Democrats need to kill the idea that the ISG report is somehow viable. A drawdown to the number of troops that were in Iraq when Democrats swept into office to draw down the troops isn't a drawdown - it only reverses the pointless surge.
The ISG report will be 10 months old when September rolls around - it's as outdated as the Future of Iraq report done by the State Department or the last Iraq NIE.
The Republicans want to enact some version of the ISG report this fall to cover their ass and it will do nothing to get us out of Iraq.
The time is now to start discrediting the ISG report as outdated and a moot point. You can't look ten months backwards to find a way forward (and out) of Iraq.
Posted by joejoejoe at June 18, 2007 08:47 AMThe US under Bush has not defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan after 6 years of trying. The US under Bush has not captured Bin Laden after 6 years of barely trying. The US has not pacified Iraq after 5 years of trying. Yet, according to people like Alter, it's the Dems who have failed to articulate the way forward out of these terrible failures, not the GOP. He, has, in roundabout, pointed out the problem....the Media consistently fails to put the Bush Administration front and center as the perpetrator of these mistakes and instead continues to ask why the Dems can't put together a solution they can sell the public. Why, Mr. Alter, isn't it any longer the responsibility of the Republican leadership to offer real solutions to the problems they created? Why do they get a "out of Jail Free card" and why are you so interested in laying the problems at the Dems feet? Why aren't you tearing the GOP up on this, instead of the Dems?
Posted by T2 at June 18, 2007 08:49 AMPEOPLE;
IF YOUR CLAUSWITITZ ON WAR AND KARL ROVE HAS; YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND THEY NEVER FOUGHT THIS WAR TO WIN IT AND THEY WILL NOT;
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IS TO REMOVE THE AUMF - THE ENTIRE THEORY OF THE "UNITARY EXEC" POWER IS DERIVED FROM THE AUMF.
ONCE YOU REMOVE THE AUMF THE POWER OF THE UNITARY EXEC WILL FALL TOO THW WAYSIDE - IT IS NO LONGER RELVENT!!
YOU MUST FOCUS YOUR ATTACK AT THE ENEMYS STRONGEST DEFENSIVE POINT - ONCE THIS IS BROKEN THE REST WILL MELT AWAY.
WITHOUT THE AUMF HE CANNOT DICTATE WAR POLICY OR STARTEGY OR SPY OR PUSH PEOPLE AROUND IN THE NAME OF BEING A " WAR PRESIDENT" BUSH WOULD HAVE TO ABIDE BY THE RULES OF OUR GOVERNMENT - WHICH IS TO SAY CHECKS AND BALANCE AND COMPARISE.
THE SITUATION IN IRAQ HAS CHANGED - THE WAR AGAINST SADDAM IS OVER BUSH HAD SAID SO A LONG TIME AGO THAT "MAJOR COMBAT IS OVER" - AS SUCH THIS IS A POLICE ACTION AND AN OCCUPATION AT BEST.
LET THE RUPUBLICANS MAKE THE CASE;
THEY HAVENT SUPPORTED THE TROOPS WITH NEW EQUIPMENT IN YEARS -
WHERES THE WAR?
WHERES THE CALL-UP FOR NEW MANPOWER -
WHOSE THE ENEMY - WHATS THE OBJECTIVE - HOW TO
HOW DO WE DEFEAT THE ENEMY -
MID-EAST DEMOCRACY IS NOW A DEAD ISSUE!
HOW DO WE WIN - WHAT DO WE WIN?
DEMS HAVE GOT BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS IF THEY CAN'T SEE THIS TO BE THE REALITY !
Posted by prom at June 18, 2007 09:11 AMNorthern Ireland? Oh well, that's much, much different, then.
It's all just a matter of finding the right permanent occupation analogy, obviously--then everyone, everywhere will get right on board.....
Our system has government has failed and only the Iraqis can end the occupation of their country at this point.
Posted by euzoius at June 18, 2007 11:34 AM"But before the Democrats take another crack at a change in policy, they need to improve their messaging. ... the GOP has successfully branded “redeployment” as surrender... Democrats need to convince voters." -(Steve Soto)
No, this is incorrect.
-And there lies the problem. The Democrats should not care how they have been labeled by the GOP. They no longer need to "convince" voters. They simply should do it. The time of 'testing the waters' is long past.
It is not merely this endless triangulation and worrying about 'political consequences.' The verdict has been in for a long time. The truth be told is that the Democrats will continue the '50 year occupation' in Iraq because they want to. They are Americans. Millitarism is now a fait accompli.
The war in Iraq and the coming war in Iran is not a GOP war. It is an AMERICAN war.
Posted by Jill Bains at June 18, 2007 11:36 AMOnly nine hundred and ninety six years to go in the thousand year bushreich occupation of Iraq.
Posted by james k. sayre at June 18, 2007 11:42 AM"Our system has government has failed and only the Iraqis can end the occupation of their country at this point." -(euzious)
Absolutely. This is why sensible people do not support 'the troops' in Iraq. They wish for their utter defeat. The hypocrites who claim they are 'against the war in Iraq,' at day's end, are anything but.
Posted by Jill Bains at June 18, 2007 11:42 AMThis is the betrayal to be expected from the hand-picked general Bush&Co sent into the occupied country. Petraeus was and is an errand boy; and his chief counter-insurgency mission and the whole strategy behind his surge has been to use American arms to terrorize and kill more Iraqis. Here we are hip-deep in bullshit with still no exit strategy.
Posted by Copeland at June 18, 2007 01:10 PMthe end game is this: draw the mess out, confuse the issues, let selected GOP candidates distance themselves from the War, keep the troops in Iraq and, by this time a year from now, have the Public totally convinced that the whole mess is the fault of the Democrats and their Weak on Terror mentality. Then use that to beat them in the 08 election. Just remember this, unless there is a major Sea Change within the GOP, Karl Rove will still be mapping out the election strategy for 08, and with Rove, it is ALWAYS politics over policy. The War is there for him to use for political purposes. Cheney might want the Oil, but Karl wants the politcal gain.
Posted by T2 at June 18, 2007 01:45 PMPelosi supports Biden's idea of partitioning Iraq? The thousands of Turkish troops on the border would use this as a signal to invade "Kurdistan" and the current Turkish defense minister has publicly stated so.
Turkey will simply not stand by and allow an independent Kurdistan no matter how it is formulated.
Wider regional war anyone?
Posted by brisa at June 18, 2007 07:00 PMSteve, I can't agree with that redeployment branding bit. Except for the Media that is. Since they're incapable of doing news, branding is all they know, so anything "branding" related, well, that's got to be IT!
And it isn't a refocused effort to catch bin Laden either, they never tried in the first place. I remember Tora Bora Tora Tora Tora.
For some reason we only used a handful of Special Forces troops and let the Northern Lights Alliance do the spade work on the ground, with some story about respecting their sovereignty and strengthening our alliance and more tales of how hard it would be to get a large force of American troops into the region quickly enough to catch OBL before he got away.
And besides, how fast could the guy run hooked up to a dialysis machine?
No, the solution for the Democrats is simple. Bush had no intention of catching bin Laden, he just wanted to turn the Middle East into a nightmare cauldron of death and destruction, of hate and fear, of nationalism and fundamentalism and vengence, for in such chaos is great opportunity for the right man, the right man with the WILL to stride across the stage of history and prove his greatness.
At least that's what Karl "Edgar Bergen" Rove must be thinking.
The Dems need to pound the notion that there is no war on terror (which is as stupid as it gets anyway), and that if there must be a war, let it be a war on al Queda. They need to say out loud and repeatedly that Bush has failed us in dealing with their threat, as in all things, failed us (but not his corporate masters I point out yet again), and everything we stood for as Americans. American exceptionalism isn't per se a bad thing, certainly not a bad ideal to aim for in a proper form, clearly, and with horrible and tragic predictability, the great comic book thinkers of the Right have no conception of what the proper form might be.
The Dems need to pound the reality, that al Queda is not a threat to Democracy and America and our way of life, that they have no intention of "following us home" when the goal of the 9/11 attacks have already been realized, to manipulate us into uncorking this nightmare, currently NOT playing itself out on your teevee screens, in the ME by removing the largest military and secular force in the region, just so OBL can play out his own insane fantasies of overthrowing the Sauds and putting his name on the throne and the oil. Perhaps 1984 is the wrong Orwellian frame here, maybe Animal Farm might be appropriate for at least some of this madness.
I've rambled enough here, there's a bit more over at my blog on this subject. The Dems have got to stop buying Roves rhetoric, that's all there is to it. Bush can no longer be allowed to describe what the situation is. The Democrats need to start doing that, and however they can do that with their albatross votes hanging around their neck, that's how they need to do it.
Posted by Duckman GR at June 18, 2007 09:10 PM