Ah, John McCain, such a staunch conservative - NOT. (Didn't you get the memo? He's a maaaaverick!)

Oh, and by the way, you're wrong about Obama. He doesn't support you on this, unless that honest, straight-talking righteous dude has reversed himself yet again. Well, at least you have ol' finger-to-the-wind McCain to keep you company (for now).


The evidence was presented in my first post which brought up his name here. It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to digest it.


Shouldn't be all that tough for anyone who claims to support the troops.

Anyway, you're still avoiding the point that's most relevant to this topic. Do you have anything to back up this curious notion you're entertaining - in contradiction to every serious analyst who's tackled the subject - that failure in Iraq wouldn't sharply increase the terrorist threat against us? Anything whatsoever?

Isn't it frightening that the ill-advised policies of conservatives like Bush and Cheney have left us in such a dilemma in Iraq that virtually every scenario is likely to end in disaster?

And given their vast failure, why would any patriotic American trust conservatives Bush and Cheney to get us out of the mess in Iraq with a "new" strategy they cooked up?

It is not a “failure” (vast or otherwise) until we allow it to be, as virtually the entire left wing of the Democrat Party supports. All these clowns see is the White House in 08. Nothing else really matters – that is the disaster.

So, if its not a failure, would you rate the war so far as a success? The handling of the war as a success? The increasing Insurgent attacks a success? the degeneration of civil society in Iraq a success?

And just so we are clear (because you KEEP making this assertion no matter how many times you are factually corrected), the Democratic party does not support 'failure', in fact they are tired of failure, ongoing, worsening and continuing failure, resulting in tens of thousands of US casualties and hundreds of billions of US dollars wasted, and want to set a timetable for withdrawal. Furthermore, its not the democrats who want to set a timetable for withdrawal, it is the democrats, and many republicans, and a large majority of the population of the United States, and a majority of the Serving troops in Iraq, and a majority of the Iraqi people.

I gotta ask you Ted, what is the weather like on Fantasy Land? Because I gotta say, back on Earth, in a little remote destination called Reality, it's a little chilly.

Freedom is on the Mar......... RETREAT!!
Analysis: Sunni's on the Attack
Bombers massacre Iraq Shiite pilgrims
8 Shiite pilgrims killed
Bombs kill 9 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

Ted, I want you to read this article below to give you an idea just how out of touch you really are.
Majority in Poll Favor Deadline For Iraq Pullout

Well Barnaby lets remember we are talking here of consequences of pulling out. How many polls taken in WWII or Korea would have had us out of there sooner? But we saw it through. So again I know people are tired of the war and the Dems seem content IMO to let a possible victory go down the drain in hopes it gets them the White House – but will we be back in 2 -3 years with a bigger war? Will our 12 trillion $ economy be trashed by $200/brl. Oil prices?

IMO it is not as simple as “its not going well, we took the poll so lets bail out”.

Yes, we are talking about pullijng out. God forbid we should talk about the status quo or the complete mismanagament and incompetence that led the US to this current horrific losing struggle.

Polls in WWII asking should the US have pulled out? I'm betting somewhere between zero and zero percent. This is not a poll of 'woukld you like to go home' Ted, it is a poll of 'do you believe the US forces should withdraw from iraq. I'm willing to be NONE of the US forces in North Africa, Europe of the Pcific between 1942 and 1945 would have stated the US should withdraw until the battle was well and truly won. yet a majority seem to be saying that here. Why is that? perhaps because in WWII the soldiers wnew what they were fighting for? they were not sent to invade a country on pretexts that turned out to be false. They were also not losing the war, in fact in WWII by this point after US intervention, the war was over and won. They were not facing a ceseless struggle against an enemy that got stronger every week while they were unable to do anything about it except take casualties.

As for Korea, bad example. After 1951, one can suppose some US troops might have suggested a pullout, or at the very least a peace, but then that is because the latter two years of the war were an immobile bloody stalemate that accomplished nothing and killd a LOT of Americans.




Possible victory? What possible victory pray tell? God I am so tired of this wild assertion, propagated by those few remaining (and diminishing) souls who think this war is winnable. What possible victory? the republicans GOT their troop surge! A brilliant idea on the democrats part, by the way, as when it completely fails (as most military analysts predicted it would), the Republicans cannot blame anyone else for its failure but themselves.

There is no possible victory, if there WAS, then why has there been unceasing and escalating loss for the past four years? Where was the possible victory then? Why was it not achieved when the republicans were in complete, 100% control of the government and the war during 4 years?

And because the republican government has served up four years of relentless loss, its now the Democrats fault that the war isn't going to be won? The democrats have done nothing to impede the war effort, the troop surge is going on right now. When it fails, please explain to me HOW it will be the fault of the democrats, and how Pelosi or Ted kennedy robbed you of a 'possible victory'?


Oh, and while you are justifying things, please STOP claiming a withdrawal will lead to $200 barrels of oil and destroy the economy. You keep making that assertion, and yet when asked to justify it SOMEHOW you go strangely quiet.

If you and they truly believe that this effort is a failure, then why bother with a timetable? Why not just pull the troops out now? The only possible answer would be to acknowledge the fact, confirmed by the ISG as well as practically everyone else who's made an objective study of the situation, that U.S. forces are the primary force for stability in Iraq. Some "failure".



Complete falsehood to the point of being a lie. I've demonstrated this point to you before on other threads, and I demonstrated it here on this thread as well. Once again: The Washington Post reported that "most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability." It sure as hell wasn't the Republicans who gave them this impression.



No one's saying you have to trust anyone. Our system of government isn't founded on trust - be it in Bush, Clinton, or even Landru. Their strategy should be evaluated on the basis of its merits. But what's clear is that failure in Iraq would be a tremendous setback for national security. This has been confirmed by the ISG as well as every other serious analyst who's taken a look at the situation. Nor have the Democrats tried to deny it (though they've often tried to cut & run from having to address it at all). Hence, failure in Iraq is simply not an option.

Now now, no blanket ad hominem attacks on leftwingers.

By the way, the resolution supported by the Democrats didn't support invasion of Iraq. It merely gave Bush the option to do so, and boy did he use it unwisely.

To claim that the fiasco in Iraq -- arguably the biggest foreign policy failure in US history for the last generation -- isn't a failure begs so many questions about how you define failure that one hardly knows where to begin.

"The only possible answer" Right. What's that comment you made, something about 'complete falsehood to the point of being a lie'?

Hmmm, are there ANY other possible answers... any at all... hmmm..

Oh wait, what about the answer the ISG gave in the ISG report? maybe the reason they gacve, and laid out in extensive detail ove several pages regarding why there should be a timetable for withdrawal might be 'another' possible answer? There is a timetable to compel the Iraq government into taking responsibility, they will step in where the US leaves. A year is sufficient time, so there can be no excuse of extenal causes should they fail to do so. A small number of training and possibly special forces troops stay on the ground in Iraq to continue assisting the Iraqi government. Its all in the report, perhaps you might consider reading it before dismissing it outright?

Oh, and by the way, as if that was not sufficiently wrong, there is also no connection between your assertions. Yes the war to date is an absolute failure, so what does that have to do with setting up a timetable for withdrawal?




Yes you have made that point before, and I'm willing to admit it as well. What I find laughable is the massive emphasis you place on THIS being why the war is being losing, and the desperation to pin it on the Democrats.

Firstly, its not the democrats who gave this opinion to the Iraq people, its the democrats, and many Republicans, and the majority of the American people. lord knows why I keep having to repeat that.

Secondly, 'leave the country before imposing stability', right, thats the Democrats fault. The war is FOUR YEARS OLD, and will continue for at LEAST another year; the troop surge is going ahead, everything the hawk republicans wanted is happening. So where is this ephemeral 'stability' that is supposed to be being imposed? There have been four years of uninterrupted mucking about and bad planning, and every day of that four years, stability was further away. Now the president got his troops surge, just as he wanted, and when that fails I'm sure the effort will be to blame the democrats, because they impeded the President from 'restoring stability' after five years of trying and being further away now then they ever were before.

To put this in perspective, in LESS time than this the US and the west 'restored stbility' to kaiser's Germany, Hitler's Germany, Korea, and every single war in the history of the US save one. But now, because people are sick and tired of death and expense for NOTHING, its the democrats fault because stability wasn't restored in 4+ years?

Lets go back a bit, how long was this insurgency supposed to last? What was it Rumsfeld said? Not six months? Insurgency in its dying throes? That was YEARS ago!


The wild desperation of those few and diminishing hawkish Republicans to blame this 4-year Fiasco during which they completely controlled every sector of the government and every stage of the war, on the fact that in the last few months the Democrats have been responding to the overwhelming will of the people and ASKING QUESTIONS, is as transparent as it is sad.




You sound like a man who has jumped off a cliff, and is busy telling people: "If I fall, i will die, therfore falling is not an option..."

Failure was made not only AN option, but the ONLY option By Bush jr and his mishandling of this entire crisis and war since day one. I wish failure wasn't an option either, but if you want to know who made failure an option, look to the leader of the country. There were ultra-conservatives saying 'failure is not an option' in Vietnam in 1971 as well, sadly they were not arguing with liberals or democrats, they were arguing with reality, and reality won. Strange, their massive doom-and-gloom predictions of what would happen if the US withdrew never came true either...

Iraq is ALREADY a setback for national security, the NIE and the CIA have both determined that the US is LESS safe due to the invasion of Iraq, lets be clear now: Less safe as a direct result of Bush jr's actions. You keep referring to alkll these studies (every one, you claim) which state pulling out of Iraq would be a 'huge blow to national security'. You will have to forgive me, but could you cite one?

Here, let me help. Here is the ISG report in full. http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_r...roup_report.pdf

Please show me where it says that a PULLOUT would be a setback for national security. In fact (of course) it never says that at all, it says failure in Iraq would be bad for US prestige and security, and then Goes on to show the BEST way to avoid failure is a phased pullout. So, sounds to me like the ISG isn't saying anything like what you keep asserting it says.


In reality, The troops surge is going ahead, 9AGAINST the ISG recommendations) Bush is getting everything he wants, the Democrats have impeded no war effort, no budgetary effort and no military strategy.

What is clear to me is that the Republicans really wish the democrats HAD interfered somehow, that way it would not be absurd to try and blame them for the ongoing failure of the war.

Since there was no operational presence of al Qaida in Iraq under Saddam, this statement is false. Invading Iraq compromised our national security by wasting vast amounts of resources that should have been used to protect our shores. After six long years of GOP misrule, the government still doesn't examine all cargo units at ports of entry (It'll cost Walmart some money, and so the Republican representives in Congress jumped when Walmart balked at the idea, because what's more important, America's security or Walmart's profits?).

Every dollar wasted in Iraq is money not spent where it should be spent -- in securing our ports of entry. It is destabilizing and increases the recruitment of al Qaida terrorists. Staying in Iraq is itself a threat to our national security.

And yes, despite your ad hominem attack upon me, America would be better off to trust me to make a sensible decision in Iraq even if I were in a coma, since you raised the issue, than the conservatives ideologs that got us into this mess. We are talking about ineptitude at a cosmic level.

And what does that have to do the fact that our security would be greatly diminished below what it currently is if we were to fail in our mission there? You haven't rebutted that point at all.


You just got through saying in your first paragraph that it's for political, not budgetary reasons, that we're not properly securing our ports, so the second paragraph does not follow.


And what effect do you think it would have on their recruitment numbers if we were to fail there? It's not like this question hasn't been examined by bipartisan think tanks, and the answer is undisputed.


Chill out. I thought you of all people would have gotten the Star Trek reference contained in your own screenname.



Your explanation involves a critical unspoken assumption. You're assuming that the Iraqi government might just have a slightly tougher time "taking responsibility" over the course of the coming year if we weren't there than if we were. That could only mean that our forces our providing critical levels of security there. Like I said, some "absolute failure".


Well, what I find laughable is your wild imagination about what I said. It really says something about your position when the only way you can defend it is by playing these corny games.

Pay attention this time. These were your exact words: "The democrats have done nothing to impede the war effort". As I showed you, and as you now seem to be admitting, what they've done has not amounted to "nothing", and in fact was hardly insignificant.


This is pure hallucination. Quote where I've "asserted" something about the report that you say is inaccurate.


Which is exactly what I've been saying on this thread. And which no one here, despite all the hullabaloo raised by this thread, can dispute. You seem to be wanting to start a fight over other matters which belong on other threads.

$1 trillion spent in Iraq to install a radical Shi'ite regime (something we could have done for free by not supporting Saddam like Reagn did in the Iran-Iraq war) is $1 trillion NOT spent defending our ports of entry. It's pretty simple.



It costs money to secure our ports of entry. Money wasted in Iraq to build firestations for Shi'ite extremists and mullahs.

Im sorry but your absolutely wrong about the Reagan not supporting Saddam in the Persian Gulf War. In fact, the U.S. was weary of the radical Muslim government of Iran in this war, and because of this supported Iraq with intelligence, economic aid, and even WEAPONS.
It's pretty simple that you need to get your facts straight on your argument before you go and try to disprove one point with false information... reminds me a little of our administration don't you think?

and if you dont believe me see for yourself here

Up to this point, a lot of material that is off topic has been posted. Reagan funding Saddam and that kind of thing isn't on task here. Clearly, the fourth question will not occur.

4. Will we then see the terrorists inside the US?

I would like for someone to post how Iraqi Shiite or Sunni forces desire to take this fight to New York City. I'm not talking about Al-Qaeda factions, they desire to harm us and Iraq has no bearing on that whatsoever.

Yeah, a maverick with a 82 percent lifetime voting record as voting a staunchly conservative line. Then again, maybe a pro-Mitt Romney blog knows more about McCain than The American Conservative Union---NOT.



What about that wild-eyed liberal, Pat Buchanan?

As Condi flies about the Middle East in a security bubble, telling the press he is living on "borrowed time," and Bush tells PBS of his revulsion at the botched hanging of Saddam Hussein, Maliki is showing the same signs of independence he demonstrated when he refused Bush's invitation to dine with him and the King of Jordan. Give me the guns and equipment and go home, he seems to be saying to the White House.

Put me down on Maliki's side. It is he who is taking the real risk here – with his life. It is he who is likely to learn what Kissinger meant when he observed that in this world, while it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, to be a friend is fatal.

Will the surge work? Can it work? Certainly, adding thousands of the toughest cops in America to the LAPD would reduce gang violence in South Central. So, it may work for a time.

Yet in the long run it is hard to see how the surge succeeds. We are four years into this war, and the bloodletting in Baghdad is rising. Our presence has never been more resented. In America, the war has already been lost. Even Bush admits that staying the course means "slow failure." And a rapid withdrawal, as urged by the Baker-Hamilton commission, means "expedited failure."

Even should the surge succeed for a time, it may only push the inevitable into another year.

It is over. What we need to face now are the consequence of the folly of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice in launching this unnecessary and unprovoked war, the folly of the neocon snake oil salesmen who bamboozled the media into believing in this insane crusade to bring democracy to Baghdad in the belly of Bradley fighting vehicles and the folly of the Democratic establishment in handing Bush a blank check for war out of political fear of being called unpatriotic. http://antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=10354

Slow failure versus expedited failure. Seems to be a choice between the hungry tiger and the starving lion. No good options, only bad ones and both that end in failure for the U.S. Guess that's what happens when you pick a fight you can't win but can't afford to lose.

You keep referring to, yet strangely not referencing, these unanimous reports. Oddly enough, the reports I have read, including the ISG report, say no such thing, they in fact say we have no idea what will happen should US forces leave. they also point out that the Shiia are as violent and bloody opponents of Al Qaida as the US is, and will do their best to destroy them. Perhaps its not quite as 'undisputed' as you pretend?




That;s just wiggling. You know full well, even if the Iraq security forces were the best on the planet, an immediate pullout would cause chaos. basic timetables need to be maintained for handover of patrols, intelligence, occupation of new headquarters, transfers of equipment, etc. Pulling out in two weeks would be foolhardy, obviously. Your question 'if pull out in a year, why not pull out now' assumes that those advocating a pullout are idiots, which is obviously not the case. The ISG plan is a sensible compromise solution arrived at by a bipartisan committee which studied the problem in great detail, and was instantly ignored by the president with no justification given.



Blah, blah, blah... having a bad day are we?



Firstly, I already pointed out that your conclusions based on the bit of evidence you provided are fallacious. You claimed 'it certainly wasn't the Republicans who gave them this impression', to which the obvious answer is, really? Are you sure? because it is the current regime which failed to give any measure of security whatsoever to these people, in fact has given them LESS security every year, for four years. You think that abject failure might have something to do with the reluctance to put their hands in US promises of security?

All the Democrats have done is ask why this war has been so badly handled, why the situation continues to deteriorate, and why the US president insists on spending more and more hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives when nothing is being accomplished. In those questions, they are reflecting the will of the large majority of the American people. Are you honestly implying that they should NOT have been asking those questions? That they should let staggering incompetence slide unquestioned or unchallenged?

Are you aware how incredibly weak and circular your assertion is? "The Republican controlled war is going badly BECAUSE after four years of failure the Demnocrats are asking why the Republican controlled war is going badly."



Fair enough. Problem, is after reading that quote, you then STOP reading the ISG report, and go on to use that quote as evidence of your opinion (not bothering to demonstrate any link between the two), which is exactly the opposite of the findings of the ISG report you just quoted from. Would you consider that to be intellectually honest?

What is magic about “a year”? The Dems have now put forward a total of 17 “plans” – which one is best? Most say we should be GONE in a year and you know to do that you would need to start wrapping up operations in 6 months. Imagine WWII and this kind of strategy – give it a year and then let the rest of the “allies” do – we are out of here.

The soldiers fighting the war seem to think pulling out would be a bad idea.


Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 6, 2006; Page A13
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SYKES, Iraq, Nov. 5 -- For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes," Modlin said. "Sectarian violence would be rampant, democracy would cease to exist, and the rule of law would be decimated. It's not 'stay the course,' and it's not 'cut and run' or other political catchphrases. There are people's lives here. There are so many different dynamics that go on here that a simple solution just isn't possible."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6110500770.html





My problem with this is you assume the “Democrats” were somehow not part of the government for the past 4 years. Even the minority has influence. What “plan” that would have “worked” did the Dems propose in those years? The answer is squat until very recently and now it is time limit and RUN.

I do not know if any previous posts have mentioned this, but the USA destablized Iraq, and we have a responsibility to re-stabilize it. It is just as wrong to overthrow the Iraqi govt and leave when things get sticky during rebuilding as any other course of action. As Colin Powell said, "You break it, you bought it." We cannot "un-buy it" by just packing up and coming home and blaming an ineffective Iraqi government for the problems we have now.

Also, this kind of "pick up my toys and come home" behavior is typical of what foreign governments have said about us in the past--we refuse to stick with our commitments. This behavior will make allied foreign governments that much more reluctant to deal with us in the future when we are confronting military intervention.

Like it or not, we have to re-stabilize Iraq, and this likely means some kind of negotiated agreement with Iran and Syria and some kind of continuing presence in the Middle East for the indefinite future.

In the global sense, we can never really come home from the Middle East, anyway, so long as oil is as important as it is and so long as we support Israel.

I agree quick. The area is vital to the US and our economy as well as defense of Israel. Like it or not we are there , in one way or another, for the long term. This area is not “the middle of nowhere” and to think we can just tell the Iraqi government – good luck you own it on 08 is ludicrous.

Both options laid forward on table here aren't the best any American could hope for.
But one is just absurd. The "immediate pull-out" put forward by the left wing is unbelievable, no matter how bad we want to get out of Iraq and pull our troops out of the violence, and yes, I will agree, although the violence in Iraq is escalating rather than subsiding, we have to look past what we may want now and in the near future. The Middle East is comparable to the Baltic "power keg" in Pre- WWI years, it is a very unstable region which may anytime threaten to throw the world into a major conflict, much larger than we are in now. We have to look to the future, to serve not only our interests in the Middle East, but the peoples' there also. The first is the obvious, which is to re-stabilize Iraq, strengthen the fledgling government, and at least lessen the sectarian violence. We have a commitment to fix the biggest problem in Iraq right now which is the latter thing I said: sectarian violence. This accounts for a large portion of the warfare in Iraq right now, and the U.S. troops, while they are fighting anti- U.S. insurgents, are mainly acting as a police force trying to subdue the Shi'ite and Sunni sects from fighting, more caught in the middle than anything. If we cannot stick with what we got ourselves into, and fix the "civil war" in Iraq, we are going to leave the Middle East a "power keg" with the fuse already on fire. We also have a second commitment, which although it is not very apparent now because of the shadow cast over it by the Iraq War, is to keep the Israel state a state. Since its beginning Israel has been constantly threatened by its Arab neighbors, and, if the U.S. simply walked out of the Middle East and left it to its own devices, Israel would very quickly cease to exist. The U.S. provides billions of dollars to Israel in FMF (Foreign Military Financing) and approx. 9 billion in loans for the Israeli economy, and if we stopped supporting Israel, it would be more of a race of Arab nations to who could get to Jerusalem first.
Also, the "balance of power" in the Middle East is gone. Iran and Iraq, arguably the two most powerful nations in the Middle East, provided the weights and made sure no one state became too strong to cause regional or even global conflicts. If we walk out of Iraq, we will leave it a weak government, military, and leave the balance of power, which since our invasion, has leaned heavily towards Iran. We need to fulfill our commitment we made and restore this balance, or else our security and the global security will be highly jeopardized by a radical Shi'ite Iranian government.

You have it a bit backwards. If we wanted to install a radical Shi'ite regime now, all we'd have to do is pull out of Iraq immediately. One would spring up in very short order, with the full backing of Tehran. And as an extra added bonus, we'd get a radical Sunnite regime in Anbar headed up by al-Qa'ida.


It doesn't cost anywhere near that much to secure our ports, or our borders. There's just no political will to do it, Iraq or no Iraq. (though I suppose it could be argued, in a roundabout way, that the increased security threat that would result from the above scenario in Iraq could impel Congress to take action on the ports and the borders, but it might be a little like locking the gate after the horse has left the barn)



Somebody might want to explain that to the members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The concluded on page 28 of their report (PDF) that "A chaotic Iraq could provide a still stronger base of operations for terrorists who seek to act regionally or even globally." They zeroed in further on al-Qa'ida: "Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, has declared Iraq a focus for al Qaeda: they will seek to expel the Americans and then spread 'the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.'"



Then read it a little more closely. See my above reply to nebraska29, and see also in the ISG report the sentence sandwiched in between the two sentences I quoted to him: "Al Qaeda will portray any failure by the United States in Iraq as a significant victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their cause in the region and around the world."

This is what you call "no such thing"?


They also point out (page 11) that Shi'a militias such as al-Sadr's Mahdi Army are "widely believed to engage in regular violence against Sunni Arab civilians." Take a wild guess as to what effect that will have (and is currently having) on AQ's recruitment numbers.

Bonus question: Why do you think AQ's been trying so hard to provoke the Shi'ites?


But, but... the mission is an "absolute failure", so those patrols and such aren't accomplishing anything anyway, right?


Wow, I never expected that you would misrepresent something something somebody said. Oh wait, I forgot...

Anyway, my question was, "If you and they truly believe that this effort is a failure, then why bother with a timetable?"


Nope, and non sequitur. But your response does further illustrate my point.


What was it you were saying about "wiggling"? My question was very specific: Who was giving the Sunnites in Anbar the impression that we wouldn't be hanging around much longer? I'd like to see you try to argue that it was the administration, after so many threads in which you were insisting that the voice of the administration saying that we wouldn't leave anytime soon was the only voice from the U.S. that Iraqis on the ground considered authoritative.


In other words, they're claiming that nothing is being accomplished, so we might as well pack up and leave. And you don't think this has any effect at all on the willingness of Iraqis on the ground to make common cause with us?


You're still being highly unspecific. What opinion have I stated on this thread that is the opposite of the findings contained in the ISG report, and where did I use their words to bolster it? An actual quote from me would be appreciated.



Check your own link. His record in recent years is starting to slip, to 80% last year, to 65% this year. And as my link shows, he clearly avoids "fellow" conservatives like the plague. I mean, of all venues to pick to announce his candidacy for the White House, he picks The Dave Letterman Show? He definitely has the "all things to all people" bug, which is why he's such a darling of the left-wing media.

Oh and by the way, as I predicted, McCain had to eat his "wasted" words, just like Obama.


There isn't a single syllable in that entire excerpt that touches on the subject of what failure in Iraq would mean for our security.


Now those last four words are the most sensible thing you've said this entire exchange.

If the US stays how long do you think the US voter is prepared to accept?

If the US stays what is the ultimate reason for staying?

You are correct the AQ cowards know full well that cannot defeat us and the new Iraqi government in Iraq but just maybe that can “split” the Iraqis so that they are busy killing themselves instead of AQ and those "insurgents". Nice plan that will not work unless we and Iraq allow it to.




There is no failure while we are still there and fighting. For over 200 years we have had to fight and no group of rabble can defeat us unless we give up. To be free we defeated the British, one of the most powerful countries in the world, with men who had no shoes. In WWII we took on half the world, with allies and never looked back. We crushed Germany and the brutal “warrior culture” of Japan.

So we have not been defeated and will not be defeated until and unless we decide to leave the field to the enemy and give up. An act that will not only be a betrayal to the men who died there but a act of retreat that will cost us dearly in the future.

Uh, you misread my post. Reagan did support Saddam, then Bush 2 comes along and spends $1 trillion to get rid of Saddam. The point is, if getting rid of Saddam was a good thing, we could have done it for free by not supporting the madman in the Iran-Iraq war as Reagan and the conservative ideologues did.

There are a couple of things. First, as Toneboy alluded, we cannot continue the fight without the direct democratic support of the population, support which has turned. Second, who exactly are we fighting for in Iraq at this moment? We can say generalities like "peace and stability" and "legitimate government", but when the government itself seems to be irreconcilably corrupt, what then? The weak Shiite-dominated government is becoming as openly partisan as the rest of the country. We place ourselves, in such a case, in the middle of a shooting match much like things were in Lebanon.

The only "peaceful" hopes for Iraq lie in either (as far as I know unprecedented) national reconciliation** or complete military takeover like Syria did in Lebanon(which we can't and won't due to practical and legal reasons). Even the Iraqi army is too fractured to establish a military takeover like Turkey did for a few years...they would dissolve in such an instance too. It's time to be realistic not idealistic.

**Can anyone here with a better knowledge of history than I cite some example (in the last one hundred and fifty or so years) of a similarly fractured country that came together and resolved its differences without resulting in either a very bloody conflict that took its course until all parties were spent (US civil war, Bosnia), a failed state (Somalia), or years of actual military rule (and/or dictatorship) by either an insider of outside force (Turkey, Lebanon)? I can't think of any examples myself.

As the only news that came out of the most recent conservative cattle-call was Ann Coulter upstaging the whole affair with her usual boorish and moronic behavior, McCain was probably smart to skip that particular circle jerk.

Find ANY U.S. Senator with the gravitas and stature of a John McCain that has backed Bush's surge to the degree he has. You'll come up empty. It's almost comical to see the degree it's conservatives like yourself are ripping into one of the staunchest supporters of the U.S. misadventure in Iraq simply because he fails the blindly ideological purity test.



Don't be disingenuous. Merely because you disagree with the sentiments expressed by Pat Buchanan doesn't mean he hasn't addressed the issue. You are willfully downplaying his opinions because they aren't in harmony with your own.

Maliki is showing the same signs of independence he demonstrated when he refused Bush's invitation to dine with him and the King of Jordan. Give me the guns and equipment and go home, he seems to be saying to the White House.

Even should the surge succeed for a time, it may only push the inevitable into another year.

Only a fool fights in a burning house and Iraq is an inferno, neither Bush, Cheney or you seem to have to slightest clue how to get out of alive. So instead you keep pouring more gasoline on the fire thinking it will douse it and wondering why nobody else believes it's working.

You know Ted, I think the disconnect from what we think is a loss versus what you think is winning is the basis of what we disagree on.

I challenge you to find one single shred of evidence that supports any contention that somebody hopes, wishes, or would assist a loss. Anything.

The problem is, you think we're going in the right direction and that is simply and factually NOT TRUE.

The casualties are enormous and climbing. Bagdad still only has power an hour or two a day. All the good doctors there have either left or been killed. The state department can't fill jobs because of the risks associated with that job.

You chastised most of us for not giving Bush's "surge" a chance. We gave it a chance. It didn't work, so he needs several thousand more troops.

There is no effort to win. None. Yet you call this worsening situation in Iraq "winning". According to you then, there could never be a loss. Much like your benchmark of a successful president, the bar is so low for what you call a "win", that anything short of Auschwitz is a victory.

So tell us - what is Bush doing to win in Iraq? I'm not talking about what he's saying, but what he's actually doing.

We already know the cost of failure in Iraq because we're already there. Unfortunately, some of us don't have the common horse sense to recognize the reality on the ground. Your president lost this war. That has already happened. The only thing we are doing now is trying to salvage anything we can with the least amount of American troops getting killed. That is the plan you support.

People keep posting all of these reasons why we must leave--things are going badly, etc.

What none of these people address is (1) the moral obligation to re-stabilize a nation we destabilized, and (2) the fact that so long as oil is our lifeblood, we are never coming home anyway. We've had large military contingents in the area for decades, and even if we reorganize them a bit, we will still be in the Middle East, and we will still be in Iraq. This is really not open to debate.

Most of the Dems are merely engaging in election year(s) patronizing, as none of them have any plan to come home, either, nor could they.

We are there until we restabilize Iraq with at least a semi-friendly govt that can control its own citizenry and fight off Iran, be that for 2 more years or 50 more years, or until we no longer need oil from Iraq/Iran/Saudi/Kuwait, etc., and the area has only middling strategic value.

Actually, what people like you ignore, is the fact that WE are the destabilizing force. It doesn't matter any longer who broke what and who needs to fix what. Simply being associated with us results in death in Iraq. That is a fact. No matter how much you wish it wasn't so, no matter how unfair it seems, that is the reality. The violence will go on with or without us. But as long as we are there not trying to do anything of substance, we are part of the problem- not part of the solution.

There are no good answers thanks to Bush's "stay the course" strategy. It's not up to somebody else to fix this problem. It's up to Bush. Yet he is doing nothing of any substance except trying to pin the loss on the democrats. If he is not going to try to win, we need to remove the most destabilizing factor in Iraq right now - us.

I agree we have a moral obligation to stabilize Iraq. That is however, countered by the nature of our government. Military involvement and the necessary funding requires that the majority of our public supports it through their votes. The public is starting to back out. The public believes Iraq was a mistake. It will support troop involvement for a short time, not the long haul.



Not decades, more like a bit over a decade (unless you count our bases in Turkey). We've had large military contingents in the area since the first Gulf war only. Yet we were able to buy oil before somehow.


The problem is, though we want to see a stable Iraq, and it would certainly be in our interest, most all of this is beyond our control at this point. Iraq is legally autonomous. And it is fractured and breaking up.

Actually Somalia now has an elected government that we just helped in preventing Al Qaeda from taking over. So lets be realistic. If we do what the Dems want and run as fast as possible we are left with a mess and an enemy that can say they “beat us”. If we stay and work to resolve the conflict, even if we have to allow a breakup of the country along sectarian lines, we avoid the chaos that would ensue by doing otherwise.

Unlike Vietnam, running from this conflict as we did then, would IMO have more sever consequences for the US and the west. As they say its not over until ……..




Sooooo the man with the WMD, 29 unfulfilled UN resolutions and shooting at us daily was a “stabilizing” force. You have to be joking. And I suppose Iran has nothing to do with all this???

WMD?? lol

But seriously (one of us has to be), Saddam was far FAR more stablizing then Bush could ever dream of being. Knowing what we know now, I'd say the middle east would be much better off with more Saddam Hussiens- not less.

That doesn't mean I advocate brutal dictators, but if those people can't act civilized, I would take a Saddam over Bush anyday.

Again, Bush has advanced no serious military strategy to keep from losing Iraq. So, he is getting back what he's put into it while figuring out a way to blame someone else. Bush's social experiment has failed. And he is doing very little to change that.

Who's "we"? Bush and a coterie of conservative "strategist" invade Iraq on the false premise that Saddam has WMD and is helping al Qaida -- after using taxpayer dollars to suppress critics of Bush's disinformation campaign.

Bush then spends almost $1 trillion, much of which went to his and Cheney's friends at Haliburton, and much of which went poof! and disappeared, while giving a tax cut to the very same friends at Haliburton.

After it became clear that this utterly baseless invasion had turned into a fiasco and distabilized the region, suddenly Bush and the coterie of conservatives argue that "we" Americans have moral obligation to save Iraq from the catastophic forces Bush and conservative ideologues unleashed there.

Sounds like we have some terminological slippage here. Bush and the conservatives, along with Haliburton, caused this problem. They should fix it, not the American taxpayer and military.

Start with an immediate war tax on the wealthiest Americans (let's see if their "moral" duty extends to actually have to pay something more than lipservice). Then initiate a draft so that the sons of the wealthiest citizens have to fight in Iraq. Let them be the "boots on the ground" not just poor kids from Nebraska.

Then "we" will be doing our moral duty.

Of course that will never happen, because by "we" Bush and the conservatives means everybody but the rich powerful and ideological rightwing citizens who got us into the fiasco in Iraq.

Given that they haven't met their duty, our duty as American citizens is to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible to stop enabling conservatives and their disatrous policies there.

Just a few short weeks ago we were working with the Ethiopian government in military engagements throughout Somalia to combat the Islamic Court System which had taken over virtually the entire country. I'm not sure any real substantial success can be claimed after only literally less than a month's timeframe. Even if so (and that's a big if) Somalia has been a failed state for years and years, with massive violence. Hardly a success story or something we'd like Iraq it emulate.



That would be the "we" citizens who elected the officials who voted overwhelmingly for intervention into Iraq in the first place.

And all that intel from the UN and statements by all your Dem buddies when it was BILL who attacked means nothing apparently to you rambling attack on everything right of Jessie Jackson in America.

What has this to do with the consequences of just leaving? Sure in 1998 as in 29002 Iraq was just a model government and world citizen and how dare we expect them to live up to Resolutions just because we wanted it. The nerve of us – and by US I don’t mean just the “right”.




Does your “moral duty” say anything about getting Iraq to live up to Resolutions we had men die for in GWI ?

Did you not read my whole entire previous post on why we can't immediately pull out of Iraq? I'll sum it up for you: it's not an option. We can't just walk out of Iraq and leave like nothing ever happened and like its just a simple mistake in a computer strategy game. We're talking about a real country here with millions of people living in it. I'm sorry to say but you're just out of touch with the true reality of our situation here. Pulling out immediately CANNOT happen. It seems like you think totally one-sided. You refuse to see the reality here: if we pull out, unlike how you see it, everythings not going to suddenly get better. Or even worse your seeing the situation on only our side of things, and not even thinking for a second about the millions of people in Iraq who's live we have the duty to finish repairing. Sure I bet if a poll was conducted by Gallup and it asked if we could pull out our troops and no aftereffects would occur in Iraq and everything would be great 99.99% would say yes. But that's not how it is. Let's see this in an analogy. You walk into a museum, take out a bat, and just thrash into a million dollar statue, picking up all the pieces, and saying you want to rebuild it because you don't like the head of it (or something like that). But once you take it home, you start complaining saying it takes too much time, material, and money, and you just want to go back to the now distraught museum (as its main attraction piece is into a million pieces) and say "hey sorry I broke your statue, but I just can't do it, its my moral responsibility to just give back you the pieces of what I broke, walk away, and let you try to piece it together". WE broke the "statue", or Iraq. Now WE have the responsibility of finishing what we started and not leaving a whole entire country to chaos and millions of people to fend with a weak government, almost civil war, and no repayment for the damage done to it.

Yes we can.

You've been convinced (or convinced yourself) that we are the answer to the problem when there is no evidence to suggest that is the case. NONE.

Much like George Bush, you beleive our government is the answer to a social problem. Our military is trained to be the best fighting force in the world. Our military is trained to kick the ever-loving crap out of anybody that attacks us or one of our allies. They've done that. But it is not their job to help rebuild an infrastructure, go door to door looking for potential bad guys, or passing out candy to little kids.

If we were the solution to the problem in Iraq, your point would be accurate and well taken. We are not the solution - the Iraqis are the solution. All we are doing is contributing to the chaos because of the deep hatred for the United States (that quite frankly, didn't exist at this level on Sept. 12, 2001) throughout the entire middle east.

We are not the answer and pretending we are is only getting more of our troops killed.

I'm not saying it's the permanent answer, because obviously we aren't. I'm not saying we're winning over there either. Just we can't walk out immediately. I totally agree with you on how its the Iraqi's responsibility. But for now we have to keep doing what we're doing, and sadly if that means if some of our troops are dying, we have to hold out long enough for the Iraqi government and troops to take over.

It's been 4 years....longer than it took to win World War II.

As long as we pony up our troops as targets in a civil war, the Iraqis won't have to. We are no closer to quelling the violence or getting Iraqi forces ready than we were 4 years ago. It is not happening. There is not a shred of evidence that shows progress being made. Without having to assume anything, can anybody tell me factually that us leaving will create a worse situation?

If we took out the most destabilizing factor in Iraq - the US - could things get better? How can anybody be certain they won't when things get worse with us there? How do we know our leaving wouldn't de-legitimize Al Qaida and dry up any public support they might have? I mean, as long as they are killing Americans, they are welcome to stay. Otherwise, get the hell out.

Can anybody say with certainty that could never happen? Or is it because Bush - who has been wrong 100% of the time regarding anything having to do with Iraq - says our leaving will make it worse?

It is worse. It's time to see if the Iraqis can do it better.

It's been 4 years....longer than it took to win World War II.
But the Iraq War is an entirely different battle than WWII. The only battles comparable to WWII were when we originally invaded in '02 and had to beat the Iraqi military. Time may be a comparable but the type of warfare isn't.

As long as we pony up our troops as targets in a civil war, the Iraqis won't have to. We are no closer to quelling the violence or getting Iraqi forces ready than we were 4 years ago. It is not happening. There is not a shred of evidence that shows progress being made. Without having to assume anything, can anybody tell me factually that us leaving will create a worse situation?
Nobody can tell you factually it will create a better situation if we pull out. But at the same time you can't tell me that pulling out WILL create a better situation. Both are hypotheses, so it goes both ways.

How do we know our leaving wouldn't de-legitimize Al Qaida and dry up any public support they might have?
If we leave there's a large possibility it'll show the world and especially in our case the Arab world that using terrorist methods al-Qaeda can accomplish anything and beat the most powerful military in the world.

We don't really know ANYTHIGN for sure, but are you really willing to risk millions of people just to see?

To support the current conflict in Iraq is to support the status quo. I support three options, give the iraqi people that want a democratic Iraq a timeline to step up or leave. We can be there forever but if the people don’t want a democratic Iraq we will be there forever to basically just have the status quo. Send in another 350,000 troops, or enough to actually police Iraq and keep the peace, the amount of forces we have currently is just not enough to do this, which leads to day after day year after year status quo iraq. Completely pull out, I would support this option over the status quo. This administration will keep lying about the situation in Iraq like they have been doing constantly.

I would also like to point out that we fled from Somalia, under republican pressures on the Clinton administration, and millions of people did not die as a result. Fighting terrorism is great idea, but Iraq does not happen to be even close to a good idea, more so when compared to how it was managed and conducted.

Lastly bushco should really be impeached for the whole issue, such will never happen but I can always hope.

You are wrong. Most Iraqis know if we leave now or “next year” cut and run they lose. Theyy want us to stay.

Visiting Iraq, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams learned from Army officers that Iraqis want U.S. forces to remain in their country, from NBC News Baghdad reporter Richard Engel that Al-Sadr's insurgents have stepped down and are counting on pressure from anti-war opponents to provide them with victory, and from retired General and NBC News military analyst Wayne Downey that U.S. troops are proud of their mission. Traveling with Lieutenant General Ray Odierno for stories on his Monday newscast, Williams ran a clip of Army Colonel John Charlton proclaiming that Iraqis "do not want us to leave" and a soundbite from Army Lt. Colonel Charles Ferry who asserted: "The people here are very glad to see us." Williams marveled: "You just said, 'They don't want us to leave.' That's the tenth time today I've heard that. I've got to go back to the States and do a newscast that every night has another politician or 12 of them saying, 'We have got to get out of that godforsaken place.'"

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2007/cyb20070306.asp#1

Ted, you are factually challenged. You might have found ancedotal evidence to support your claim, but scientific data found here:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/27/iraqis-poll/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/20...ying-iraq_x.htm

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/200...FTOKEN=78319410

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6092601721.html

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issue...6/0228zogby.htm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...ft=1&f=1001

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mi.../iraq/4239.html

...not only prove my point, but also show our own troops think we should leave. Upwards of 75% of Iraqis think us leaving would make them safer. And many for the exact reasons I've stated.

Save your lame talking points (stay the course, cut and run, etc) for freeperland Ted. The facts are not on your side here at a real debate site.

I must say, I can't support keeping thousands of forces in harm's way because "we don't know what will happen if they leave." Iraq is legally autonomous. Iraqis are killing each other, and the whole point of our occupation of Iraq (now) is to try and keep them from killing each other....while most of them take shots at our forces as well.

So, again, I have to ask (as I did above), whose side are we on and why? At this point in time, it seems the militias have ties to the political parties controlling the democratically elected national government. Rivalries between politicians prevent them from decisively ending the violence. Far from your "broken piece" at the museum example, this is a severed limb, bleeding profusely as we stand there and attempt to apply one or two types of small band-aids and wonder why it isn't working. "Hey! The elbow size seems to be marginally more effective than the finger size!" The only way this is likely to work is to do what Syria did in Lebanon...and again, we can't and won't.

Most Americans want to get out, Ted. The polls show that. Most think we should never have gone to war in the first place.

So it really does not serve to thump that leftist straw man that you keep on your lap there, or to stick pins in your little Nancy Pelosi doll. Nor do I think you'll have an easy time convincing people that John Murtha is either a leftist or anyone's lap dog. He's a decorated Vietnam war veteran, for crying out loud, and with a history of strong support of military appropriations. Then there is the little problem of Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, and their like, isn't there? Whose lapdogs are they?

Finally, I wonder why you assume the troops are so freaking gung ho for this war. The HAVE TO serve, right? The last time I checked the news, their enthusiasm for this fight didn't seem to be all that great. Have you heard of the Iraq Veterans Against the War? That's about 2,000 quite politically active guys who fought in Iraq and want to see the war come to a quick end. Oh, but they're leftists, right?

Every benchmark we said could never happen, has happened. They said we couldn't have a civil war. We have one. They said