I agree...
If he was that sincere, he would say "by THANKSGIVING" not Christmas. That would make it about 30 days earlier! And not all military families are Christians are they? so is this some selective ways to getting troops out.
He will buckle and other GOPS will pray and praise Warner and follow him on this misery token suggestion..
This is the same Warner (a true WWII hero) who sought no oversight of Bush/cheney/rumsfeld from 2003-2006 while chairing the armed services.
Now he sits in for McCain s minority chair! His ex-wife would have done better to understand Iraq and its history than he did. I remember he once mentioned "Lawrence of Arabia" once during a hearing and said we should have done more to understand Iraq's troubled ethnic make-up. His British ex-wife and her contacts would have given him more information than his staff could find!
Posted by mp at August 24, 2007 08:29 AMAt age 80, I'm not looking to Warner to finish Einstein's "Theory of Everything".
All he did was add an askerisk to his legacy of "complicit war criminal".
Posted by TIKI AL at August 24, 2007 08:35 AMCaught this on NBC last night. A lobby firm in Washington is leading the push to replace Al Maliki. A lobby firm!
Lobby influence, sheesh. They get supported by the war, they lead the direction of the war, they change the leadership of countries during war. I should have been a lobbyist!
Posted by phidipides at August 24, 2007 09:17 AMWarner is a buffoon. Each plan he has espoused has been of the "if the president wants, he could do this" type of non-offer. The Bush controlled NIE released yesterday has been interpreted by the GOP Media as great evidence of the Surge Success and the need to continue Surging until January 2009. Betraeus and Crockof will say the same thing and Bush will then browbeat the Dems into continued war funding. The only question is if any of the top 3-4 Dem presidential contenders will solidly reject that funding. Edwards most surely will, because he is not going to have to vote on it. The GOP, stooges like Warner included, will drop their questions and fall into line with Bush. Only the American Public will oppose the New Surge, and they don't count. As I've said before, only the Iraqis can make the US pull out.
Posted by T2 at August 24, 2007 09:17 AMOut of all the horribly wrong things here, one of a very long list, the element that galls me the most is the sorry-assed excuse for a general officer of the United States Army.
There is never a more higher mission than taking care of your men and women first. Never. For somehow rank political machinations to allow a general officer to kill and maim his people for no mission is unforgivable.
Our Army is gone, in one real sense. They leave us alone, but they are still off the reservation. Not good.
Posted by paradox at August 24, 2007 09:35 AM"Fear a resurgence of the enemy"...well just who is the enemy? The native tribal Iraqi's? Yes Major General Lynch...just who is the effin enemy...because most of it are members of the local population and native Iraqi's themselves and I thought we went over there to liberate them (which we did) and now you consider them our enemy?
Posted by emal at August 24, 2007 09:48 AMAs Wes Clark said they don't all get to be generals because they're smart.
Posted by JohnT at August 24, 2007 10:00 AMIt's nice to see you're taking this...."well"? He might as well sit in the corner with his thumb in the mouth. Geesh, what a guy. Did his mouth have any pie stains?
General Pace isn't out of the mainstream here. He states a need to reduce our forces by the end of 2008. He's not out on any limb here at all. That's reasonable provided the surge has worked. 5 brigades coming home starting next spring and a brigade a month after that. Down to 16 brigades by December, reasonable.
Posted by peter at August 24, 2007 10:27 AMWhat is Pace up to? Simple, the military has to start withdrawing troops by next April because of the horrible choices the military faces. To maintain the current troop level requires increasing the tourS of duty beyond the current 15 months (they've already been raised from 12 months) OR activating more reserve/national guard units.
Our Crawford Caligua has broken the army.
Posted by Gay Veteran at August 24, 2007 10:42 AM"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. . . .
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.""
DEMOCRATIC REP. BRIAN BAIRD from an oped in today's Seattle Times.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003850954_bairdop24.html
""You may think you can walk away from Iraq," I was told by one leader. "We cannot. We live here and have to deal with the consequences of what your nation has done. So will you eventually, if the Iraq conflict spreads and extremists bring us down as well."
I do not know the details of what the September report will contain, but I trust and respect Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I have seen firsthand the progress they have made, and I firmly believe we must give them the time and resources they need to succeed.
Though we would all wish this conflict would end tomorrow, it will not. We are going to have to begin to withdraw troops next spring because our equipment and our soldiers are wearing out. However, even with the progress that has been made of late, we will have a significant military and civilian role in Iraq and the region for some time to come. That is the price we must all pay for the decision to invade. We cannot shirk that responsibility."
"We cannot. We live here ." Sounds so familiar, echo's from Vietnam. Many who work with us there died because the antiwar crowd in DC 'won' the day and sealed their fate. Thank you Congressman Baird for your honesty. For putting country in front of party. You're a great American.
The Sunk Cost Effect
You pay for a movie and a quarter of the way through you decide it is really awful, but you might as well sit through it because you paid for it. You stay instead of leave.
You buy a car and it reveals itself to be a lemon after 6 months. You decide to live with it until it breaks down so thoroughly you absolutely have to tow it in and get a new one.
You start a war that kills lots of innocent bystanders and a goodly number of our own troops and it was all based on the brainless or delusional whims of a dry drunk President. But you now in a real shooting war and you tell yourself you cannot get out of it abruptly because you have invested too many lives and too much treasure.
Sunk Cost = Stupid Stupid Stupid.
Posted by gtash at August 24, 2007 11:09 AMGood one, Steve.
Posted by Marie at August 24, 2007 11:33 AMI know Saddam and UBL were not together in the September 11th attacks. It wasn't a joint venture.
Posted by peter at August 23, 2007 03:50 PM
I get a refund for the movie.
Lemon laws for the car.
I'm thinking about Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Something about the Chinese Embassy. We're still there today. I'm sort of thinking about Lincoln at Gettysburg, looking out at all those people killed, American's killed, 560,000 plus a lot of civilians. He didn't start it, but, he didn't stop it.
Posted by peter at August 24, 2007 01:12 PMAnd this make how many times? He'll be back on the reservation by Saturday night.
Posted by Daryl at August 24, 2007 02:15 PMgood call, steve
and i feel so much contempt for warner and his ilk. they're all war criminals and should be rounded up, tried, and hung.
oh, i guess it should be lethal injection.
i'm off to read Hoagland’s teaser
Posted by michael72 at August 24, 2007 05:32 PMwhy isn't pants pissing peter calling for the deployment of 500,000 troops? it is the strugle between civilizations isn't it? why so few troops?
god, what a stoopid troll
Posted by gay veteran at August 25, 2007 08:15 AM