BRILLIANT Idea, Sherlock!
Boy, that MoveOn.org ad worked out well for the far left, didn’t it?
The Senate voted Thursday to condemn an advertisement by the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org that accused the top military commander in Iraq of betrayal.
The 72-25 vote condemned the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times last week as Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, testified on Capitol Hill. The ad was headlined: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the books for the White House.”
The ad became a life raft for the Republican party as the war debate kicked into high gear. With several Republicans opposed to President Bush’s war strategy, GOP members were able to put aside their differences and rally around their disapproval of the ad.
Sen. Gordon Smith, one of the few Republican senators who supports legislation ordering troop withdrawals, told reporters Thursday he thought Petraeus’ testimony and the MoveOn.org ad were the two biggest factors in keeping Republicans from breaking ranks with the president: Petraeus’ testimony because it was persuasive and the MoveOn add because it went too far by attacking a popular uniformed officer.
Leave it to the Nutroots® to personalize policy differences and go for the ad hominem slur – and Hillary Clinton, don’t you ever talk about the ‘politics of personal destruction’ ever again:
The resolution condemning the ad was sponsored by conservative Republican John Cornyn of Texas. Voting against it were Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than “the politics of personal destruction,” it does not come to mind. All the others — “It’s the economy, stupid,” for instance — belong to one or the other, but “the politics of personal destruction” is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly — so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as “General Betray Us,” Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency.
…It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, and so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she indeed does have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found.
Before she ran for president, Hillary was actually a decent senator…but she’s made her choice, and embraced the radical left. The last shoe has yet to drop…
What of the Republican filibuster of the bill offered condemning political attacks on ANY military leader? What does that say to you, Mark? I’ll tell you what it says to me. It says, “We want to be able to slime military personnel who disagree with us, but we’ll busy up the Senate with meaningless resolutions if somebody should express criticism at all toward somebody that we’re backing.” You didn’t see this kind of principle when they went after Kerry and Cleland, did you? Didn’t think so.
Besides which, neither of those bills should ever have reached the floor anyway. There’s actual business to be brought to the floor so that the Republicans can filibuster it.
I am so incredibly proud of Hillary for voting against this resolution. I actually agree with the folks who say it’s out of line (or, more accurately, silly and dumb), but for the Congress of the United States to be condemning the free speech of Americans – no matter how objectionable that speech might be – is downright un-American. Hillary and Dodd stood up for American values – Dodd seems to be doing this a LOT lately – and I am glad they did.
That said, a note to Fargus. There aren’t even any filibusters any more – have you noticed? We’ve actually just reached an informal agreement that all legislation needs 60 votes to pass. The press has dropped the term “filibuster” and just reports everything as if the natural state of things is that bills need 60 votes. How incredibly weird is that? And where the heck are all the Republicans who used to be calling for the nuclear option? I was on their side then and I still would be now.
Fargus, that’s like comparing apples to leeks.
For one, Cleland was never a military leader and Kerry was a leader in training and skedaddled as soon as he got his 3rd bandaid – traits hardly becoming of leadership. Petreaus on the other hand was shot in the chest during a training accident and returned to work on a waiver by showing his fitness with 50 pushups.
Secondly, fellow brothers in arms (diverse in political leanings, but united in believing that Kerry was yellow) publicly shining a light into a past that Kerry wanted kept dark is on par with the political organization that owns the DNC calling a General a traitor?
I dare Kerry to meet and tell a double amputee training to return to service that they are both heros.
As for Cleland, he was exposed for being a drunk idiot playing with a US grenade and blowing himself up and playing it as if it was battle damage.
In any case, Mark. The reason for the early primary campaign madness is so that candidates can pander to the extreme factions, upon winning, pivot and begin wooing the moderates for Election Day. In a pre-internet world, the memory hole would be to Hillary’s advantage. However, we’ll see if she can pull it off.
I’m skeptical because I think MoveOn can’t help themselves but go after the DNC nominee that doesn’t toe the radical line all the way thru to Election Day. MoveOn will cannibalize its own to spite itself. Witness the Baird saga, Jane Hamster going to do him like like she did Joe Lieberman.
Moveon.org gets the Ralph Nader award for not knowing when to STFU.
The last thing that war supporters want to do is talk about the war, and this gave them yet another smokescreen to hide behind. Instead of news reporting about the nine soldiers who died the day the ad was printed, or the subsequent reporting which contradicted the testimony of Patreus and Crocker, or the questionable methodology behind their metrics, the media was consumed with the moveon.org ad.
As for the reaction to the ad from the right: it’s quite a spectacle to see the same people who practiced the politics of personal destruction against Clinton, Kerry, Cleland, and so many others be shocked — shocked! — that an independent advocacy group would dare to suggest that a general’s testimony might not be entirely accurate. No different than seeing the same bunch — who threatened a constitutional amendment to end filibusters — use the threat of filibuster more often than at any previous time on our history. To quote Joseph Welsh: have you no sense of decency? (often misquoted as “have you no shame?”)
Uh, you realize that going by all polls, the public pretty much agrees with MoveOn. They didn’t trust Patreus to tell the truth, and after he was done, they didn’t embrace his position that things are going well.
This is such a right-wing manufactured story. Many of the same people blasting MoveOn are now bashing Abizad, some even calling his patriotism into question because his family is Arab. Honestly, what a joke this whole thing is.
No they do NOT agree with MoveOn. The public is skeptical about Iraq, but they pointedly do NOT believe Petraus has betrayed the American peopel (according to Gallup, he has a favorability rating of 61% if the American people).
As for the effect of MoveOn on all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if this hasn’t enhanced their standing in the Democratic Party and led to a spike in contributions. Of course, they placed all of the Democratic candidates in a lose-lose bind, and their little deal with the NYT will probably cost the already flailing paper millions in lost revenue as everyone to MoveOn’s right publicly demand the “discount” rate to run advertisement, but MoveOn? I don’t see much downside for them, specifically.
Their “little deal with the New York Times”?
They got the same rate any advocacy group would get. If the John Birch Society placed an ad, they would get the same $65K rate. This meme is a deliberate lie by people who know better.
The official explanation from the NYT itself:
It’s not the standard rate for advocacy groups. It’s the standard rate for advocacy groups that don’t care when their advertisement is run.
You may suggest that Moveon just got lucky and no one else took the advertising slot, but why would Moveon have taken the risk put a strategically-timed advertisement on “standby?”
Why not? For only $65K, the country is still talking about the ad. Doubtless the country would be talking about it regardless of the day it was printed.
The ad was worthless if it didn’t run right before Petraus’s testimony. By the NYT standards they should have been paid the full rate. Oh, and nice one calling me a liar, peter, when you are being willfully deceptive yourself.
Ahh. The mental and principle gymnastics required of the “progressive” mind. It’s more entertaining than Nadia Comenici. I refer to it as the “Yeah, but” defense–as in, “Yeah, but ‘you realize that going by all polls, the public pretty much agrees with MoveOn. They didn’t trust Patreus to tell the truth, and after he was done, they didn’t embrace his position that things are going well.’”
Uh, no. They requested a specific day within a seven day window and they got it. This is proof of nothing except that they got the day they requested. The Times is a business, and like any other business, it behooves them to grant customers’ requests, other things being equal.
What percentage of advocacy advertisers who request a certain day get that day? We don’t know: it could be 99% as far as anybody knows.
Would moveon.org be obligated to pay for the ad regardless of which day it ran? Yes.
Would it have made a whole lot of difference if the ad ran elsewhere within the seven day window? Not really: the testimony has been in the news for weeks, and the ad would surely have received a huge amount of attention regardless of which day it ran.
Did moveon.org pay the same rate as Rudy Giuliani’s ad a few days later condemning Hillary (for not condemning an ad she had nothing to do with)? Yes.
The inference here — that the Times is somehow in cahoots with moveon.org — is ludicrous. Anyone who believes it also probably thinks that Hillary shot Vince Foster.
The point is that the text of the ad would have only made sense on the day it ran. Besides, if 99% of advocacy advertisers who request a certain day received that day, the discount would be nowhere near as steep.
“They requested a specific day within a seven day window and they got it.”
Well what a coincidence! Those folks at Moveon sure are lucky to get the exact day they needed (they needed the specific day on which it ran, not one in a 7-day window).
Giuliani paid the same rate, but then, his ad would have made sense no matter when it was put in print.
Have you actually read the ad? There is nothing in it that does not make sense a week before or a week after the ad actually ran.
Moreover, there is nothing in the text of the ad which is inflammatory or misleading — it is all sourced and documented at https://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html. None of those who howled so loudly at the audacity of moveon.org to challenge Patraeus has actually shown why anything in the ad is untrue. If the ad is so blatantly defamatory, why not tell the world exactly what is wrong about it?
There is a reference in the last line (“Today before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us”) which refers to the day the ad ran — however the Times allows all advocacy advertisers to make minor changes the day before an ad actually runs, just as it allows retailers to change a price in their ad the day before print.
Did that link die in the last 20 minutes?
Try this — http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html
Peter, don’t you think there is a world of difference between suggesting betrayal and in your own words, “that an independent advocacy group would dare to suggest that a general’s testimony might not be entirely accurate.”
By “not entirely accurate”, are you suggesting he was 95%, 65% or just 5% accurate?
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Wow, flip that around and apply it to the Swiftboat Vets daring to suggest that Kerry’s resume might not be entirely accurate. Bottomline, comparing Kerry/Cleland to Petraeus is laughable. They’re not even in the same league. However, comparing those two poseurs to Dan Rather would be appropriate. But I digress.
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Hillary could have disagreed with Petraeus over the meaning of the stats but to call him a liar is beyond the pale. And to hammer the point home that as CIC, she won’t tolerate lies from her commanders, she should have right then and there at the hearings called for Petraeus to be court-martialed for lying.
The mental gymnastics required to march lockstep with MoveOn is truly something to behold.
Nope, the simple fact is that Petraeus bore inconvenient truths and had to be shot down ASAP. Well lucky for them, they get to go another round with Petraeus in 6 months.
And what if the Iraq situation continues to improve with even Maliki “making progress” (never mind that the US designed constitution explicitly makes the PM a weak position), what is the MoveOn crowd going to say then? To claim Petraeus is lying some more would be the political equivalent of peeing on Joe Public’s leg and claiming that it’s raining. Or would they spin to say they supported Petraeus all along, but had to do what they did to impress upon him that he would be a traitor only if he mindlessly regurgitated Bush’s talking points? Sorry, the only card that the far left has now is to hope and pray that we fail in Iraq so they can crow “See… We told you the war was lost!!!”
Now that is a sad sight indeed.
The crack about “Have you actually read the ad? There is nothing in it that does not make sense a week before or a week after the ad actually ran.” What a joke, it only took about 5 seconds to read and understand the accusation. What’s profound is that the MoveOn Oracle just flat out knew it was all lies, before the man even spoke.
Peter, instead of just defending MoveOn, why don’t you fisk Petraeus? Have you actually gone thru the stats and charts? There is nothing in it that does not demonstrate rising success on the military front as far as I can tell. But you’re welcome to try and dissect the stats to convince us otherwise.
But do remember, that was Petraeus’ job # 1 to pacify the Iraqi streets & towns so that the Iraqi government could not use violence as an excuse for failing to get on with the business of governing. Petraeus done took the jackass to the river and it’s up to the donkey to start drinking. In any case, Petraeus accomplished what 95 Senators sent him to do.
It would have been nice if William Westmoreland was challenged when he said there was a light at the end of the tunnel, several years and thousands of lives before Vietnam collapsed.
It would have been nice if Colin Powell had been challenged when he gave a speech at the UN which turned out not to be true, several years and thousands of lives ago.
So when General Patreus speaks before Congress, the right wing’s insistence that nothing he says should be challenged or scrutinized is ptetty hollow. It is the job of Congress — and, more broadly, the American people — to be skeptical and ask tough questions.
When there is a history of rosy predictions which turned out not to be true, and when the general’s testimony is at various with numerous other sources, from both the public and private sectors, then there is plenty of reason to be skeptical.
The fact is that Patreus — like Powell and Westmoreland — were in a chain of command with the CIC at the top. They were also heavily invested in the success of their ventures. It is not reasonable to expect them to be independent-minded or unbiased. Moreover, given the fact that when Patreus’s predecessors — starting with Eric Shinseiki — were fired or retired if they didn’t say what Bush wanted to hear, one would hardly expect Patreus or Crocker to give candid and objective testimony.
You may be happy to swallow whatever the administration says hook, line, and sinker, but that process got us to the mess we are in today. It is Congress’s job to ask tough and demanding questions, and when there is reasonable doubt — as there certainly is here — it is not out of place for advocacy groups to point this out. That is what moveon.org did. Granted, the headline was witless and offensive, but the body of the ad is dead-on accurate, and sourced and documented on their website.
You are correct that there is no comparison between the moveon.org ad and the attacks on Kerry and Cleland. The moveon.org ad makes a reasoned case and supports it with documentation. The attacks on Cleland and Kerry were demonstrably false and libelous. No comparison at all.
I think that moveon.org was tactically stupid in grabbing the spotlight for themselves when it should have been on the war itself. However, there is nothing in the body of the ad which is beyond the pale: it is a reasoned argument which ought to have been made. What was beyond the pale is seeing Bush and Cheney — who have readily equated opposing them politically or challenging their policies with appeasing terrorists — feign indignation at an advocacy ad which — gasp! — happens to be supported by fact.
Peter, Peter,
So exactly what was dead-on, accurate and sourced by Move-on? What definitive proof were there that the books were cooked. Just saying so doesn’t make it so?
Then you said: “They were also heavily invested in the success of their ventures. It is not reasonable to expect them to be independent-minded or unbiased. Moreover, given the fact that when Patreus’s predecessors — starting with Eric Shinseiki…”
On the one hand, the phrase “Not reasonable to expect them to be independent minded” is so laughably lame. As compared to what?
Otherwise, there are three interrelated parts to your assertion:
1) As for Generals getting fired or retired. So what? It’s the unique nature of our military that its leadership is subservient to civilian masters — as our forefathers designed it to be.
2) I’m also proud of the fact that from the get-go, our officers are trained to be competitive, not just on the sportsfield or battlefield but more importantly on the battlefields of ideas. That officers differ in their strategy is one of our strong suits, in that they have to explain and convert others to their vision of whatever objective that might be, whether on conducting warfare or something as mundane as whither PC or Mac. So if you want cultures of suckups, look to any other military, they’re loaded with them. For the most part, our military would rather be fired for holding fast to their beliefs, than flipflop willy-nilly with every passing breeze. That said, of course there are some that do pander to their superiors, fortunately for us, most of them don’t get far. So yes, Generals are heavily invested in THEIR ideas. It is THEIR ideas that brought them front and center.
3) Shinseki wasn’t fired because he said something that Bush didn’t like, he was fired because Bush found another General saying something he liked. Just as you would reserve the right to listen to different marketing pitches before settling on a Ford. I as a Chevy fan may needle you and say Ford is “Found-On-Road-Dead” and you’d counter “First-On-Race-Day”, meanwhile Dodge roars away with the trophy time after time.
In this case, you might say that Bush was wrong to fire Shinseki for saying we needed 400K troops to take down Saddam. But the fact remains that Shinseki sponsored the decision to
killput the up-armored vehicle program on a back burner. He also downgraded urban combat technologies while pushing for the “Army Of One” image makeover, to include hundreds of million dollars in a uniform makeover, including black berets made in China and advocated more cold war style fighting equipment. You could say that 9/11 caught Shinseki with his pants down — trying to look fashionably hip and not foreseeing the need for low-intensity warfare and armored crew protection. And just a couple of years earlier, GEN Clark was fired for among other things insisting on more armored vehicles.Anyhoo, let’s move on.
You point out Westmoreland as an example of needing to be challenged, that was a different time and place, he was turning things around. The plain truth is that we were winning and Tet was the VC’s last gasp of desperation — a kamikaze attack if you will — until the media convinced us otherwise that we had lost.
By your standard, Eisenhower, Patton and all the brass involved in WWII should have been challenged constantly. Yeah, right by a bunch of know-nothing congresscritter nincompoops.
Let’s look at Lincoln and the Generals he went thru before he found one that could turn the war around.
Better yet, go back to our very first war. If the current crop of Donks were around in the day, they would have tarred/feathered George Washington and ran him out of town.
The difference is that George Washington’s civilian masters knew if the war was truly lost then, all their hopes and dreams would have been anniliated. It’s also because of GW that they cemented the decision that only POTUS can be CIC while Congress holds the purse. But they certainly didn’t conceive that today’s Congress would upsurp POTUS by grilling his Generals.
Today, our politicos think they can play games, maneuvering for political power — collateral damages on our side be damned — instead of being resolute that this is one war that we’ll win, regardless of how long, how costly it may be. And with that in mind, they could grill to their hearts content to ensure that their top man was a winner.
Bottomline, I really don’t care about swallowing whatever line the admin might reel out. I only care about smashing the jihadii down flatter than a pancake and winning. I don’t care to see any other exit strategy but that. It would have been lovely if there was some General that could have done that within a 100 days and with 0 loss so we could send the troops back home. It didn’t happen and so be it. If we as a nation could stand 100s of thousands dead to win the Civil War and be the better for it, then we have just barely begun to fight in the Global War on
TerrorRadical Islam.So my only question in ’08 is who will be the standard bearer for victory over the rising Caliphate. I assure you that question is on the minds of at least half the population. To ensure the margin of victory, I’m hoping and praying that MoveOn will pull more lamebrained stunts like that leading up to the one election that counts.
1) The operative sentence in the text of the ad is “General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts.” They then cite a 2004 article (“Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.”) which was not factual, and they show the discrepancy between his current “we have achieved progress” and five reports which show the opposite. They make a declarative sentence and back it up with evidence. You may argue that it is “dead on accurate,” but you cannot deny that it is a reasoned and substantiated statement.
2) ““Not reasonable to expect them to be independent minded” is so laughably lame. As compared to what?”
As compared to the GAO or NIE reports, for example.
3) “As for Generals getting fired or retired:” if you consistently fire generals not for incompetence or dereliction of duty, but because they don’t give you the advice you want to hear, then one would reasonably expect any general who retains his job not to deviate from the administration line. That’s how they got the job and that’s how they keep the job.
4) You fail to make the distinction between generals “converting others to their vision of whatever objective that might be” and generals taking am overly optimistic view of their operation to make it look better than it actually is. Moreover, of course a general will put the brightest spin on his mission: that’s why in making any decision you try to determine how close or far he is from the truth by also looking at other sources of information. When Patreus is on one side and everyone else on the other, it’s not unreasonable to ask the general why, either in Congress or in print.
5) There is no comparison between picking a Ford or a Chevy and sending soldiers to war. Nobody cares if you don’t do your homework in buying a car. There is a sacred obligation of any leader to look at all of the facts and ask all of the hard questions before sending troops out. Needless to say, this wasn’t done here.
6) I’m disinclined to get into a debate on Vietnam — it’s so 1960′s — but I dispute your characterization that somehow victory was in our grasp and it’s the media’s fault that we left. I understand that the North had huge losses in Tet, but I am sure they would have fought to the last man. 55,000 soldiers dies in Vietnam — how many more should we have sent to die?
Also — and more importantly — I don’t recall whether Westmoreland’s speech was before or after Tet, but having been around at the time, I remember hearing “light at the tunnel” rosy predictions from Westmoreland and Ellsworth Bunker for years, including well before Tet. As with Iraq, we were always told that victory was within our grasp, but that assessment was consistently wrong.
7) Why Iraq “is one war that we’ll win, regardless of how long, how costly it may be” is beyond me. Personally, rather than be middleman between countless tribes of warring Sunnis and Shia, I would say that the war which must be won is the one against the people who actually attacked us.
Peggy Nioonan is as rock-ribbed a Republican as you are ever likely to meet. From her column in today’s Wall Street Journal about a different subject (Allen Greenspan):
“When Gen. Eric Shinseiki told Congress, before the Iraq war, that postinvasion troop levcels should be ‘something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers,’ his views were called ‘outlandish’ by administration officials. He was bureaucratically undercut, and he limped to retirement. When economic advisor Larry Lindsay told this newspaper the war would likely cost up to four times what the administration asserted, he was sacked.”
And you expect that Patreus’s testimony be his own candid and objective assessment of the situation?
1) In 2004, there was a totally different political/military dynamic at work. Let’s step into the way-back machine, and review the following 2004 highlights:
As I recall it, it was all beginning to look up and speculation was rampant that it wouldn’t be much more than a 18 – 24 months before we could begin ratcheting down. Also all that action was leading to a historical event:
Now when I look at 2004, I see Iraq was first run by a colaition led by Bremer, then by Allawi and a whole different cast of Iraqi politicians. Maliki is far from front & center when Petraeus reports that Iraqi leaders are stepping forward. Compared to the vacuum that existed before, it is simply the facts Jack. Painting a rosy picture is not the same as lying and certainly not the same as betraying.
In fact, IIRC, it was towards the latter part of 2005 that violence begin escalating as AQ redoubled their efforts to provoke a civil war and it sort of became a free-for-all thru most of 2006 — eerily in parallel with increasingly strident calls for redeployment from the Anti-war and damn-the-consequences crowd.
2) And who are the masters that the GAO & NIE reports to? In fact, while both slams the Iraqi govt for not meeting the goals set by us, they both acknowledge that the surge is working. Again, where’s the twisting of facts between the 3 reports?
All the same, I find it ironic that our good-for-nothing and do-nothing Congress can with a straight face point fingers at Maliki, when their own record in the same timespan miss 95% of their own goals. Don’t be bamboozled by Reid & Pelosi when they brag that they raised minimum wages. Bush gave a bigger raise to working people via tax cuts than anything the dems could come up with. The Donks promised $7/hr, within their 1st 100 days (or was that 100hrs per Ms Pelosi?) for this year and instead settled for $7.25 over 3 years (a lot can change in 3 years to include ratcheting that back down). The dynamic duo promised a bunch of other stuff and have yet to deliver. But you say, “that’s politics”! Yeah and for the Iraqis it’s politics as well.
3) That’s the beauty of our system. POTUS can choose bootlickers that tell him whatever he wants to hear, or he can select from a menu of choices offered up by various Generals. And you think the later is bad??? Did you actually shed a tear for Shinseki? When was the last time you ever saw a fired General, or for that matter a Colonel, down on their luck after termination? They all go on to bigger, better and more lucrative things.
When Shinseki said it would take 100s of thousands, he was specifically talking about taking down Saddam. In actuality, mustering up 400K to the Iraqi battlefield was a no-can-do, simply because we didn’t have the manpower & resources. In effect, Shinseki was telling Bush to forget about Iraq and move on. And Bush was fully justified in his role as CIC to find another General who would tell him that Iraq was doable.
Besides, I find it rather incredulous that a GEN would be so desperate to cling to his miserable job that he would toe his boss’ line, when he could easily just parachute into a commercial job for 2x/3x/10x the pay & 1/2 the responsibilities, plus be home almost every night. Simply put, Petraeus has reached the top, lying would be beneath him as there’s no need for him to take the abuse he’s gotten unless it was a matter of honor and he absolutely believes in what he’s doing.
By comparison, I hate Bill Clinton as a politician, but I had no problem with him sending troops to Bosnia, as long as he listened to the Generals. Although I must ask, who sold him the line of crap that we’d be in and out within a year? In any case, I knew that Slick was just pulling an FDR to connive a reluctant country into fighting a just cause. Indeed what took us so long to get in? Unfortunately, Slick couldn’t do anything about Rwanda because we were bogged down in Kosovo.
4) And?? GAO & NIE both said Petraeus was making significant progress in pacifying the violence. Again, Petraeus is and was not responsible for making the Iraqi politicos do their job.
5) Sure there is. Somebody didn’t do their homework in foreseeing low-intensity combat needing armored vehicles and plenty of them back when Somalia & the Bosnian Conflict proved their value. Instead they loaded up on a bunch of fabric & 1/8″ aluminum clad vehicles. If I recall, part of the argument back in the day was that we had a peace dividend that needed to be funneled towards social spending instead of modernizing our military. Like I’ve said before, that was the intense debate during 1996/1997 where one group was pro up-armor and another was pro no-armor and yet another was pro bigger gun platforms. That’s why once the decision was made, Rummy had to go with the Army he had and play catchup on desperately needed equipment.
6) On the eve of Iraq, we heard plenty of warnings that we’d need every of our bodybags and then some. That we went 4 years with only 3700 lost is very good by any standard. Rest assured that Russia & China are very awed by those numbers. Of course some would prefer that 0 lives be lost, but that’s life.
Anyway, assessment is just another word for educated guesses. Going into Gettysburg, the assessment was that the Union was lost. The assessment at post-Bulge certainly didn’t look rosy and when asked to surrender, we rightly told the Nazis that they were nuts.
7) You obviously think Iraq has nothing to do with AQ and nothing will change your mind. So be it. For the record, Sunni & Shias are not tribes but Islamic denominations. Iran is also Shia, but the only bond between Iraqi Arabs and Iranian Persians is the Shia cult, not tribal blood. Likewise, Palestinians are not Arabs and serve as useful pawns by the Arabs when it suits them.
I for one think that Iraq is a major battlefield in the war on Global Jihad. The people who actually attacked us died on 9/11. We have to fight the dogma that caused those 19 to attack us. That dogma is not just hiding in some Waziristan mountain, but everywhere 10 or more Moslems are gathered, there’s bound to be 1 or 2 itching to score some virgins. Since they’re everywhere, we have to pick and chose our battles and the killing fields between the Euphrates & Tigress suits me just fine.
1) I’m not sure what all of the timeline stuff in 2004 is supposed to indicate. Patreus wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post six weeks before the election, which was bound to help Republican prospects in a very close election. Forgetting the impropriety of a sitting general writing an editorial a few weeks before an election which would inevitably influence the election, he stated that there was “tangible progress” where there was none. He stated that “Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up” and “the institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down.” Three years later, the Iraqi security forces are the institutions which oversee them are anything but rebuilt. If his earlier assessment was so far off the mark, it is certainly reasonable to question his current assessment.
2) The GAO report does not “acknowledge that the surge is working.” Quite the opposite: there are nine security benchmarks, of which two were met. Nor does the NIE report, which states that there was “measurable but uneven improvements in security” since January — the peak of Iraqi violence — but the level of violence against civilians “remains high,” sectarian groups “remain unreconciled,” AQI has the ability to conduct “high profile attacks,” and “Iraqi leaders remain unable to govern effectively.”
There are two parts to the surge: a military escalation and the political reconciliation it was intended to bring. The most positive thing the NIE report can say about security is that there was uneven progress since violence hit its peak, and not even Crocker or Patreus can make the case that the Iraqi government is any closer to reconciliation than when the surge started in February. (In fact, it’s worse, given the number of Sunnis who left the government.) There is no way to read either reports as stating that “the surge is working.” It is not working, and by the administration’s own benchmarks and timetable, it has failed.
Stating that “the surge is working” because there is (arguably) “uneven” improvements in security with no political reconciliation is like saying that the anesthesia probably worked but the patient died on the operating table anyway. The reason for the escalation was to enable Iraqi politicians to form a viable government. Whether or not there are tangible improvements in security, the objective was not achieved. Hence it failed.
3) Saying that Shinseiki really wanted to get fired so he could make more money and have an easier life is akin to saying that it’s OK to out Valerie Plame because she could make more money selling her book than working for the CIA.
4) See #2.
5) Your suggestion was that there was adequate planning for the occupation of Iraq?
6) The fact that only 3700 American soldiers died — forget about wounded soldiers and dead Iraqis — somehow justifies invading a country which never invited us to find WMD which never existed? The invasion of Iraq has ruined the country for generations, displaced millions of Iraqis, strengthened Syria and Iran, gave bin Ladin his best recruiting tool ever, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars. This isn’t worth a single soldier’s life, let alone 3700 of them.
7) Saddam has nothing to do with 9/11 and AQI did not exist in 2001.
Reread what I wrote. Sunnis and Shia are demoninations, but there are many tribes comprised of Sunnis and Shia who are attacking each other. Part of the problem is Shia tribes attacking other Shia tribes, and Sunni tribes attacking other Sunnis. We’re in the middle of this intramural conflict as well as Sunni vs. Shia conflict.
Palestinians are overwhelmingly Arabs. They speak Arabic. Iranians are not Arabs. They speak Farsi.
The people who attacked us on 9/11 are not all dead. Their leader lives with impunity somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan, partly because our military resources were squandered in Iraq instead of being focussed on those who harmed us in the past and would dearly love to harm us in the future.
Finally, it’s the Tigres River (actually, Tigris), not Tigress. A tigress is a female tiger.
1) Petraeus is not the 1st, nor last General to write an editorial. At the time he wrote it did did look like things were picking up and great hopes for the Iraqi election. You on the other hand are looking at a point in time 3 years ago and saying it was all crock. Isn’t 20/20 hindsight great?
2) The NIE, http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070823_release.pdf, Page 3:
Petraeus got his full surge complement towards end of June. By the time the surge began trending positively, the NIE was being wrapped up. Don’t take my word for it look at Pg 4
You paraphrase a sentence from Pg 7 of as “There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007.” but conveniently left off the rest of the paragraph that goes on to state
This is essentially what Petraeus reported that the surge was working to cut the violence down. There was no mandate for him to bring the Iraqi government any closer to reconciliation, nor did he or Crocker claim otherwise that they did. That ball is firmly in Iraqi’s court. The best that Petraeus could hope to do was eliminate violence as an excuse for the Iraqis to do nothing. However, the NIE acknowledges a rather juicy detail on Pg 8 that undercuts your argumnent that the surge has failed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that exactly what Petraeus reported? The rational being to continue the surge and let the grassroots effort take a deeper hold? Again, the ball is in the Iraqi Government’s court.
3) Did I say Shinseki wanted to get fired? What I’m saying is that most Generals will say what they believe, and if their superiors don’t like it, so be it, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. As for Valerie Plame, she and her tippling husband are just a bunch of lying/scheming hacks as the Senate commission already confirmed. In any case, that’s some pretzel logic conjoining those two subjects.
4) Just so we’re clear on the definition of “assessment”, I defer to Pg 6 of the NIE
Again, where is the proof that Petraeus lied or betrayed us?
5) Everyone’s post-invasion occupation plan envisioned a formal end to the fight and surrender. I think I said it before that no one, no one predicted that Iraqi Army would crumble so quickly and completely dissolve. That there was no one to sign a declaration of surrender proved to be brilliant stroke of insane genius on Saddam’s part. Little did we know what a pain that would turn out to be. Rest assured future crops of Generals will be studying that and factoring it into their plans.
6) 1st of all, drop the “invite” since when has any enemy “invited” a foe? And again, you’re injecting hindsight into a decision process. Everyone thot there was WMD. That there was none to be found doesn’t automatically make the invasion unjustifiable, because there were a number of other reasons for undertaking Clinton’s Regime Change policy to its logical conclusion.
Any loss of life is tragic, but freedom always involves the spilling of blood. Spilling our blood on behalf of another people is part of our noble tradition. No other country has ever spilled as much blood on behalf of others’ freedom. I honor and support that tradition, and you don’t like it. So be it. Were you against Clinton going into Bosnia? Would you have been against going into Rwanda? Are you against going into Sudan? Then you’d be a consistent Pacifist and Isolationist.
7) According to the 9/11 Commission, Saddam harbored and nursed a number of AQ personnel. Saddam financed homicide bombers in Palestine. Saddam operated terrorist training camps. Most of the region was in fear of Saddam. Saddam was looking for WMD materials. Saddam & AQ did have some high level talks. Taking on AQ by itself would likely encourage Saddam to conduct greater mischief while we were distracted by AQ.
So our strategy for taking on AQ was to take down Saddam, draw AQ out of the mountains where they have the tactical upper hand and onto the killing fields of between the Tigris (so I have fat fingers, at least I got to drink from it (ROWPU filtered of course
)) and Euphrates.
If we’d concentrated solely on fighting AQ in Afghanistan, would you tolerate 10k dead US soldiers by now? No thanks, I’ll rather take the current 3.7k losses incurred thus far.
The roots of shat upon Palestinian Arabs is all academic. They are the favorite pawn of Arabs everywhere when convenient.
In any case, when dealing with the war on Global Jihad, we will always have to be cognizant and navigate thru the Sunni & Shia intra-rivalries.
1) “Petraeus is not the 1st, nor last General to write an editorial. “
As far as I know, he is the first one to write an editorial six weeks before a close election where the content of the editorial could influence the outcome.
“Isn’t 20/20 hindsight great?”
That’s not the point. The issue is the reliability of his predictions. If former predictions turned out to be false, then one has the right to question the prescience of current predictions.
2) You are distorting what I said. You wrote that the GAO and NIE reports “both acknowledge that the surge is working.” I responded that neither report acknowledge that, which is a correct statement. The GAO report said that only three of eighteen benchmarks were achieved. The NIE reported uneven military progress but a lack of political progress. How can you read either report as verification that “the surge is working?”
As noted above: the surge is only working if it achieves its objective, which is political reconciliation.
3) I’m disinclined to bring up the Valerie Wilson saga, except to note that nobody has ever suggested that Valerie Wilson was dishonest. Al Valerie Wilson ever did was to do her job
4) I never said Patreus lied and I certainly don’t accuse him of betrayal. See post four. I think that his testimony was overly optimistic because it left out much of the intramural violence in Iraq, and his data were dubious due to their methodology (see the cites in the moveon.org ad). However, I think he is a smart and talented guy who is doing his best in an impossible job at great personal sacrifice. The reason I am upset with moveon.org is that they made it a personal thing about Patreus, which enabled the right to use them as a smokescreen to avoid a frank discussion about the war.
My point is simply the test of the ad – not the headline – is accurate, if polemic, and none of those who howled so loudly about the ad disputed any of its statements.
5) If “everyone’s post-invasion occupation plan envisioned a formal end to the fight and surrender,” then everyone was wrong. I’m not sure what your point is here, but we seem to be in agreement.
6) The Iraqi people are our enemy? It’s their country we invaded.
Not everyone thought there were WMD. Hans Blix and El Baradei did not think they existed. Of those countries who thought they were there, it is uncertain how confident they were in those judgments.
Also, I do think we were entirely justified in invading Bosnia, because we were able to stop ethnic cleansing. By invading Iraq, we unleashed a process which led to ethnic cleansing.
I am not a pacifist. There are just wars. Afghanistan is among them. Iraq is not.
7) We invaded Iraq to draw Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan? I never heard that one before.
“If we’d concentrated solely on fighting AQ in Afghanistan, would you tolerate 10k dead US soldiers by now? No thanks, I’ll rather take the current 3.7k losses incurred thus far.”
I would rather take 10K dead soldiers if we actually defeated AQ in Afghanistan than 3700 dead soldiers from an invasion in Iraq which made them stronger.
There is one statement in your post I agree with. Palestinians are used as pawns by Arab nations everywhere. No argument there.
Okay, end the threadjack. Wham, Bam, thank you old gray whore.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09/23/2007-09-23_ny_times_admits_petraeus_ad_sold_to_move.html
The Daily News article is taken from the ombudsman’s column in the Times today, where he criticizes the Times but states that an ad rep quoted the wrong rate (or, more precisely, incorrectly left the impression that it was a fixed placement and not one which would run at any day during a seven day window).
Having managed media sales teams for almost two decades, I can tell you that this happens all the time. My guess is that either the guy made an honest mistake, or he knew he had the inventory that day and told moveon.iorg they would get the placement so he would get the order. (In other circumstances, this wouldn’t be so bad: I’ve always told salespeople that it is better to ask for foregiveness than to ask for permission).
In any event, it is hardly the sinister plot that feverish minds insist upon. A salesperson screwed up. Needless to say, those who want to believe that it was so important to the New York Times that moveon.org save a few bucks that the order came directly from Bill Keller will continue to believe that. Ratiocination always gets trumped by fantasy to those with a conspiratorial mind.
1) I don’t have access to find articles written by Generals, but I think that only a conspiratorial mind would see a nefarious scheme behind a General writing his opinion. In any case, if you feel the need to question the prescience of daily predictions from your local weatherman, just because he/she has been wrong in the past, then have at it. As for me, I’ll take my chances that he gets it right more often than not.
2) Then if between now and the next report, the Iraqi govt accomplishes most of their objectives, then I guess we’ll tune in to see you say the surge was still a failure because all of the goals weren’t accomplished according to the original schedule. Have you even considered that some of the goals, like the dems’ own goals might be overly optimistic? Or given the nefariousness of Reid & co, set deliberately high to ensure failure? No, I suppose not. Suffice to say, the party of nutroots have gotten religion, on their knees twice daily praying for failure, otherwise they will see ’08 slip away from them.
3) I based my opinion of the Wilsons on the Commission Report.
4/5) Fine.
6) Regimes, such as the USSR or Saddam as enemies? Yes. Peoples such as the Russians or Iraqis as enemies? No. On the other hand, I consider all Islamofascists/jihadii as pure enemies.
UNMOVIC could verify neither the presence nor absence of WMD. They could only report that they have found some and supervised the destruction/disposal of said weapons. As for the rest, only time would tell, given Saddam’s games of hide & seek and/or procedural processes. Unfortunately, Saddam ran out of the time mandated by the UN. http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/SC7asdelivered.htm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030308-1.html
7) That’s news? It’s been part of the overall big picture for taking down Saddam. With regards to AQ, we only need to look to history. Where was AQ when the Russians were fighting in Afghanistan? Where was AQ when we had our little Somalia adventure? Where was AQ when Clinton fought the Serbs to end the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia/Kosovo? Where was AQ when US Forces lodged in Saudi? Where was AQ during the rash of slayings in Algiers? Where was AQ while Russia was fighting Chechen rebels. Where was AQ when Arabs were sniffing around US bases in Germany looking for nukes and portable weapons? Where was AQ when we sanctioned Sudan? Where was AQ when two embassies were simultaneously attacked in Africa. Where was AQ when the Chechens took the fight to Moscow? Where was AQ when a bunch of German tourists were slaughtered in Djerba? Where was AQ when we berthed the USS Cole?
Now then, where would AQ be if we attacked Iraq? Where would AQ be if the Chechen rebels attacked a Russian school?
They screwed up 80,000 dollars? Yeah. Indeed.
“My guess is that either the guy made an honest mistake, or he knew he had the inventory that day and told moveon.org they would get the placement so he would get the order.”
Never mind that the moveon guy said there were no discussion of a stand-by ad.
*echoes Andy*
1) I don’t think it takes a nefarious mind to think that there is something disingenuous about a General, who is down the chain of command from the CIC, writing an op-ed article shortly before a close election which would inevitably benefit the CIC. Your suggestion is that he just felt like expressing his opinion, which happened to be wildly optimistic, happened to help the incumbent President, and happened to be six weeks before the election?
Moreover, if we are willing to use the same standard of statistical reliability for weathermen as we do to invade other countries, God help us all.
2) If the Iraqi government coalesces into a viable government in the short or intermediate term future, then I will be happy to admit that I was wrong and the surge turned out to succeed. If six or nine months pass, another 500 soldiers die, and the government is where it is today, what will you do?
3) The Democrats did not make the benchmarks. The Iraqis and the Bush administration did. “Reid and co.” had nothing to do with them.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html
4) We did not invade Russia. I’m not sure what your point is. My point is that we invaded a country whose people never asked us to do a thing. By what right do we invade a country which never attacked us?
5) Blix and El Baradei were both quoted as being very skeptical about the putative existence of WMD in Iraq.
6) I’m not sure what your point is about Al Qaeda. As a result of our invasion of Iraq, there are 3700 dead Americans, many more wounded, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dead Iraqis, two million displaced Iraqi refugees (something Crocker didn’t see fit to mention in his testimony – nor would he mention the fact that we won’t let any of them come here), and the world justifiably views America as a belligerent and aggressive country. Balance this with the fact that as a direct result of our invasion, Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. The only way to solve terrorism is to make sure there aren’t any more terrorists, and we’ve given bin Laden a recruiting gift he could only dream of.
Now tell me that our invasion of Iraq has something to do with defeating Al Qaeda.
7) I’m also puzzled as to exactly what the problem is with the New York Times. Is the suggestion that the Times only runs advocacy ads for people it likes? (Demonstrably false: a typical issue has three or four advocacy ads representing all sorts of groups). Is it that moveon.org gets better rates than people the Times’s editorial board dislikes? (Also untrue: Giuliani got the same rate for his ad attacking Hillary). Moveon.org has millions of dollars: is the suggestion that the Times is so in cahoots with moveon.org that it happily gave up $80K to help them out? (Ridiculous on its face.) The Times’s own “public editor” wrote the column today criticizing the management. (Could you imagine an ombudsman at the Wall Street Journal or Fox News?) Or is it just more smokescreen to distract attention from, say, two million Iraqi refugees who are (justifiably) very angry with the United States?
Peter, I sort of feel like like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. I’ve pretty much answered all your questions and addressed your issues but you don’t answer mine, instead you toss out other canards.
1) If there was any legal improprieties in writing an editorial, legal would not have let Petraeus publish it. In any case, you say Petraeus was wildly optimistic in 04, which would seem to be valid in light of the 3 years that have elapsed since that editorial. However, as I stated, given the dynamics of that point in time that it was written, his editorial was reasonably optimistic. I invite you to re-read it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html) and point out exactly which assertions were “wildly optimistic”. Also this link nicely appends the timeline I gave you earlier. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html
Face it, of all the factors that influenced the ’04 election, Petraeus’ editorial probably did not even rank in the top 100. Outside of military circles, hardly anyone even knew of Petraeus, who at the time was simply just an Army lieutenant general, commanding the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq. He was not responsible for leading the combat operations in Iraq, he was training the Iraqis to stand up their military and he wrote from that perspective.
2) Fine on the 1st part. On the second part, we’d probably have to consider another change in strategy. But I believe that under no circumstances do we leave Iraq before we’ve exhausted every conceivable effort in making her self-reliant. Even if we have to revert to a martial law scenario similar to Germany or Japan.
You conveniently ignore the 95 Senators who wildly praised him for what he had accomplished both in his career and Iraq up to the day of his confirmation & promotion to 4 Stars. Only because Petraeus is succeeding in his primary mission to use the surge to tamp down the violence, you join the naysayers in saying “ah yes, but there still is no political gain, and by the way, what about that ’04 article?”.
With regards to Generals trying to influence political outcomes, luckily there weren’t many wars, but let’s look at GEN McClellan. Here’s a guy that was constantly reluctant to engage because he didn’t like the Army he had and wanted more troops & equipment, particularly on the Border States. Lincoln resisted firing him until after Antietam because he didn’t want to lose the support of moderate Republicans and the Peace Democrats. Ironic that in those days, the part of the Republicans pushing for linking anti-slavery to the cause were called Radical Republicans. Anyway, McClellan allowed the public think via editorials that he was fired for his view that anti-slavery cause shouldn’t be linked to the effort. That event still cost Lincoln some support in the 1862 midterms. Imagine where we’d be if Lincoln lost every seat up for election then thanks to a less than stellar, but popular General. Later on, McClellan declared the war a failure (gee, where have I heard that before) and announced he was going to run against Lincoln in ’64 as th e Antiwar Democrat.
How about the running battles that MacArthur had with Truman? Finally Truman had to fire him for insubordination. And that was the right thing to do because, as good as MacArthur was, the public spat was toxic to the war effort.
3) Did I say the Dems made the benchmarks for Iraq? I was talking about the Dems’ own hifalutin goals that they put on themselves post ’06 elections. As your link points out, the benchmarks outlined by Bush were made after consultation with the Dems. In keeping with the nefarious meme, I was offering the tinfoil crown the notion that Bush might have agreed to tougher goals than he would have preferred, thanks to the ankle-biting. My bad …
4) Huh, just because we didn’t invade Russia, didn’t mean we weren’t at war or have you forgotten the Cold War? During that time, there were many with the sentiment that a good Russky was a dead one. But then again, there were plenty that could hate the regime without hating the people. That was my point. I find Russian history fascinating and had there been any Russian language course around me, I would have taken it instead of trying to do it on my own with tapes. With luck, I’ll finally visit next month.
As for the final question, let me turn it around and ask, by what law does a country not have the right to attack another? We’re not talking civil law, but national rights.
5) For practically every quote you can find those two bureaucrats being very skeptical about the putative existence of WMD in Iraq, you can find another where they are skeptical about the opposite. Their wishy-washiness makes Kerry envious.
6) I don’t think I can be any clearer. AQ has been operational for 20 plus years now. Their operational genesis began in Afghanistan thanks to Carter. Nevertheless, their ideological genesis stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt prior to post WWI. Answer the questions and the point about AQ will crystallize. You partially touched on it by saying AQ got stronger because of us. Juxtapose the rise of Nazism, Japan’s militarism and there is a similar thread for dealing with them. It is simply inevitable, the question is when & where, preferably at a time & place of our choosing — Iraq.
As for the refugees, it would be useful to know their tribal/religious affiliations as well as when they fled. Simply 2 million means nothing without context, let alone assume they are all angry at us. I hardly imagine that the Iraqi Christians and Jews are angry at us. Considering that in 2003 we expected millions upon millions of refugees, 2 million is pretty low.
Cheers
1) The issue with Patreus is not what is legal – after all, we have a First Amendment, and he can say whatever he wants – but whether it was proper. In my view, it is improper for a sitting General to write op-ed pieces which could influence an election. It’s a great move for Patraeus to advance his career by doing what he can to help his boss – but it’s directly opposed to the tradition of a non-political military.
What statements are wildly optimistic?
“Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.” (then why are they unable to maintain security three years later?)
“Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously” (just not the Sunni leaders, who withdrew from the government – and not those leaders who are now dead because there is no security in Iraq)
“Their readiness to enter and clear the Imam Ali shrine was undoubtedly a key factor in enabling Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to persuade members of the Mahdi militia to lay down their arms and leave the shrine.” (that’s why the Mahdi army still rules much of Iraq?)
2) ““ah yes, but there still is no political gain”
That’s the reason for the surge. I don’t know how many hundreds of soldiers died since the surge started in February – however the reason to send more troops to Iraq was to achieve political gain, which obviously has not happened.
Let’s review: the electorate voted overwhelmingly in 2006 to bring troops home. Bush thumbed his nose at the American people — not to mention the Baker commission report — and did the exact opposite. He promised that sending more troops in the line of fire would finally enable the Iraqi government to coalesce. Didn’t happen. There are hundreds (thousands?) more deaths and casualties, with no progress in sight. The Iraqi governme Am I missing something?
3) Get serious. Has Bush ever consulted with Democrats? Has anything Democrats – or the American people – advocated ever changed anything he did?
4) “By what law does a country not have the right to attack another?” If a country is attacked – or faces an imminent threat of attack – then it is justified in defending itself. This was clearly not the case with Iraq.
5) I don’t see any wishy-washiness on the part of Blix and El Baradei. They clearly warned against invasion. They were right and Bush was wrong.
6) Al Qaeda did not exist in any significant degree in Iraq before we invaded. By destabilizing the country and the region, we gave them an opportunity to attack both us and innocent Iraqis. Your suggestion is that we made progress by giving them another battleground?
7) I don’t know who expected “millions and millions” of refugees, but roughly ten percent of the Iraqi population has been forced to relocate. This obviously is no big deal to you. I suggest you try to explain to someone who lost a family member or had to leave their home why we forced them to do so to find weapons which never existed.
For those who — like GCB — refer to the Times as the “old grey whore:”
Can you name an American newspaper with better news coverage than the Times? (Or — for that matter — a better sports section?)
Peter, you’ve backtracked enough to start to appear reasonable
1) It’s cool if you think it was improper to write that editorial. Bu I’ll wager that John Edward invoking Cheney’s lesbian daughter did more to damage Kerry, than Petraeus did to “help” Bush. As for the wildly optimistic statements, lessee, Petraeus wasn’t referring to Maliki’s admin, he was referring to Alawi and if you compare the two, Allawi did more given the situation he was in. As for security, as Petraeus pointed out, security forces are being stood up but the biggest problem has been a lack of equipment and infiltration by various causes. Sistani and Moqtada are rivals, with the Mahdis being supported by Iran. In hindsight, we should have put a cap in Moqtada, in any case, he was marginalized until Malik was voted in. How are any of the above relevant to what Petraeus should have known. That was the reason for the timeline, to recap major events leading up to the elections that ushered in Maliki’s govt. If that was wildly optimistic, then Thomas Edison & the Wright brothers irrationally delusional.
2) The surge did not start in Feb, it finally got full force in June when the last of the troops deployed in. Until the, it was an operational ramp-up as opposed to pre-op staging. So in a way, as the surge troops flowed into the AO, they hit the ground running, but technically, the surge was not happening until the buildup was complete.
As for the electorate, I don’t agree that it was overwhelming in favor of bringing the troops home. You ignore the saga of Joe Leiberman. More than enough conservatives sat on their hands as a demonstration of disgust at RINOs for liberal spending, immorality & greed. Statistically, it was a safe thing to do, that even if the Dems won, the odds of winning a supermajority was next to none. I doubt with so much at stake that any conservative will be sitting on their hands next year. They may hold their nose, but they are going to pull the lever for the candidate that is anti-amnesty & pro-Iraq and that eliminates any of the Far-left and/or anti-war candidates.
3) Now you’re being forgetful. Bush has collaborated more often with the Dems than not. How else would that hideous No Child Left Behind, Kennedy’s pet project, come into being? The Dems have always been a factor in his decision process because of the votes required to pass anything. That’s why David Obey called the liberal activists a bunch of idiots — It takes a certain # of votes to get anything done. Thanks to the wisdom of we-the-people, enough Bluedog Dems were sent to DC to help Bush push thru vital national security issues while looking out as best can for traditional liberal issues. Bush doesn’t need to deal with maddog Reid, when he can win over more reasonable bluedogs.
4) It was justified and we even had the grudging blessings of that useless UN. Yeah, the one and same that “managed” the Oil For Food program that enabled Saddamn to build out his weapons while greasing UN officials & friends
5) You ignore half their story. And they’re doing a bangup job of waffling on NoKo & Iran. I also imagine that they were simply shocked, shocked that Syria even had the goods without them even being aware. Just as they were blindsided by how advanced Kaddafi was until he decided to come clean and seek Bush’s good graces.
6) My point is that wherever there is political strife involving Muslims, you’ll find AQ in the mix. It stood to reason, that if we move to take Saddam, AQ would move in to get what they could for their own objectives. Just as they have recently moved into Palestine & Lebanon, even tho there are no US targets in those countries. Simply put, AQ are opportunists seeking to leverage chaos anywhere into a bloodfest.
7) We expected millions and millions of refugees. That’s why in addition to the tons of body bags, we also stockpiled tons of refugee relief equipment. In fact, one of Turkey & Jordan’s conditions for supporting the takedown was that we provide logistical & equipment support for the expected refugees. Much like FEMA’s stockpile of Katrina relief supplies sitting around going to waste, our refugee supplies are rotting and collecting dust in the desert.
Flip your last statement around and ask the millions of refugees from Saddam’s regime if they’re mad at the US. If they say yes, it’s probably because they’re mad at Papa Bush for not taking Saddam down the 1st time around and worse, implying he would support a domestic uprising by the Shias, then doing nothing while Saddam crushed the revolt.
Until I see good numbers on the Iraqis forced to flee because of Dubya, I’m disinclined to believe that this is significant enough to tip the scales of balance. If anything, the majority of pissed-at-Bush-Iraqis are Sunnis and they’re pissed that they can no longer lord it over the Kurds & Shia.
Andy, I willI, give you credit for being a spirited opponent. I think your head is up your you-know-what, but you are a bright guy and your reasoning holds water Regrettably, as riveting as this colloquy may be, I will have to leave it where it is, as I will be travelling for the next few days and I will have limited Internet access (if any). I’m off to the airport now and I don’t have time to respond. Good luck to you & I look forward to other discussions with you soon.
‘
Peter, have a safe trip and till then.