Hmmmm, so "benchmarks" are now on the table.

Source


Questions for debate:

Oh, I fully agree, Bench Marks are B.M.. Much better just to cut off funding for this absurd and destructive escapade right now, and stop pretending that some conceivable denouement could possible better satisfy the national interest.

In context of this particular set of questions, it is perhaps worth noting that there is no "policy" on Iraq, only a frantic hope that something, anything, there will change for the better, and that George Bush will get to the end of his term without having to admit that it was all a terrible mistake. Likewise, there is no Iraqi government, only a puppet theater. This "government" doesn't even control the Green Zone, much less Iraq proper. It's a couple of carloads full of Iraq "political leaders" who've been dragooned into appearing to be a government. Even they don't believe it -- that's why they're going on vacation.

Oh, I forgot, Petraeus!! Hail Petraeus, victor of, uh, whereever the blazes he was "victor" of. Our savior! The man with the plan. Must wait until September, to see what the Great General has to say.

Congress is a flock of scared pigeons, or they would defund the war forthwith. Much too interested in crumbs from the rich and powerful, not enough interested in the Will of the People. Well, that's all right. We'll show'em in 2008, you can bet on it.

The worst of all is Hilary, who pretends to be opposed to the war, all the while plotting to keep thousands of our troops in Iraq indefinitely. Wicked Spider. War B---h.

I tend to agree with Vladimir, the invasion was immoral and the occupation of Iraq has been and is a disaster and the sooner it is ended (by whatever means) the better. The Iraqis want us out, the Iraqi parliment wants us out, the American people want us out, both houses of Congress want us out, the miltary wants out, and even the Secretary of Defense sounds like he would like to get out. The benchmark of successfully training Iraqi troops in the House bill is a joke since the Army has already quietly given up on training as a major goal. All Iraqi forces except the Kurdish ones are thoroughly infiltrated by one faction or another. Here is a good article that summarizes the situation. And Here is one about immoral and moral choices.

DON'T FUND ANY MORE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!

Current policy appears to revolve around the Sunni minority: influencing them to participate in the Iraqi government, stopping violence against the Shia, and making sure that they are not in bed with al Qaeda. If it also demands accountability from the Iraqi government, I do not know how.


Benchmarks are useful in that they offer the Iraqi government specific goals, and give us an indicator as to whether we can expect the government to achieve those goals. However, if we determine that we cannot expect such a thing, simply cutting funding is a poor exit strategy. While benchmarks have the advantage of preventing an open-ended commitment, they have the disadvantage of preventing us from finding a better solution.

Of course, a policy with benchmarks could be significantly more effective if we first agreed upon an exit strategy (such as partitioning), and tied the benchmarks to that.

1.)How does curent policy specifically hold the Iraqi government accountable for their performance?

Simple answer: it doesn’t. It never has.

2.)Which is more effective and why?, a policy with or without benchmarks?

The current buzz about BushCo reversing course on benchmarks and some interesting tidbits in the news today makes me think a strange little strategy is being played out. Everywhere you look there are generals complaining they don’t have enough troops to put down violence, and yet more and more troops are being deployed for longer periods of time. And if I’m not mistaken, the “surge” was for 21,500 additional troops. And most, if not all of that “surge” have been deployed. And then you see something like this:

I can’t find a definitive figure of the number of troops deployed so far as part of the surge, but the stated figure of 21,500 plus the additional 35,000 is far more than originally discussed. How is this not an escalation???


With bickering, infighting, unexplained absences and 2-month long vacations in the Iraqi government, and new Iraqi army members going AWOL, Iraqi police forces being used for target practice by insurgents, the US is going to have to prop up the Iraqis for a very VERY long time, or at least until someone in power has the werewithal to put an end to it. That's assuming of course that the original plan wasn't for us to stay in Iraq indefintely.

1.)How does current policy specifically hold the Iraqi government accountable for their performance?

I have some questions about this whole idea.

The United States, under the direction of George W. Bush, tore Iraq up and became imperialists, and with some exaggeration colonial occupiers.

It seems to me that people in both parties are demanding that the Iraqis put the Humpty Dumpty we pushed over the wall back together. This is all a grand dodge to blame Iraqis for not cleaning up what we messed up. Maybe if we got the hell out of there they could begin to solve their own problems. The people who let the elephants into the tent - brought the shock and awe circus to town - should be the ones to shovel the mess and find a way to remove the elephants.

I keep hearing, “when the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down.” Who knocked them down to start with?

Edited to add:

I just noticed this on MSN's home page.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18602895/

I'm sorry, but I can't support what Jalal Talabani wants.

I am, however, in favor of giving the Iraqis enough money, over a period of time, to reconstruct the country.

I think it's high time the Democrats and Republicans who recognize that this war was folly to begin with just bit the political bullet and defunded the war.

"Benchmarks"--what the hell are those? The term did not exist in this context in any previous war. And how can we impose them on a group of people who are getting blown up in their capital city every day? Now Bush has actually said that not all bombings are going to stop when the criteria are met for standing down. So the criteria have been changed somewhere in Bush's brain, but it's still too murky to determine just what is going to convince the President to stop wasting lives--yes, wasting them--in a country that clearly needs to solve its own problems before democracy can ever thrive there.

Just who is scaring the politicians into not doing what is necessary? Political demagogues like Karl Rove, who use everything to discredit politicians who run against the people they are supporting. Well, you 'might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb'--if you're going to do something as a politician to upset the people who probably aren't going to vote for you anyway, do something EFFECTIVE.

Gee Dubya is just going to get out his veto pen anyway and pontificate on how these Congresspeople "aren't supporting the troops," yada yada yada. Big deal. As if sending more and more in so that this President can save face until the end of his term is a valid reason to do so! It most assuredly is not.

I agree with BoF that we are responsible for the mess we initially made in Iraq. But when Iraq's countrymen won't let us do the cleaning up, it is time to clear out.

Questions for debate:


I have no idea. I don't believe our policy is to even hold accountable the Iraqi government for their actions. The only congressional bill I know which attempts to address the Iraq situation with any definitive ideas was written and sponsored by a Democrat. H.R. 1234 from Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich is a remarkably well-written piece of legislation, which naturally has no chance of passing. In fact, Kucinich has been lambasted by both Democrats and Republicans, despite the fact that he's the only one providing any concrete ideas on how to readjust our focus and correct the mistakes of the Bush administration's failed war effort. Kucinich criticized the House's legislation, now with optional benchmarks, because it fails to do anything and actually adds money for domestic programs (in all honesty, this is a complete and utter disaster by the Democrats in Congress).

Kucinich was being interviewed on "Democracy Now" by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez yesterday about his proposal and the failure of the Democrats to stand up for the things they used to gain the majority in 2006. His interview can be found here (hopefully this link holds out): Democracy Now: Dennis Kucinich's HR1234 Interview. Kucinich is correct--all congressional Democrats have to do is ... nothing. If they send a bill to Bush and he vetoes it, they can send the same bill. Or they can just not send any bill with the argument of, "Take it or leave it, Mr. President." War spending requires legislation, and if no legislation is passed, war funding is essentially cut off. There is no such thing as creating legislation declaring war funding is cut off (although I'm certain Democrats would find a way to do that for political grandstanding). If Congress does not pass funding, Bush has three options: accept Congress's proposed bill (acquiesce and such), leave troops in Iraq with no funding, or withdraw troops.

The war spending bill, as proposed by Congress, is what Republicans would have provided sans domestic spending monies. All in all, Kucinich has been mocked and lambasted for his ideas--because he has ideas. They might even work, but we'll never find out. I give Republicans credit for standing up against President Clinton in the late 90s, in spite of how childish I found it to be. Democrats need to do the same against Bush, but they gave in and handed Bush exactly what he wanted. And Bush doesn't even have to follow Congress's excruciatingly vague and meaningless accountability requirements of the Iraqi government.


At this point? No policy is effective. Cut off funding. That would be effective. If we are to really support the troops, we better damn well make sure they are being used for America's security. And they are not. "We fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here!" one of Bush's favorite lines (not exact verbiage, but the same idea). This trashes Iraqis, basically saying sorry but we're going to fight a major war in your area so we don't risk any interruption of American Idol, and leaves our country without much of a defense. Frankly, if we were attacked right now by some outside force, we would almost certainly be forced to institute the draft once again. Our troops are a precious commodity, and they deserve respect and dignity. The only respectable thing Congress could do right now is to pull funding and force Bush's hand.