one of the challenges the Iraqi Police faced was a reputation of being “hopelessly corrupt,” “ineffective and won’t fight to protect the Iraqis,” and “hopelessly sectarian and brutal.”

              Four months into my command, I’ve come to realize that these warnings were more of an overstatement than reality, said Hunzeker.  “There are still challenges to overcome in training and equipping the Iraqi Police, who are courageous, and well-trained and committed to defending Iraq’s citizens.”

              1. ….we have Iraqi soldiers planting IED’s.  Sorry I can’t link you to that, but it was a piece by a soldier who said that he knew we could not win when his crew found the above going on.

                Come on dude, the straws you are grasping, if true, are inconsequential in the big picture.  “Look, the stern is still above water!” said the moron on the Titantic.

              2. http://www.columbiat…

                here is one version.

                I haven’t made any acqusations

                Man I wondered whatever happened to Bagdad Bob. Glad to see he’s working for the US of A

                2 aof my favorite quotes

                “Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honor and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts.”

                “Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us.”

  11. The Center for American Progress has produced an analysis of the ISG recommendations in the light of current conditions in Iraq.

    They note 5 major shortfalls, most of which I’ve covered above.  The first is that Iraqi troops are regularly failing to act in situations where they are needed.  The second is that the government is dysfunctional.  The rest are points indicating a lack of understanding of local and regional issues (or of the first two points).

    1. I’m not sure what the Center for American Progress’ game is, but this memo is very different from their opinion of the Iraq Study Group last December. You know, back when Bush opposed it. Like this blog where they praise the ISG and compare it to their own strategy for phased withdrawal.

      http://thinkprogress…

      I read their support for the ISG in December and believed it. Now I’m supposed to switch on a dime to that’s a bunch of bull–oh, excuse me, “events have overtaken the ISG”–just because some Republicans are taking a second look at it?

      This is rotten, Podesta. It looks alot like they’re flip-flopping out of political expediency. I agree with the Pols, let Republicans help if they see the light, we need them to get to two thirds and stop Bush, and there is no excuse for turning this into a partisan pissing match where no Republican can do anything right. I say that as one of the most partisan anti-war Democrats out there.

      2. Sorry – they’re right.  Events have overtaken the ISG proposal.

        The Iraqi police have largely proven they’re unwilling to get involved when they’re really needed; they’ve occasionally proven willing to let insurgents waltz past them so they could blow up U.S. forces; they also seem to be okay with taking what they’ve learned and occasionally moonlighting as insurgents themselves.

        The Iraqi government – what’s left of it – is in a bind because they’re still Bush’s butt buddies trying to ram the Oil For Greedy Corporations bill through a righteously recalcitrant Parliament; they can’t seem to come to an agreement that will keep the various factions actually happy, and they’re talking about dissolving the current PM’s government and calling a do-over during a time of rising tensions.  The only bright side is that some of the factions on both the Shi’a and Sunni sides seem to be talking occasionally.

        The ISG proposal was criticized at the time it was issued as being less than 100% up-to-date.  It is now much less than that.

        Still, since I’ve used up most of my negativity for the day, I will admit that talking to Republicans about *some* kind of substantive proposal is better than nothing.  Unfortunately, it seems that most Republicans are still more interested in playing at Operation Protect Presidential Posterior than in actually caring for our troops.

        1. we need to establish more limited objetives in Iraq.

          Speaking of objectives

          The new GOP objective Operation Get Reelected. 

          We need to make decisions about Iraqi policies based on our foriegn policy objectives.  It sucks if that means we give cover to craven GOP members, but we can not make policy just for political purposes, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.  Many Democrats were afraid to challenge the president for fear of political fallout and made an important policy decision based on political calculation.  Let’s not make that mistake again.

          Funny thing, they may be loons, but at least Droopy Dog and ol’ Kamikaze McCain believes in what they’re doing. 

  12. Now that Cindy Sheehan will no longer be allowed to post at the Daily Kos site due to her threat to run against Nancy Pelosi as an independent, will David Sirota post a rant against Kos turning into a Republican shill?  It seems to be the pattern, anyway.

    1. “Crashing The Gate”?  You’ll note it isn’t titled “Going In Through A Different Gate”; Daily Kos, for better or for worse, is a blog about moving the Democratic Party forward – not about leaving the party to fight against it.

      What more is there to say?  It doesn’t deserve a rant, much less the thousands of words that have already been posted elsewhere…

        1. Then maybe that’s where she needs to go.  I don’t have problems with blogs setting rules.

          I’m also not saying I disagree with Cindy in principle, either.  Given the district, though, she should probably run in the Dem primary instead; running as an unaffiliated candidate in the general would be suicide.

          1. Sheenan is a saint. She is a grieving mother and one focus: no more kids die.
            She has not wavered from her goal.  She has explored avenues and disgarded them, when they did not further her goal. 

            1. One, for those of us of a Catholic persuasion, Sainthood generally takes a little more than the…well…nothing Sheehan has actually accomplished.  Yeah she lost a child, but a “saint”…come on…

              Two, you can call her whatever you want, but when someone pursues unrealistic goals and fails at every turn as Sheehan has, that’s not genrally not a positive thing.

              This woman has accomplished nothing more than making progressives look like incoherent nut-jobs.  I’d like the war to end as much as anyone else…but it’s not going to happen by looking like a fool and running (and losing) as an Ind against Nancy Pelosi…

              1. And, while I respect your right to practice your religious persuasion and I would defend your right, trust me, I don’t look to catholics for definitions of what is good and true. Don’t lecture me about sainthood….you people tend to burn your saints before you venerate them. As a matter of fact, if you read your Lives of the Saints, you will find that being called crazy and ridiculed by hierarchies and others obsessed with power is pretty much a prereq for sainthood…

                When St. Cindy Sheehan came out against the war, she was a lonely voice. Now most American agree with her.  Saints are not measured by earthly standards. She continues to pursue what can only be called a vision and to pursue it independent of earthly gain.

                She even looks a little bit like Joan d’ Arc…..

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