“Our troops have earned more time”
Democrat Rep. Brian Baird is one of the most liberal members of Congress. Last week, he made headlines and angered moonbats after returning from Iraq and concluding that precipitous withdrawal would be disastrous. Today, he has an op-ed in the Seattle Times elaborating on the need to stay and fight despite his initial opposition to the war:
The invasion of Iraq may be one of the worst foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. As tragic and costly as that mistake has been, a precipitous or premature withdrawal of our forces now has the potential to turn the initial errors into an even greater problem just as success looks possible.
As a Democrat who voted against the war from the outset and who has been frankly critical of the administration and the post-invasion strategy, I am convinced by the evidence that the situation has at long last begun to change substantially for the better. I believe Iraq could have a positive future. Our diplomatic and military leaders in Iraq, their current strategy, and most importantly, our troops and the Iraqi people themselves, deserve our continued support and more time to succeed.
I understand the desire of many of our citizens and my colleagues in Congress to bring the troops home as soon as possible. The costs have been horrific for our soldiers, their families, the Iraqi people and the economy. If we keep our troops on the ground we will lose more lives, continue to spend billions each week, and, given the history and complex interests of the region, there is no certainty that our efforts will succeed in the long run. We must be absolutely honest about these costs and risks and I am both profoundly saddened and angry that we are where we are.
Knowing all this, how can someone who opposed the war now call for continuing the new directions that have been taken in Iraq? The answer is that the people, strategies and facts on the ground have changed for the better and those changes justify changing our position on what should be done.
I imagine that the the Seattle Times staffers who were cheering Karl Rove’s resignation will not be cheering Brian Baird.
More:
Our soldiers are reclaiming ground and capturing or killing high-priority targets on a daily basis. Sheiks and tribal groups are uniting to fight against the extremists and have virtually eliminated al-Qaida from certain areas. The Iraqi military and police are making progress in their training, taking more responsibility for bringing the fight to the insurgents and realizing important victories. Businesses and factories that were once closed are being reopened and people are working again. The infrastructure is gradually being repaired and markets are returning to life.
Without question, these gains are still precarious and there are very real and troubling problems with the current Iraqi political regime and parliament at the national level.
The Iraqis are addressing these problems along with our own State Department but these issues will not easily be resolved and could, if not solved, throw the success of the entire endeavor into jeopardy.
Those problems notwithstanding, to walk away now from the recent gains would be to lose all the progress that has been purchased at such a dear price in lives and dollars. As one soldier said to me, “We have lost so many good people and invested so much, It just doesn’t make sense to quit now when we’re finally making progress. I want to go home as much as anyone else, but I want this mission to succeed and I’m willing to do what it takes. I just want to know the people back home know we’re making progress and support us.”
A related must-read: Greyhawk responds to the NYTimes op-ed by a group of 82d Airborne NCOs.
Via Vets for Freedom, a new ad campaign from Freedom’s Watch.
And in case you missed it, here’s a reminder of upcoming events and activities in Washington, D.C. in a few weeks: The return of the Eagles.
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Other views…
The LATimes reports:
he chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.
Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.
And GOP Sen. John Warner wants pullouts by Christmas.
Charles Krauthammer boils down what he sees as the “Iraqi convergence” and the path forward:
[C]ontinuing the surge while finally trying to change the central government is the most rational choice because the only available alternative is defeat — a defeat that is not at all inevitable and that would be both catastrophic and self-inflicted.
AllahPundit points to the op-ed the NYTimes wouldn’t publish and has more on Pace, the NIE, and what Iyad Allawai is up to.
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Trackbacks
- Wake up America
- Mudville Gazette
- Bill's Bites
- Rep. Baird comes through : thought cops
- Don’t Miss This at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source.
- Think Progress » Baird Turns To Conservative Media To Push New, Pro-Escalation Iraq Position
- Minefeed.com
- Radio Left
- Michelle Malkin » The Left bashes Brian Baird
- Michelle Malkin » Not joining the Katie-bashing just yet…plus, a shout-out to the citizen embeds who don’t make the nightly news
- PianoStrumenti
- Michelle Malkin » Another Democrat visits Iraq, sees success…and will soon be a MoveOn punching bag
- Michelle Malkin » “Why Obama must go to Iraq”
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Categories: Iraq
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if only that stinking peter pace weren’t such a chicken, we might win this thing.
Getting slapped square in the face with the truth will knock out the fog of repeated lies and rhetoric?….Well I’ll be!
Why would we listen to Peter Pace? Didn’t Petraeus take over Pace’s job because it wasn’t producing results?
I have a feeling that all this talk from the Senators of late will be seen as craven politicking and nothing more, once Gen. Petraeus testifies before Congress. At that point some of the defeatists will sense that the political ground under their feet has shifted, and they must shift with it. The Kossacks will be marginalized, and it will make them even more furious and intemperate. This will hurt the Democrats in ‘08, and it will be fun watching them try to squirm away from the last two years of rhetoric that has been so destructive to this effort, while the nutroots demand they hold the line on defeat. The people of this country don’t want Markos running our foreign policy, and the Democrats know it. When the worm turns and they have to jog back to the center, Kos and his minions will absolutely freak out. I can’t wait!
This has become boilerplate language, the preface to every statement a Democrat makes once the do (another) 180 degree turnaround and support the war again.
I wonder, when will someone make them explain that comment? If we win (perish the thought!) we’ll have removed a genocidal dictator and replaced it with some kind of representative government. We’ll also have replaced an implacable enemy with a friend.
The Democrats now seem to be acknowledging that such an outcome is possible. So how, exactly, does that work out to be one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in history?
No. General Pete Pace is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which makes him the primary military advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the President.
General David Petraeus is the Commander of Multi National Forces-Iraq, which means he’s the top guy in Iraq. Above him in theater is the commander of Central Command, who is also over the operation in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. The new guy there is Adm. William J. Fallon, who reports to the SecDef and the President.
That’s the chain of command, and they have to follow it pretty strictly.
It is way too early to classify Iraq as the worst foreign-policy mistake in the history of our nation when we don’t even know what the end result of the campaign will be.
Of course, he had to say that so that he could cover his backside.
The important thing to take away from this is that Baird has actually recognized the reality of the situation and sees the promise that success in Iraq holds.
That is my point exactly. It’s not about Iraq, or our soldiers or the GWOT. It’s pure domestic politics driving everything these people have said for three years. Someday that’s going to bite them in their a$$e$, and I hope it’s November 2008.
If winning means achieving your goals, the war was lost many years ago. The goal of “disarming Saddam of WMD” proved illusory and resulted in the invasion being an unprovoked aggression that killed many needlessly, sullied the honor of the United States for decades to come, and resulted in most Moslems worldwide taking a negative view of the U.S., which will no doubt fuel anti-U.S. terrorism for decades. The expectation that Iraqis would greet us with garlands of flowers and soak up democracy also proved illusory.
That leaves us with the question, can we win the spin, i.e., the new goals defined by constant lowering of expectations?
1. Yes, the powerful U.S. military can suppress the insurgency, as Saddam suppressed Kurdish and Shiite insurgents, or the French crushed Algerian resistance. Is this winning?
2. Will Iraq be a stable democracy? The odds are against it. According to Gen. Odom, only about 20% of forced democracies have been successful, and there are generally special factors involved in the successful transitions, such as the extreme law-abiding nature of the Germans and Japanese making democracy realizable after WWII. Political correctness aside, culture determines democracy, and the Iraqi culture is rife with factors antithetical to democracy. Probably a reasonably moderate strongman rule is the best we could hope for in Iraq. Without the tight control of Saddam, terrorism will blossom in Iraq, and the destruction and death in the country will make the Iraqi people hostile to the U.S. and Israel for the next century.
I know not everyone agrees with Bush. If you heard or read his speech at the VFW, Bush had a great list of nay-sayers from previous conflicts (WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War) and showed how wrong they all were. History will show the nay-sayers we are dealing with now to be all wrong as well.
I think this was his way of trying ease into the heretical subject of “stay the course” in Iraq to his liberal base. He was placating his audiance to avoid the proverbial rotten tomato toss.
At least he was honest. I’ll give him that. Took a lot of Chutzpa to face the music (and his party) say this publically.
I think Congressman Baird will be proven wrong just as those who believed the Bush/military “light at the end of the tunnel” (how like Vietnam) stories have been in the past.
Note what he says: Bush was wrong to invade. We would be better off if he had not. The pretext for invasion was lies (WMD, involvement in 9/11). They bungled the war and are in general incompetent. Why should we stay in? Because leaving would cause even more hardship for Iraq. Heckuvajob Bushie.
I don’t think he’s chicken, just realistic. The current force is too small to maintain all of the commitments we’ve currently made.
The problem with Pace is that he wants to take the easy way out and declare defeat in Iraq.
What we should be discussing are alternative solutions to the problem, either increase the level of our forces through a draft or pull our troops out of other areas, that no longer need us. Japan, Korea, Bosnia, Germany etc. But since (with the possible exception of Bosnia) most of those units are already cycling through Iraq and Afghanistan as it is.
But declaring a 50% draw down next year gets us back to telling Al Qaeda and the insurgents to hold on a little longer and they win.
If Gen Pace thinks we can only sustain the level in Iraq until the middle of next year, we need to start the drafting and training of troops now so they’ll be ready by spring.
But we won’t, because the Demoncrats refuse to acknowledge that we are at war, and therefore there is no need to be on a war footing (ala WWII).
Draft soldiers, convert factories into weapons manufacturing plants, and fight to win.
Yes lgm, no matter what happens around the world, it’s all an excuse to smear the President with more DNC sponsored talking points.
Nobody “lied” us into war. This has been proven by several Congressional panels. But no one on your side cares, as long as your talking points work to damage a sitting President.
Do you think you were “lied to” by the intelligence services of every one of our allies and even some not so friendly countries?
Countries whose intel services concurred with our CIA that Iraq had WMD stockpiles, and the means to manufacture more quickly:
Great Britain
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
The Netherlands
Sweden
Norway
Jordan
Egypt
Isreal
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
United Arab Emirates
Russia
China
Were all these governments in on Cheney’s conspiracy? Or are you just full of crap?
I love how libs like to quote generals when it suits them and call into question their integrity when a general says something a lib doesn’t want to hear.
And way to drink the kool-aid lgm. Involvement in 9/11 was never a pretext for Iraq. And guess what, even if Saddam wasn’t developing WMD’s at the time, he still had some (see the Santorum), he still had the capability of restarting the program, and given Iran’s insistance on making nukes, it’s likely that he would have reconstitued the program.
and out of the other corner of your mouth I’m sure your’re saying we should get involved in Darfur. Seems like dems only care out people when it promotes their political agenda.
My hat is off to you. Managing to fit that much error and distortion into a single paragraph is an astounding feat.
1) Saddam did have banned weapons. There was no warehouse full of neatly stacked crates labeled “WMD”, but we’ve found plenty of chemical weapons.
1a) Even if that weren’t true the invasion was justified because the burden was on Saddam to prove he didn’t have them. He never seriously attempted to do so. Quite the opposite, he went out of his way to make everyone believe he had them. His ruse was so successful that every intelligence agency in the world fell for it.
1b) and even if that weren’t true, to call the invasion “unprovoked” is to display an ignorance of the last 20 years that is nothing short of pathetic.
2) Our “aggression” has resulted in civilian casualties, as all wars do. But the number of lives saved by deposing Saddam outnumbers them by an order of magnitude. It’s a net gain in innocent lives.
3) Islamic terrorism isn’t fueled by anything we do. It sustains itself on nostalgia for the seventh century and the warped dream of a worldwide caliphate. An appalling list of attacks and attempted attacks happened before we invaded Iraq, many of them during the administration of uber-statesmen Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Again, your grasp of history seems tenuous at best.
I realize I’ve wasted my time writing this, because the actual facts of the situation clearly matter less to you than your hatred of Bush / neocons / whomever. Such is the net, I guess.
The pretext for invasion was lies (WMD, involvement in 9/11).
Show me where anyone in the Bush administration said Saddam had a hand in 9/11.
Honestly, I want to see it. Give me a link, or a speech transcript I can check. I mean, your side of the debate has said this so many times I can only assume you have such information right at your fingertips.
No no. Let the people in Darfur fight it out themselves. Who do we think we are, to just butt into another country’s business? If there are humanitarian crises, that is what the great United Nations is for, it’s not our concern. Since Iraq was such a mistake, there is no way that doing anything in Darfur can ever make sense. After all they have a Muslim government, and we can’t afford to make them mad at us, can we? Also they have a petroleum industry, so any intervention in Darfur would be just another Halliburton oil-stealing operation, raping the natural resources of another country full of brown people. If we really care about Darfur, the best thing to do is keep our bungling, incompetent military far away from those people, because everywhere the U.S. military goes, disaster is sure to follow, right?
If they’re going to steal the oil I wish they’d get on with it already. I’m tired of spending $40 to fill my Mustang!
hey Alphonse, sounds like you really enjoy your kool aid.
Everyone said we couldn’t win in Vietnam, but I never lost a single battle during my tour of duty yet we sure did lose the war. Why, because the folks back home didn’t have a clue that we were actually winning the war in country. If we hadn’t been abandoned by the pols back home, South Vietnam would have been a democratic ally today. Of that I am convinced.
The MSM is doing their part to lose this war just like their counterparts did in the 60’s and 70’s. But, what do I know, I only fought in Vietnam until I was hurt more than a year later.
Damn straight, where the heck is our cheap stolen oil? I’ve had to slow down my diabolical plan to destroy the environment with my truck, because of financial considerations. Fat lotta good my membership in the VRWC is doing me. Might have to get a refund on my dues from Rove.
I’m sure Warner’s comments have nothing to do with him being up for reelection in 08. This idiot needs to be tossed out.
Historically the US has always performed poorly in the beginning stages of any war we have ever fought. It is a miracle we even won our independence from England and continued to survive as a nation due to numerous set backs in any of our wars. The invasion of Canada during the open shots of the War of 1812 was a total disaster and we suffered the burning of the Federal capital and almost lost New Orleans, but for the strong defense cobbled together under the leadership of Andrew Jackson. The numerous opportunities lost by Union forces all the way from the First Battle of Bull Run to the Siege of St. Petersburg during the Civil War cost our country a very steep price in blood and treasure. We had our butts handed to us at Kasserine Pass in our first real fight with the Nazis in WWII, but came back to kick their butts all the way back to Germany at a terrific cost. If not for luck the last of our carrier groups in the Pacific were almost lost at the Battle of Midway. How many families would not exist today had not Harry Truman had the political will to us Fat Man and Little Boy. We still continue win on the battlefield because we eventually weed out inferior leadership, change our tactics, and develop new technologies to survive.
From my own observations of what we are up against our countries political leadership must call out Syria and Iran for their continued meddling in Iraq. There is more US blood on the hands of Iran than I care to think of. One swift strike with our superior Air Forces could decapitate the leadership of Syria and Iran in a single strike and over a very short air campaign destroy their military capability to the point the populations of those countries could finally retake their countries from the oppressive regimes that rule them now. Not one US GI need step foot on their soil or over fly their airspace with our arsenal of precision stand-off conventional weapons. Once their overt aid to the Islamist is cut off it would complement the gains made during the surge allowing us to leave a stable Iraq in a few short years. If anyone wonders we still have us forces in place in Germany and Japan since 1945 (67 years after we won WWII). Why?
I say this as a retired USAF aviator who full understands the capability of our nation’s air power. It is time we project it and fight this war to win. This struggle of civilizations is for all the marbles and we need to fight like our lives and those of our children, and grandchildren count on nothing other than total victory, because they do.
The weaklings, cowards, and traitors in this country need to sit down, shut up, and let our Military win this thing. They are a professional all volunteer force who understand their mission and know they can win and in my opinion the best in the world at doing their jobs, blowing things up and breaking things.
Rant Off! I fill much better now.
James Felix asks:
It is a famous Bush tactic never to make explicit factual claims or policy proposals in a way they can’t be walked away from later. The minions do the real talking. There’s the famous Rice “mushroom cloud” quote. And, from the Vice President from a long ago Washington Post article:
Bear in mind that I found this on my first try by googling: “cheney 9/11 ties”
So, in other words, you have no way to support a claim you repeatedly make.
Glad we cleared that up.
By the way I used Google too, and was able to find plenty of quotes like this:
Maybe I’m just a knuckle-dragging neocon, but that sounds like a pretty explicit factual claim to me.
I think maybe the reason Cheney said that was because it’s true. AQ (and other terrorist groups) were given shelter and aid by Saddam for years. That isn’t the same thing as saying Saddam was involved in 9/11, and it’s not Cheney’s fault if the Left is populated by dolts who are unable to grasp that.
OK OK…so there was no picture of Al Qaeda with their arm around Hussein…BUT, there is plenty of factual proof that Al Qaeda leadership were repeat visitors to Iraq prior to the 9/11 and after. Now, I firmly do not believe that they were there for a vacation or for the food! Do I know that they worked with the Hussein’s government (or even saddam himself)? No, I don’t, BUT, there is more proof that they did meet with someone in the government, then there is proof that Bush lied (yeah yeah, and people died)…or even Cheney…so just get over it…and that Bush and company botched the war!…ridiculous…the war was executed with outstanding precision…it’s the after effects that we are struggling with…and there were some mistakes, but war is not an exact science…a famous German general once said, “war is chaos, that’s why the Americans are so good at it”…NO WAR WILL GO AS PLANNED, it’s that simple. Could we have done better, hell yes, did the administration make some errors, hell yes…but we are all Americans, and helping defeat this muslim terrorist scum is very important, working against the administration doesn’t really help anything, but just shows your narrow sighted, bush hating mentality…heck, I’m not happy with a bunch of stuff Bush did, but he’s still the our leader, and from where I sit, he is a hell of a lot better then if Kerry were in office.
Translation: “I can’t back up what I said earlier.” Logical Fallacies: Appeal to emotion; False light.
Translation: “Look over there! Dick Cheney! Boo!” Logical Fallacies: Changing the subject; Non-sequitur. The inquiry was whether the administration claimed that Hussein’s regime had any connection with 9/11, per your earlier false statement, and not whether Hussein’s regime had ties to al Qaeda.
Mental laziness is the hobgoblin of liberal minds; its handmaiden is the apparent lack of capacity for any kind of embarrassment. This kind of la-de-da sloppiness may win you applause at places like the Huffington Post, DailyKos and Democrat Underground, but not everybody here is as lazy as you are and they are.
I forgot to point out another reason this isn’t true. Bush actually laid out his reasons for attacking Iraq the day after we started
Is that enough of a reason for you?
Oh, wait… I’m being careless. Bush didn’t say that in 2003. Bill Freaking Clinton said it in 1998. I don’t remember any howls of outrage on the Left when he made removing Saddam official US policy. Yet somehow you people have morphed Saddam into a victim here. That’s disgusting.
Even if 9/11 had never happened, deposing Saddam was a just end in and of itself. No matter how hard you try to deny it now, there was a time when the Democrats thought so too. But doing the right thing matters less to you than who gets the credit.
Again, disgusting.
Alphonse #8
I put up some comments in response to your opinions in hopes it can widen the discussion beyond winning and losing. Bottom line for me is that the decision to go to war in Iraq is perhaps the most prudent foreign policy decision in the last 30 years.
The US is being outvoted by the UN and other supranational “governing” bodies around the world that are bowing to Islamic fundamentalism and jihadists.
In effect, Bush called the world’s bluff- particularly Europe’s. Islam has the US military in its backyard. How much can Islam take before it’s facade cracks and it’s followers realize that more of the world is not Islamic and not quite as vulnerable as their leaders have said we are.
This is the spirit with which I am offering my comments.
1. On August 24th, 2007 at 11:39 am, Alphonse said:
Alphonse saidIf winning means achieving your goals, the war was lost many years ago. The goal of “disarming Saddam of WMD” proved illusory and resulted in the invasion being an unprovoked aggression that killed many needlessly, sullied the honor of the United States for decades to come, and resulted in most Moslems worldwide taking a negative view of the U.S., which will no doubt fuel anti-U.S. terrorism for decades. The expectation that Iraqis would greet us with garlands of flowers and soak up democracy also proved illusory.
Saddam is gone and so is his likely WMD program. Look to Iran as a reasonable barometer of Saddam’s intentions re WMDs.
Did Saddam have missiles in silos ready to launch? No. But does any rational, politically sane thinker really believe Saddam would allow Iran’s build up to continue unchallenged without a program of his own?
Saddam is gone and so is any threat of Saddam becoming a nuclear commander in chief.
–Also, NEWS FLASH! Muslims around the world had “a negative view of the US” before the Twin Towers went down.
Europe had already done plenty to placate Palestine’s grievances against Israel from the moment they found out the US would pay for Europe’s defense.
So that is how we have been repaid: “Intifada” in Palestine since the 40s and now in Brooklyn.
That negative view has been in place for some time. When was the first Sauid financed Madrassa built in the USA?
-Finally, I don’t think anybody but a full-fledged ninny would even think that Iraqis were going to greet US troops with garlands with immediate intent to bask in a US style democracy.
But this has been the slam particularly from the Left against the noble intentions and plausible impacts of a world hyperpower being able to assert a lasting influence on the world’s political institutions.
The USA has raised the political bar in the Middle East.
Even in Pakistan, Musharraf is being told by non-Jihadist parties that he should let go of his military rank and move into a civilian based government if the nation is going to survive the jihadist threat.
That is what the USA is doing in Iraq- influencing the entire region.
-I have said it before here that the USA is running the table in the Middle East. Iraq will take 50 years to stabilize itself. The USA took 30, then got invaded by the British, stumbled for 4 more decades and erupted into a bloody Civil War that killed millions and destroyed the agrarian infrastructure of the South for a good 30 years.
Democracy is not some walk in the park. But the fruits are unsurpassed
as compared with any other form of government yet tried in history of the world.
Democracy is hard work, sometimes
bloody. The turn of fortunes in Iraq of late indicate that Iraqis know the difference between murder and the promise of prosperity without fear.
Alphonse said:That leaves us with the question, can we win the spin, i.e., the new goals defined by constant lowering of expectations?
The only expectations being lowered are in the Left’s camp where traitorous Senators and Representatives will have to eat crow for condemning our military as a group and ridiculing the integrity of our fighting men and women.
And if anybody believes that this will not be used against the entire Democratic party in 08, I’d like to sell you that Bridge in Brooklyn.
Also, there is the lowering of expectations of Pelosi and Company who believed they could bully the Office of the President of the United States into leaving the field to the Jihadist enemy. Not a chance.
-Were the goals of Bremer and company at the beginning of the campaign overzealous and simplistic? I’d have to say yes.
But does getting realistic mean expectations are being lowered?
I prefer dealing with what is. Tell me the process is going to be long and bloody, unpredictable and filled with setbacks. I will accept this. And I for one have heard that since we went in.
For the morons who watched the war on the news and thought the war would be over by the end of the first half of the game, I say your displeasure is as great as your moronic predisposition.
To those who yelled “QUAGMIRE” the minute the tank tread stopped turning upon entering Baghdad, I say their displeasure is as deep as that purple goo coating their brains making it impossible for them to comprehend the logistics of what our Nation has so ably undertaken.
Alphonse said1. Yes, the powerful U.S. military can suppress the insurgency, as Saddam suppressed Kurdish and Shiite insurgents, or the French crushed Algerian resistance. Is this winning?
Is this a meaningful question. It is beside the point. If you are building a house in open country, do you ask “are we done yet?” when the trees have been felled and the stumps pulled out? Heck no. That’s inane.
I think the question to continually be asked with respect is “Are we doing things right?”
Petraeus the fighting general asked that question over and over until he sold the surge strategy to the right person: Commander in Chief GW Bush.
Peter Pace? Out on his keester where he belongs- a political general with a political agenda to build his resume. Out!
Petraeus will rise beyond his present grade to continue serving because he will continue to ask the correct questions “Are we doing things right?” “Are we doing the right things for the right reasons?” And “Are we doing the right things at the right time?”
2. Will Iraq be a stable democracy? The odds are against it. According to Gen. Odom, only about 20% of forced democracies have been successful, and there are generally special factors involved in the successful transitions, such as the extreme law-abiding nature of the Germans and Japanese making democracy realizable after WWII. Political correctness aside, culture determines democracy, and the Iraqi culture is rife with factors antithetical to democracy. Probably a reasonably moderate strongman rule is the best we could hope for in Iraq. Without the tight control of Saddam, terrorism will blossom in Iraq, and the destruction and death in the country will make the Iraqi people hostile to the U.S. and Israel for the next century.
This is thinking in a vacuum. Germany had been an imperial nation up to the First World War.
Japan was a monarchy up to the end of the Second World War.
Germany’s first experiment in Democracy bred Adolf Hitler.
Japan was culturally isolated from the rest of Asia during her re-birth as a democratic state.
And it took almost 20 years of US control following the war to rebuild its infrastructure and graft democratic values into the institutions of state in order for them to take hold.
It wasn’t the nature of Germans or Japanese. It was the partnership with the United States of America. (It was the nature of American colonists either in our case. There is a long history of people and groups in this country that want to turn it into something other than a democracy- look at the agenda of the elites in this country today.)
-“Tight control”? Do you mean murder, rape, and imprisonment without trial? What do you think has fueled the Iraqi version of this terrorism? A lack of Saddam? No sir.
It is the transnationalist power of Islam as a political identity.
This will be the battle in Iraq for some time until the true nature of the imams and mullahs-in-waiting are exposed as the corrupt petty thieves they are. Their followers will be hostile to the US and Israel de facto.
Fighting them and building infrastructure (like what is happening now) is the only way to nurture the societal arrangement that gives rise to democracy which sifts out the religious control of business, government and gainful education.
And remember, 50 per cent of the population is not seen as a whole person (women)- there is great promise in the emergence of women in Iraq as political players (not feminist puff pieces who are focused on abortion, gay rights, and universal preschool)….but as people who can hold political office, work, earn wages, start businesses, organize communities, serve the public good, and raise families without fear of street and domestic violence as rationalized by Islam.
-There is more to hope for. There is more to partner for. We have to be willing to fight for it and start something in Islam’s own backyard that will outflank this abysmal Islamic 8th century myth-fest about the Hidden Imam.
Syria, Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon- NEXT! Run the table.
I meant to include this above but carelessly cut it off.
Fact: In 1998 the Democrats, led by the POTUS, declared their intention to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Fact: The Democrats today oppose the decision to have removed Saddam. It is one of their defining characteristics.
As I see it there are only four possible ways to explain this disparity:
1)The Democrats believe their rhetoric today, and in 1998 they shamefully supported our attack on a non-threatening nation for base political reasons or…
2) The Democrats believed what they said eight years ago, and are today shamefully opposing our attack on a threatening nation for base political reasons or…
3)The Democrats honestly believed what they said both times, meaning that to them 9/11 somehow made it less urgent that we topple terror-supporting regimes or…
4)The Democrats have no actual beliefs on this matter, don’t care at all about this country or the lives of its citizens, and will simply say or do anything if they think it will help them gain power.
I know which one I think it is, but if there’s a fifth option I’m missing I’d love to hear it.
you are rockin the Casbah today, Baby!
it’s like my dad always tells me, the troops didn’t lose in vietnam, it was the generals and the politicians, and the american public, and everyone else in the world who lined up against the united states that lost vietnam. he’s right.
Look, the Bush strategy obviously was to imply that Saddam had a hand in 9/11 without directly saying so. Over and over he’s asked why invading Iraq was part of the “war on terror” and answers that Saddam had ties with Al Qaida. It would not be cause for invasion if sometime somewhere someone from Iraqi official met someone from Al Qaida but nothing came of it.
If you’re saying “we did A because of B”, that means B had something pretty major to do with A. Here, that means that Saddam had something pretty major to do with 9/11.
It’s one of my frustrations with our supposedly liberal press that they never forced Bush to give straight answers. The NYTimes should have had a headline: “BUSH HINTS WITHOUT EVIDENCE THAT SADDAM WAS BEHIND 9/11″. Maybe 3000 American young men and women in uniform would still be living if it had.
and my dad always taught me to ask “WHY?”….why do these nations line up against the USA? What is in it for them? And for the Jane Fondas and the John Kerry’s and the Susan Sarandon’s? What is in it for them?
I am re-reading Mark Steyn’s “America Alone”. (I bought it 2 weeks ago- I am on my third read. The arguments are worth getting down pat.)
Steyn provides a very clear answer why- and it is important to know the answer now, more than ever
Sorry, but you don’t get to make an unsupported assertion, admit that you can’t support it, and then claim that it’s nonetheless obviously true. That’s not how logical, honest debate works.
Claiming that Iraq is part of the WoT (a point Al Qaeda obviously agrees with) is not the same thing as saying Saddam was involved in 9/11. Your insistence that it is betrays an idealogical blind spot. That’s obviously true.
I don’t know anyone who thinks the Normandy landings were unrelated to Pearl Harbor. I also don’t know anyone who thinks the Germans were responsible for Pearl Harbor (students of Faber College notwithstanding).
Wrong. Utterly, provably wrong.
Ever heard of Megan’s Law? It was passed because of what was done to Megan Kanka. Do you think the thousands of registered sex offenders all had a hand in her death? I don’t.
Heard of the Brady Law? I had to go through a waiting period to buy each of my guns, but no one thinks I’m the guy that shot James Brady.
I could obviously go on, but the point should be clear. We often do “B” not because it directly caused “A” but because we want to prevent another “A” from happening.
Think you can wrap your head around that? Try really hard.
LGM#32
3000 soldiers have been killed in a war that is very misunderstood by some in this country- not the least by executives at the New York Times who haven’t correlated the death of their newspaper and their egregious conduct during this war.
Some people believe that the case for war is a legal case built on smoking gun evidence and incriminating deeds by evildoers. Defenders of this way of thinking cite platitudes about justice and human rights for even the most vile and wretched who walk the Earth; and, it includes Saddam’s psychopathic murdering rapist sons Uday and Hooday (sp?).
Why? Saddam deserved to be liquidated after he defaulted on a $10 billion loan that initiated Gulf War I. When Saddam thumbed his nose to the US and its global partners (it was an Italian bank which ate that loan) it was a very *unpublicized* act in the West (see if you can find anything about Banco Lavorro Natzionale in their archives) especially by the liberal media.
But that loan default was a watershed moment in the Middle East war against the west. $10 billion bucks gone at the whim of a narcisstic megalomaniac. Bush Sr. should have gone in right then and taken him out. But he decided to play footsie over Kuwait. At least he acted.
Saddam’s transgressions during Clinton’s years culminated in the bombings Clinton ordered. Bush Jr. picked up where that line of thinking left off. Did Bush err by not controlling the messages he put to the public about why war was necessary? Probably. Because the American media sure had a field day with all of it. The record is clear, however, to anybody who wants to understand primary source materials (and there are warehouses of captured Saddam era documents that haven’t been declassified yet, and are still being studied to determine what Saddam had and if it could have been conceivably been taken out of the country during the run up to invasion.
The bizarre case of former Ambassador Joe Wilson and his ridiculous wife has obfuscated more of the truth about the intel available during the run up to the war. Now the mere mention of Joe Wilson in public brings up Scooter Libby and his pardon. The truth about Joe Wilson is mired in the lie about his wife being outed as a spook. But the
”gotcha” political atmosphere prevails. The Democrats want the mantle themselves to determine who goes to war and why.
But they want war the Clinton way, inconclusive while making Muslim fascists stronger in Europe and elsewhere.
Why?
History will exhonerate George W. Bush for going to war and the reasons he led us into war. The tide is turning and the historical record (not the “newspaper” record) will be given thorough study by people who are not deranged)given its just due of study, interpretation and analysis.
3000 American soldiers would still be alive if President Clinton would have done something militarily against fascist strongholds back in 1993 after WTC I. He did nothing. He did nothing after Kobar, the USS Cole and other attacks. Terrorism and national defense are inconsistent with his and Hillary’s intense desire to be loved by the European Union and its shadowy friends in the Middle East- from the political descendants of Arafat (HAMAS) and the Mullahs of Iran (HEZBOLLAH). Clinton’s anti-semitism, in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, have set precedent for wonks like Condi and her ilk to continue selling out Israel for the sake of our “standing” with the feckless and impotent French.
3000 American troops are dead because the United States of America continues to defend western civilization against the spector of Islamic fascism.
The New York Times doesn’t get it. Neither do you.
LGM:
The idea that Bush “hinted” that Saddam was behind 9/11 is a tired, old, canard.
The left has such a low opinion of the intelligence of the American people that if Bush mentions 9/11 and Saddam in the same speech they accuse him of trying to connect the two and trying to “fool” the voters. Has Bush used 9/11 to justify Iraq? Why yes he has. We probably wouldn’t have gone into Iraq if 9/11 didn’t happen. Why shouldn’t he use it to point out that we can’t allow threats like Saddam to exist after 3,000 of our citizens died as a result of a terrorism he supports not to mention the belief - widely shared all over the world - that he had WMD?
The closest any Administration official ever came to saying that was Cheney on MTP when he brought up the meeting in Prague between Atta and Iraqi intel.
And Bear - what is this nonsense about a $10 billion loan being a proximate cause for war? The Italian Bank was bailed out by the Italian government - hardly a catastrophe and something that central banks do all the time. Unless you can cite some authoritative source that even mentions the loan being used by the Administration or anyone in Congress as a causus belli, I would suggest you leave that one on the cutting room floor.
Nonsense, Moran? Let’s see who’s peddling here.
Yes, Central Banks bail out banks all the time. But when the West is playing footsie with a dictator, it isn’t quite the same as when Boys from Connecticut come up short on some portfolio of domestic credit.
The default is paid for somewhere by somebody. And it certainly wasn’t Libya buying the loan on the secondary market, now was it?
So let’s not engage in simplistic band-aid economic thinking about “bailouts”.
Defaults are bad for business and $10 billion to a third rate nation with ample ability to re-pay is even worse.
But, before you jump on me with your huff-n-puff about authoritative sources read what I said.
I didn’t even refer to it as a causus belli on the part of the administration….I said “Bush Sr. should have gone in right then and taken him out.”
It’s one of those “If I ran the world” type of comments. Do you ever make those, Moran? Are you trying to tell me these are not allowed here.
Try to be clear.
Allowing a Middle East strong man to default on a loan, and then thumb his nose and the lender is not a show of strength by the West. And it played well to his intended audience- other rogue nations and entities in the Middle East.
My proposed solution then is the same as now- end his ability to do it in the future over higher stakes. I am glad we got around to it.
Are we clear now, Moran?
If you cannot decifer between my opinion and historical fact, that is your problem.
The only thing on the cutting room floor at this point is your failed attack.
Nonsense, indeed, “Rick”.
What an eye opener. Post after post denies that Bush tried to associate 9/11 with Saddam or to use it as a reason to invade Iraq. Do we live in the same country?
The invasion of Iraq is supposed to be part of the “war on terror”. This is not a war on terror in Iraq, it’s a war to keep the US safe from terrorism. You invade Iraq to keep the US safe from terrorism if you think Iraq is a source of US terrorism. Was there evidence that Iraq was a major source of terror, was planning terrorist attacks against the US? No. Yes, Saddam was a bad guy. There are bad governments around the world: Pakistan, China, Zimbabwe (really bad), Burma, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, …
No, we don’t. Most of us live in a country where you make an accusation or assertion and then prove it with some kind of evidence. You live in a country where the accusation IS the proof (as long as it’s a republican being accused of course).
A statement of such pristine ignorance I hardly know where to begin refuting it. Abu Nidal was not on summer vacation in Iraq. All those camps were not training girl scouts. And his payments to Palestinian terrorists are well documented.
Sorry to mention that. I forgot Israeli lives probably don’t count in your calculus.
So if we can’t do everything we should instead do nothing? Is that what you’re saying? Thank god you’re not police chief of my town.
bear-
I agree with the earlier posts today-whatever you are drinking, share the wealth because you have been tack on without missing a beat.
As an OIF vet, WE (the military) did find some WMD, and there is the question of what “stuff” was shipped to Syria prior to the attack.
If Scooter was guilty of more than forgetting what he said, then he would have been charged under the Espionage Act of 1939 for outing a covert agent. He didn’t, Wilson and Valerie had their jamesbondesque charade and Scooter paid the price for it.
Purgery is an easy crime to convict anyone with, all it takes is swearing to something under oath, make a mistake, and come back later to correct it and —boom!!!— You’re guilty of purgery.
OK, not to throw cold water on this, but you got to believe that sooner or later the Dems are going to take full credit of all things positive in Iraq
It’s too bad that here in the UK, Gordon Brown is too busy trying to show the public that he’s not Tony. To that end, he’s been more than happy to expedite the British withdrawal from the Basra region. Not only that, we’ve had some cabinet report that got a lot of press stating that the British should withdraw from Iraq because the US surge is going to fail. I guess this leaves the US alone in Iraq …
It is encouraging to see that some Democrats in the US are beginning to open their eyes. Let’s hope this signals a change to the way the Democrats have traditionally approached the war in Iraq.
Now what Britain needs is a 21st century Winston Churchill.
Truer words were never spoken.
Wouldn’t mind one here in America, either.
You still never answered me as to why the Democrats thought it was vital to remove Saddam in 1998.
Not that I expect you to, since there’s no way even the most deranged liberal could link it to a nefarious plan by Bush, Cheney or Rove.
What changed? Why was removing Saddam a good idea in 1998 but a bad one 2003? What happened during those five years that made it less imperative to remove a strategic threat to our country?
And let me remind you that “Bushchenyhaliburtonnobloodforoil!!” is not an acceptable answer.
This is ridiculous. The Dhims don’t know what to do. So now, faced with evidence that we are taking control in Iraq, they are slowly beginning to voice just that. But it’s all in the hope of capturing the white house in ‘08. They’re banking on folks somehow miraculously forgetting the years of “we must lose!” bull crap. How anyone can even think of voting for these shameless traitors is beyond me…
Bah! I am not even going there with the same old stupid sophomoric arguments. I am over it. We have men with their boots on the ground, living, fighting, bleeding and dying in the damned sand, and we can’t even talk about what they are achieving without it becoming a Bush-bash fest.
The fact of the matter is: Since the last pair of “surge” boots hit the sandbox we have had 3 major operations start and 2 finish. We have had Operation Arrowhead Ripper, Operation Lightening Hammer, and Operation Phantom Strike. These have been focused within the Diyala Province which has long been overrun with Al Qaeda operatives. So far, the residents of Baqubah are now free to walk around in their town. They are working to form their own security forces. Their residents are, indeed, actively fighting Al Qaeda with our forces. They don’t want Al Qaeda there.
The other operations are focusing on the Diayla province in general. They are sweeping Al Qaeda into the streets and either killing them or capturing them. They will not escape. The mantra is “Surrender OR die!” Operation Lightening Hammer just finished this past week, and was a huge success! Many Al Q leaders captured or killed, and many weapons caches seized.
We have made tremendous ground in areas that were previously run over by Al Qaeda. We have done this in less than TWO MONTHS! The truth is we needed the surge, and we needed Petraeus! Now is not the time to talk defeat or surrender. Give our men a chance. If we pull out now we are screwed, and the entire Diyala Province will have been won by Al Qaeda. Do you really want that? Trust me, you don’t.
I really wish that more politicians would pull their head away from their colon, like Baird has done, and separate their own fragile egos from the results of this war. Iraq will not be a win for Bush — it will be a win for America, and for our military. I think that a Democrat actually gets that now. He has kudos from me!
Armywife/mom, you are correct all the way! All my friends here at MM, here is the latest and greatest from my hubby (an army sf company commander):
We have really been picking up operations against the insurgent terrorists in our area and while they have assassinated a few provincial governors and police chiefs lately (a typical insurgent tactic to intimidate other local political and civic leaders to stay compliant).
We have been extremely successful of late working with our Iraqi counter-parts, employing some new, aggressive techniques to capture many of the bad guys we’ve been after here for a long time. You can tell you’re having an affect on the insurgent network and hurting their feelings when they start dropping more mortars on your compound and begin to threaten or infiltrate your local guard force. We understand though that simply capturing/eliminating bad guys cannot solve this problem alone, there will always be another strong-man/criminal/thug/terrorist to take the place of the one we just removed.
The solution lies in empowering the Government of Iraq’s security forces (police, SWAT, Army and intelligence networks) and to an even greater extent… empowering the Iraqi people at the neighborhood and tribal level. Luckily GEN Petreaus has the right strategy, which he actually takes the time to get out and about to check, at the tactical level, to ensure his strategy and intent are being implemented and supported. This is a similar trait which Sir Gerald Templar used in the Malay Emergency in 1948-1958 which allowed the British to succeed against the Chinese communist insurgents there. Very different campaign, but similar leadership traits shared by GEN Petreaus.
To counter this insurgent effort our Special Forces company has begun holding medical calls in the local communities, starting first with our Iraqi soldiers/policemens’ families and children. This simple act, American SF medics patching up families and Iraqi children has had amazing results. The leaders of our Iraqi counter-parts have begun to be mobbed in the town traffic circles by excited families, thanking them for helping them to get their families treated. The Iraqi general I work with every day said this program, as well as the neighborhood watch program we are standing up has given him and his men new hope and that we should be able to start motivating the populace to take back their neighborhoods and help in the fight against the Jaysh al Mahdi insurgency.
We have also been called to large meetings with tribal Sheiks where I have spoken to large crowds, telling them that I did not come there to make them promises about more U.S. money, guns or training, but that they needed to stand-up to the few insurgents holding their families and tribes hostage and provide the Iraqi police and army with good information to defeat the insurgents hiding in their midsts. We are now building and organizing these “home guard” programs to empower the Iraqi people with the ability to stand-up to the few terrorists. Once we have built a successful model here, we will spread the word through Coalition and Iraqi channels and push these programs further and further out, at the same time stepping back further and further, allowing and encouraging the Iraqi Police/Military leaders to take the lead. We have already seen a renewed committment in these groups as they sense that the time for sitting on the fence is drawing to an end.
Well, I won’t paint too rosy of a picture. Things are tough over here, but the Iraqi people, the the soldiers and our servicemembers have sweat, bled and died to make this a better place. Things are tough, but none of the great endearvors our nation has ever accomplished has ever come easy. Thanks very much for your continued thoughts and prayers! Godspeed.
Thank you for that update! I love to hear the words from the men who are on the front lines. I have not talked to my son in a long time, and I don’t know how much longer it will be. He is also on the front lines, and is working very long hours. I hope they all stay safe and are doing well. Tell your dh I said “Thank you!”