As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with....John Hinderaker writes:
Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done....
The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave...
Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working....
But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.
These are basically the same observations that most visitors to Iraq have made lately. Yet, some think this piece is significant, because of who wrote it--two liberals from Brookings--and the fact that it appeared in the Times....I will not succumb to this fear, which depends on the belief that the Democrats are evil. I do fear, however, that those who are politically committed to ending the war will resist evidence of good news, that it will take an unusually strong dose of good news to see good news as good news.
My fear, though, is that the leadership of the Democratic Party sees progress on the ground in Iraq as bad news, not good. I think many Congressional Democrats are committed to defeat, for political and ideological reasons.
ADDED: Exemplifying what I fear are Matt Yglesias and Talk Left.
Posts
246 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 246 of 246You do understand Lucky's point that al Qaeda is a much larger presence today than before the war.
That is totally false. There are some reports that Al Qaeda is "recovered" in some rspects due to the safe haven offered them in Pakistan. However, overall they have nothing of the capacity they had on 9-11
And our military occupation of that nation is making AQ's resurgence possible. The occupation make al Qaeda stronger, it gives them a rallying cry,
This would have happened upon our invasion of Afghinstan. That was Bin Ladin's plan. He wanted to repeat the Afghan war with us instead of the Soviets. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan rallied arabs from all over to come to Afghinstan to fight. Bin Ladin was one of them.
As you say it is happening again. Except, unfortunatly for Bin Ladin, the young jihadists are all going to Iraq rather than Afghanistan. The terrorists are much easier to kill in Iraq than Afghanistan.
What no one predicted was the suicide bomber tactics that was adopted by Al Qaeda to help ferment civil war and to sway American public opinion. This was working for a while. It caused the rise of shia militia because the Iraq/American armies could not provide enough security to the shia population. However, those tactics are now failing as Al Qaeda has lost support from the local sunni population.
Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize
Lucky, I don't see why you do not understand this point. Don't you remember in school learning about the 1930s and the mistakes that were made. Obviously Bush read his history, you have not.
I recommend "the Gathering Storm" by Winston Churchill.
Alpha,
Don't try to drag me into this little spat you're having. I've not said anything one way or another about Iraq's involvement or lack thereof in 9/11, certainly not in this thread, and not, to my recollection, anywhere else.
Alphalib:
I don't see anyone claiming that Iraq attacked us on 9/11. What I do see is your strawman staement made at 8:22:
"You really seem to be saying Iraq attacked us on 9/11. They didn't."
After that you launched into some invective about proof and links.
Then at 8:48, you deflected an interesting question from Joe posted at 8:42.
The reason Joe's question is important is simply that if you or one of your representatives could point to a better solution, you'd have a following. But by not answering, you appear lazy or evasive.
Ok Fen...I'll bite. Define terrorists and tell me the ones you are talking about and when they were "harbored" and I'll address you question. Otherwise it is like asking "what do you think of stars".
I can see the only thing to do with you is to try and pin you down from your gross generalizations.
Alpha Liberal:
You really seem to be saying Iraq attacked us on 9/11.
What in God's name are you talking about? I never said that, nor even inferred that. Several others have already pointed out your, shall we say, loose reading comprehension in this regard.
I have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attack in any way.
What I will say is that Saddam Hussein's regime aided and abetted at least one of the two prime suspects in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Actually, that much is pretty much beyond dispute, at this point, among the informed.
No, don't count yourself among them.
At any rate, I notice that you've been reduced to speculating that my assertions are unfounded or have been debunked.
Go ahead. I listed a number of them. They're specific enough to check out. Debunk them, if you can.
The thing is... there is no country of Al Qaida.
We're fighting a non-national terrorist group with formal and informal ties to all sorts of places.
And if Al Qaida wasn't killing Iraqi civilians because we are in Iraq, Saddam would still be killing Iraqi civilians because were weren't in Iraq.
Lose-lose. Nevermind that either way the people doing the killing freely chose to do it and are the only ones with moral responsibility for their actions.
Saddam's Iraq was a problem that fed into the problem of Islamic extremism, as all "root causes" do. This claim that Iraq had nothing to do with the larger conflict is beyond simplistic.
"The decreasing acceptance of extremism among Muslims also is reflected in declining support for Osama bin Laden. Since 2003, Muslim confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs has fallen; in Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago."
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=257
jason,
read more...blather on less.
By Jesse Nunes | csmonitor.com
posted April 06, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. EDT
A declassified report by the Pentagon's acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble provides new insight into the circumstances behind former Pentagon official Douglas Feith's pre-Iraq war assessment of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection — an assessment that was contrary to US intelligence agency findings, and helped bolster the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.
The report, which was made public in summary form in February, was released in full on Thursday by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a statement accompanying the 121-page report, Senator Levin said: "It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.' "
The Feith office alternative intelligence assessments concluded that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating and had a "mature, symbiotic" relationship, a view that was not supported by the available intelligence, and was contrary to the consensus view of the Intelligence Community. These alternative assessments were used by the Administration to support its public arguments in its case for war. As the DOD IG report confirms, the Intelligence Community never found an operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda; the report specifically states that," the CIA and DIA disavowed any 'mature, symbiotic' relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."
The Los Angeles Times reports that in excerpts of the report released in February, Mr. Gimble called Feith's alternative intelligence "improper," but that it wasn't illegal or unauthorized because then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assigned the work. The Times also reports that a prewar memo from Mr. Wolfowitz to Feith requesting that an Al Qaeda-Iraq connection be identified was among the newly released documents.
"We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.
Using Pentagon jargon for the secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, he added: "We owe SecDef some analysis of this subject. Please give me a recommendation on how best to proceed. Appreciate the short turn-around."
Sloan:
When I said "You do understand Lucky's point that al Qaeda is a much larger presence today than before the war."
I specifically meant "in Iraq," as the following sentence makes clear. after all, we just heard from a report last week that al qaeda world wide is only back at 9/11 levels. In Iraq, AQ is far more numerous and violent than pre-9/11.
That's the point you duck. Your strategy is making them stronger. Hell, your President is their best publicist! He does their bragging for them!
jason: I knew it. You are not able to back up your claims about AQ dealing with the Iraq government pre-9/11.
jason et al: if you're not saying Iraq had some role in 9/11 then why are you patting yourselves on the back for claiming Iraq had an operational role in AQ pre-9/11? Why is that so important then?
Sloanasaurus said..."Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize
Lucky, I don't see why you do not understand this point."
Sloan, you continue to put forth the premise that Iraq was a threat to America.
You're completely full of shit and at this stage it's hard believe you're still trying to sell this crap.
That is totally false. There are some reports that Al Qaeda is "recovered" in some rspects due to the safe haven offered them in Pakistan. However, overall they have nothing of the capacity they had on 9-11
I think you go overboard to say it is totally false. True, much of the top-most structure of a formerly top-heavy AQ has been removed. It's unclear (to me, at least) how the capacity of a re-organized, decentralized AQ has changed.
Lucky or Alpha: Quick, name the Iraq province that qualifies as an "Al Qaeda stronghold."
Which area replaced Anbar and Diyala? You claim they are getting stronger, where in Iraq is Al Qaeda gaining strength?
If you criticize the Iraq war you will be dealt with - just like Tillman was.
Down Town Lad said:
"If you criticize the Iraq war you will be dealt with - just like Tillman was."
That would explain the small crowds at the anti-war rallies.
Yeah, all those dead war critics and disappeared Truthers are getting hard to hide.
Ha-ha!! Ted Stevens caught in the pocket of an oil services company! Yeah, he's oily alright!
hee, hee! More Republican corruption! it just keeps pouring in! Can we debate ANWR now? Please? Debate led by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Oil).
Can't wait to see Althouse cover this one. (right... why I must raise it here)
I am all for assessing these two writers editorial as positive news.
But it is a snapshot of an eight day trip they took to Iraq.
The real results/success is going to take longer than 8 days from two liberal writers who supported this war from the beginning.
I am surprised that this editorial has taken on so much meaning from the conservatives. Yes, it was written in the Times. So was Peter Beinhart who has been a liberal cheerleader. But I think this is hardly the editorial that changes the future of the war like some believe.
Perhaps, these two should hang around the country for a longer period of time and continue to report on the war.
I want the US to succeed and agree the surge has been successful in some aspects. But they are many other areas including the government, which is now on vacation for the next month, where it does not look good.
It is not just a military success we need but also we need the Iraqi politicians to get off their butts.
I don't think any conservative would disagree that the Iraqi government has been a dismal failure in trying to resolve the issues for their country or working with us to get things on track.
Rich said..."Lucky or Alpha: Quick, name the Iraq province that qualifies as an "Al Qaeda stronghold."
"Which area replaced Anbar and Diyala? You claim they are getting stronger, where in Iraq is Al Qaeda gaining strength?"
Wellllllllll. does this qualify?
July 17, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The nation's 16 intelligence agencies have released their latest report on threats to U.S. National Security. One of the top findings: Al Qaeda will leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on US soil.
The National Intelligence Estimate calls Al Qaeda, six years after 9/11, "as big a threat to Americans as at any time since".
White House Homeland Security Assistant Fran Townsend
Officials say Al Qaeda relies heavily now on the Internet to fundraise, recruit and spread propaganda.
Former Al Qaeda member Khalid Suliman agreed.
"Now you can get that ideology anywhere, on the internet, in Afghanistan, so I think they're more dangerous than before," said Suliman.
As for Osama Bin Laden, the report says from his likely hideout along the Afghan-Pakistan border
He's inspired Al Qaeda spin-offs worldwide, like the doctors in last month's U-K bomb plots thought to have bought into the group's goals.
Duh.
And, when we recall that 15 of the 19 hijackers that hit us were from Saudi Arabia, and were financed with a lot of money from Saudi Arabia, let's wonder at the stupidity of the Bush Administration when we see this headline:
"U.S. Set To Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia"
DirkDiggler said..."I am all for assessing these two writers editorial as positive news. But it is a snapshot of an eight day trip they took to Iraq."
And once again: Six months after Pollack's, "The Threatening Storm" was published, his book actually read much like an indictment of the Bush administration's overeagerness to go to war as it does an endorsement of it.
A more appropriate subtitle for the book would have been The Case for Rebuilding Afghanistan, Destroying al-Qaida, Setting Israel and Palestine on the Road to Peace, and Then, a Year or Two Down the Road After Some Diplomacy, Invading Iraq."
This guy is a joke.
Here's a quote from John Hindraker:
"“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”
That is a sad quote.
"It Takes A Pillage"
By Richard B. Cheney
That is a sad quote. Sounds like some "praise the leader" talk you might expect in some banana Republic.
Lucky, thanks for digging this up:
"One of the top findings: Al Qaeda will leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on US soil."
Bush and Cheney are training them there so they can hit us here. Wankers.
That's the point you duck. Your strategy is making them stronger. Hell, your President is their best publicist! He does their bragging for them!
Alpha, I agree with you that our invasion of Iraq has made Al Qaeda in Iraq be able to recruit. There is no doubt about that. However, they also would haev been able to recruit off our invasion of Afghanistan. The victory of jihad over the Soviets was possible because muslims from all over the world went to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets. That was Bin Ladin's plan - to defeat us in Afghanistan and get us to withdraw from the middle east so that he would have a chance to topple arab governments. He knew that we would invade Afghanistan in response to a massive terror attack on US Soil.
However, there are no large contingents of foreign fighters fighting us in Afghanistan other than pakistanis from the tribal areas. There are no long lines of jordanians, Saudis, Egyptians, Iraqis, etc...filing into Afghanistan. Nor is the money going to Afghanistan. Why? Because everybody and all the money is going to Iraq. We know because we have killed thousands of them in Iraq.
So if you are a miltary planner, and you know that going to war in response to 9-11 is going to cause this recruitment in the muslim world, where would you prefer to fight all the recruits? In land locked, mountainous Afghanistan - the graveyard of empires. No way.
Lucky said: Sloan, you continue to put forth the premise that Iraq was a threat to America. You're completely full of shit and at this stage it's hard believe you're still trying to sell this crap.
Iraq was controlled by the world's most powerful totalitarian ruler. At $70 oil, he would have grossed more than $75 billion per year (compared the the $20 billion in the 1980s/90s). Do you think Saddam would have shared this winfall with his own people? With a fraction of this cash Saddam could have funded Bin Ladin's entire Jihad army in Afghanistan.
He had a history of agression, including invading nearly all of his neighbors. He desired to build nukes and had the cash to do it. He was thwarted twice in 1982 and in 1996. The sanctions against him were collapsing. Only after the invasion did we find out how corrupted the UN was by him. He broke almost every treaty he signed. He gassed his own people. He buried half a million in mass graves.
Only a moron like you lucky, who has no vision, would say Saddam was not a threat to America.
DirkDiggler and AlphaLiberal both whined...
"That is a sad quote."
The thing that's really sad about that quote is that, apparently, you two morons can't even bother to do a simple google search.
Pathetic.
"One of the top findings: Al Qaeda will leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on US soil."
And you find this reason to leave?
I see that Lucky is avoiding the question of where al Qaeda is growing right now in Iraq. And the reason he avoided the question is that it isn't.
Part of what has become known to us in the last month or so is the real dynamic with al Qaeda in Iraq. What we had until a couple of months ago was a marriage of convenience between al Qaeda and other religious, mostly Wahhabi, fanatics and Saddam loyalists, etc. Yes, the same two groups that we were assured wouldn't work together because one was religious and one was secular.
But what apparently happened is that Saddam's Plan B was just this, for his people to take their money and go underground and start a gorilla war against us, and, yes, working with al Qaeda.
So, what we found out was going on was that al Qaeda provided the leadership and the suicide bombers, while the Ba'athists provided the money, logistics, and fighters. And it turns out that the reason that al Qaeda appeared to grow so quickly in Iraq was this marriage of convenience - all those Sunni Arab tribesmen fighting us in Anbar, etc. were now operating, at least for awhile, under token al Qaeda control.
What happened? First, for the most part, they couldn't really hurt our troops. They were too well trained, equipped, and protected. To this day, the death toll of any groups going up against our troops is better than 10-1 in our favor. So, they started going after softer targets, that ultimately included Iraqi civilians. A lot of women and children were killed, instead of the Americans they were supposed to be targeting.
The other thing though is that al Qaeda tried to implement strict Sharia law wherever they had some control. Unfortunately for them, this was not popular with their Iraqi partners. So, al Qaeda started using their terror techniques on them. In the end, this backfired, which is why so many of the Sunni Arab Iraqis have recently switched sides. It has gotten to the point that blood feud has been declared, which they never did against us.
Meanwhile, they also tried to incite the Shi'a to react with presumably the hope that the other Sunnis, esp. their Sunni Arab neighbors would intervene on their behalf. But as long as we were still in Iraq, that later was not going to happen. Instead, the Shi'a started ethnic cleansing, once they figured out that was the only way to be safe. This was moving quite quickly, until the "surge", when we and the Iraqi security forces intervened to shut it down as much as possible.
But for the Iraqi Sunni Arabs, this meant that the only protectors they had left were us, and with us, the Iraqi security forces. I pointed out six months ago that their choices were to make nice, fight and die, or leave.
Al Qaeda in Iraq is getting hurt right now fairly badly on a lot of fronts. They lost many of those Ba'athists that were formerly loyal to them. With that, they lost a lot of their safe havens. Instead, they now have their former allies working closely with us to flush them out. With that, they have also lost access to a lot of the guns, explosives, and money that they used to have access to. They are rapidly running out of places to hide in Iraq.
Not all is lost though. It turns out that Iran has also forged a somewhat weaker marriage of convenience with al Qaeda. The humor in that is that al Qaeda is stridently anti-Shiite, and the Iranians are of course the center of Shi'a power. Nevertheless, there are a fair number of recent proofs that this is happening to some extent or another. My guess is that this is mostly a spoiling action on the part of the Iranians, reacting to our pressure against them for their nuclear ambitions. They really don't want Iraq to turn into a Sunni Caliphate, but know that isn't likely in the long run (given the ethnic makeup of Iraq - probably less than 10% Sunni Arab now).
In any case, I would suggest that anyone who doesn't think that the "surge" is working better than most expected is sticking his head in the sand. For some here, and some in Wash., D.C., I would suggest that ignorance is intentional.
What the Left knows, but hope the public doesn't when they demand immediate withdrawal of "Our Children in Uniform":
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it."
George Orwell
************************
AlphaLiberal said...
joe, some other day. I want these guys to face some facts on Iraq and 9/11.
I think they dishonor the memory of our 3,000 dead from that day by continuing to misrepresent what happened and who really attacked us just so they can cover themselves and their Dear Leader.
Ahhh, summoning up the mighty Victimhood of 3,000 dead on 9/11 as substitute for Lefty stealing the lives of fallen Servicemen to make political points....
It just never ends.
To take Lefties at face value, the Real Problem is since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, Saudi Arabia is the real problem. However, if the 9/11 mastermind had kept his 16 planned Malaysian and Indonesian muscle for the 9/11 hijackings - then I assume the Left would say that Malaysia and Indonesia is "the real target, not Iraq"???
And of course we all love the Left's insistance that if we won't invade Saudi Arabia and trigger global Jihad with the Left of course shirking any participation in an invasion they advocate....That instead we should invade nuclear Pakistan to play hide and seek for the Great White Whale, Binnie, whose capture and ACLU-represented Trial of the Century will of course collapse AQ and return us to 9/10.
The strategic geniuses on the Left are as mute on the potential terrorist recruitment of an infidel invasion of the Holy ground of Islam and massive war in Waziristan and Baluchistan as they are noisy in insisting that Iraq causes terrorists to "get stronger every day" while of course us invading and occupying Afghanistan discourages the "mighty freedom fighters" from seeking infidel blood.
Yeah, Lefties. Strategic geniuses!
**************
And while Alpha Liberal is evoking the sacred memories of 3,000 dead!!!! 3,500 children in uniform dead!!! 650,000 innocent Iraqis dead!!! and the ol' trusty 4 young mothers babies died in their Marine patrol today! Unendurable! Bush-Hitler murdered those helpless Marine babies!!.....well, while invoking all that wallowing in Victimhood....what do they actually say about retaliating against the foe?
1. The US has engaged in horrific humiliation and torture of our fellow human being Khalid Sheik Mohammed & his friends. Violating their rights! Their precious terrorist liberties! Thinking of keeping AQ in horrific conditions at GITMO rather than the compassionate Muslim prisons our Americans....err...never mind the last....
2. Killing Islamoids in Afghanistan only makes the terrorist stronger. And many innocent brown Afghani babies have been murdered by henchmen of the Pentagon!
3. Killing Islamoids in Afghanistan has ruined the magnificent work of the Taliban in suppressing the heroin crop.
4. Killing tens of thousands of Islamoid terrorists in Iraq only makes them stronger. Just as we learned in all the other wars in history our Lefty colleges teach, that killing the foe only ensures our defeat or sends America into the long dark night of jackbooted fascism through depriving the enemy of precious liberties.
The reality?
1. We whacked over 40,000 Islamoids in Afghanistan, destroyed their tactical communications and most of their money supply. 60% of the leadership as of 2001 is killed or in jail singing (much to the ACLU's dismay), including KSM, the 9/11 Mastermind.
2. We have stopped 6 major AQ plots, inc. two planned to be as big as 9/11.
3. We have whacked over 20,000 in Iraq. And as importantly, captured AQ fighters from 50 countries. And, free of ACLU types interference overseas, (except in certain Euroweenie Lands) which got an intelligence windfall about money supplies, rat lines to transport Jihadis, what tribes are AQ breeding grounds, what mosques and universities are involved. (Which even in Euroweenie lands that publically denounce us is considered the American Gold coming out of Iraq that points them to their nests of Islamoids)
4. Quietly, and not yet 100%, not yet even 80%, the other Muslim countries have begun to treat AQ as their enemy as well, led by Pakistan, then Saudi Arabia to flail about, but crack down....though many are as conflicted about not "hurting fellow Muslims rights and liberties to pursue Jihad" as the Left and ACLU are here about defending many of the same "liberties" of radical Islamoids...
KSA has killed several hundred AQ since 2005, Jordan kills them or makes them wish they were dead in the Secret Services jails.
The money has dried up so much that Ayman al-Zawahiri is asking AQ in Iraq to send him noney.
5. Euroweenies, Canadians, Chinese, Indians, Shiite Muslims are also all far less blase` about AQ's Salafist terror. All abandoning the Left's memes of toleration of multiculti, theory that Muslim terrorists hate and kill their victims because the victims were at fault through a variety of root causes they didn't correct.
6. In a way, Bush's blunders have been believing Iraqis were fit for the democracy and Euro secular parliamentary system that the weenies thought was just the ticket for Palestine. It's failure has started Euros reconsidering their positions. Also, anti-Americanism seems to be abating in Europe thanks to Euros realizing their demographic danger, behavior of Muslims in Europe hasn't been what they hoped, and especially because of Bush's "good friend" Vladimir Putin. The old "USA out!" demos in Asia the Left loved to point out as showing how evil and racist the USA is have also almost disappeared with Rising China and their great military buildup.
Zounds batman...Cedarford strikes again. If anyone had any doubt as to the level of his dementia..well that should cap it.
something about his writing style or lack thereof - in particular coining the term Islamoid sent me a googling. surely his cut and paste posts that seemingly end in mid-thought (sic!) are troublesome. So I pasted in a Islamoid into the search..
I invite you to find Chris Ford's comments (the entire blog is littered with them)
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2006/04/endangering_americans_from_ins.html
See what I mean? Binnies, Islamoids, lawyers and ACLU, it is all too plain.
I now imagine this freak as someone hunched in some cheap room, shades drawn, door triple locked, madly spewing out his mein kampfe of sorts and working and reworking stolen bits from the web's more extreme renditions of hate and spew, cuttting and pasting them wildly into blogs....
So Cedarford is Chris Ford or is just a knock-off copyist. There is either one or two of this particularly paranoid model.
Psychopath anyone? Anyone need refills? One lump or two?
Also I haven't really seen any "disagreement or opposition" to anything Althouse says on this website from conservatives.
That's because your colon isn't transparent.
Ted Stevens caught in the pocket of an oil services company!
Ok, I give up... exactly which Republican voters in this thread do you think will be sad to see Stevens go? Especially considering that we won't even lose a seat in Congress if he does.
Just to follow up on the evilness of the Democratic Party leadership:
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war
"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."
I notice you didn't disagree with anything Cedarford said, HD.
What parts were wrong?
Not saying there aren't wrong parts, but you sure didn't point them out. Other than calling Cedarford a psycopath you said nothing at all.
His portrayal of the thought on the left side of things is certainly what I've heard before many a time. It may not be typical or it may be, but it's definitely true enough for some on the left.
Were there not others lined up to carry out 9-11 and were they not from the countries stated?
That's a factual issue and is either correct or incorrect. If correct then the asinine statements about "we should attack Saudi" which I have most *certainly* heard and not just once or twice, is put in an even more ludicrous light.
Pakistan has certainly taken up arms recently against their radical Islamic element. Saudi has made at least some effort to track down those within Saudi Arabia. I'm not aware of others who have but those two cases are correct and I'm inclined to believe the others are also correct because of that. If not, this is a question of fact (though opinion might vary on how earnest the attempts) and if it is not true, please explain how it's not.
The attitude in Europe or elsewhere is harder for me to quantify. Europe does seem to be not at all "tolerant" lately but I've not had the impression that any real change in ideas of what should be done about it has happened so far.
China? Who knows.
There's a lot to dispute, so why not do it?
Or is calling someone delusional and psychotic what passes for reasoned argument from your side of things.
Alpha Lib,
Perhaps when you post a news article, you should familiarize yourself with what it does and doesn't say.
For instance, nothing in that article from CS Monitor addressed my specific assertions.
Further, the fact that Feith's office came up with different conclusions than the CIA sorta puts the lie to the idea that there was "consensus" intelligence.
Looked at another way, oh worshipper of "consensus" intelligence, are you saying that Bush was right to pay heed to the consensus of intelligence that found that Hussein was developing and/or stockpiling WMDs?
Or you just like cracking down on dissenting views? What is it?
And where in God's name did you get the idea that I was claiming that Iraq was in the know on the 9/11? That's just whacked.
AlphaLiberal and Luckyoldson,
You have confirmed that you're both intellectual cowards. Every time Iraq comes up, you blast away, but never offer a single constructive solution to the existing situation.
Taking pot shots at any president's foreign policy is easier than chewing gum. Actually proposing realistic solutions is difficult.
Easy Joe,
LuckyAlpha et al. just reflect their own confused party leaders. Hopefully (and I mean this sincerely), those leaders are realizing that you don't lead based negative vibes.
And, here's an example of Fox News helping the terrorists kill US troops:
"There was another case where a Fox reporter was reporting live from in front of an Abrams tank that was on fire. The conventional wisdom was that Abrams tanks were impervious to the technology that the fedayeen had, small arms. But it turns out that if you did hit an Abrams tank in a certain spot with a rocket-propelled grenade, you could stop it and destroy it. So the Fox correspondent is reporting that, live on television: where the weak spot is and how this must have happened. Anyone watching that stuff, Iraqi intelligence officials, fedayeen soldiers – and we know they were watching it – would be like ‘great, next time I see an Abrams, I’m gonna save my shot until I see the money shot and aim for the vulnerable spot I saw on TV. Thank you, Fox News.’ Or anyone being watching the live report from Geraldo – where he’s drawing the map in the sand – could say ‘great, I know where coming and they’re bringing Geraldo with them.’ There’s a danger in that."
Here's the link.
Let me guess. The right wing ignores this.
any one who has been tanker knows that even a tank can be taken out by a shaped charge fired from an RPG--nor, AL, is that a deep dark secret; nor did any news organization confirm that--It has been common knowledge for 60 years.
AL, Oh, of course we don't care a bit.
That's why Geraldo got removed and shut up, because he was stupid, and it was a long time before we saw him allowed back with the troops.
(This "FOX News is God" thing is a liberal fantasy in any case. Set up that straw man and knock it over... Whoo HOoo!)
Alpha Lib...
Are you just throwing up ANY old thing, now?
You remind me of the nerdy kid on the playground that looked so incompetent in a fistfight that all we could do was laugh at him in his pent up, wild-swinging, inept rage.
Looked at another way, oh worshipper of "consensus" intelligence, are you saying that Bush was right to pay heed to the consensus of intelligence that found that Hussein was developing and/or stockpiling WMDs?
Interesting point. The anti-war Left uses the NIE to slam our mission in Iraq, while ignoring that the same NIE claimed Saddam had a WMD program and was willing to use it against the US.
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Steven Sasson invented that boxy first digital camera for Kodak. But the company has struggled to fully profit from its invention, and with its share price plunging last year there has been growing disquiet about the company's prospects.
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