David Broder and Warren Spahn
I have been reluctant to join the David Broder lynching party. First, the guy obviously has lost a step or two and is in the twilight of a distinguished career. Second, I never thought that he was as important as he is given credit for, but that’s because “Dean of the Washington press corps” is about the same as “Dean of a Midwestern cow college” to me.
But I’ve been doing a slow boil over the WaPo op-ed columnist’s slam of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for saying that the Iraq war is lost militarily (and comparing him to Attorney General Gonzales).
Now I’m no fan of Reid, but the guy spoke a huge truth. The Iraq war simply cannot be won through blood and guts.
For Broder to get all pissy over something so obvious puts him well out of step with a majority of Americans and comfortably in the Bush administration’s back pocket, and the clearer-headed and less self righteous Broder of old would not want to be in that place.
One of my childhood heroes was Warren Spahn, a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Boston and Milwaukee Braves who like me was left handed and unlike me was incredibly consistent on the mound. Spahn pitched 21 years in the majors, but that was about five years beyond his prime because he didn’t know when to quit.
The same can be said of Broder, and he ought to think about putting down his quill pen before he embarrasses himself any more.
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38 Responses to “David Broder and Warren Spahn”
This is not some flunky. This is the Majority leader of the Senate saying the “War is lost” So why are you guys and girls in Iraq risking your life.
Why are you guys following orders that might imperil your lives or the lives of your buddies for a “LOST CAUSE.”
I’m with rational Americans on this one. Impeach the Bastard. Take Nanny Pelosi along for the ride.
The WAR Shaun. The WAR? or this battle.
You antiwar just don’t understand that there is indeed a WAR on terror going on but he did not say the BATTLE in IRAQ is lost he said the WAR is lost.
The Democrats have indeed surrendered, want to bring the boys home.
The war is lost.
RUN!! The vision of those Iraqis in the desserts of Iraq sobbing and crying and waving their white Underware………….Yep thats the Democratic Congress we have elected.
We surrender.
Excellent and thoughtful post, Shaun. Broder was one of my heroes back in the 70s and 80s, and it’s sad to see him decline so quickly and precipitously.
To “Nobody,” Iraq has nothing to do with any war on terror. It is only engulfed in terrorism because we had the temerity to invade the country without an occupation plan. Please, 60 percent of the American people want out. We aren’t traitors or defeatists, we simply no a lost cause when we see one, and no matter how noble our intentions may have been (and that’s up for serious debate) we mustn’t remain fiddling on the deck of a sinking ship.
Incidently in a poll conducted on the 18th:
“Do you think the war in Iraq has helped the war on terrorism, or has it hurt the war on terrorism?”
38% helped.
44% hurt.
“Do you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible?”
41% keep
54% remove.
“Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?”
45% yes
47% no
8% don’t know.
In looking at the vast polling done on IRAQ. The people are all over the boards. But overall there is no doubt the people are not happy with the war in Iraq. Hell Im not happy.
However to make claims that the Overwhelming Majority is on the antiwars side is just Rhetoric and the Democrats in congress read these polls too.
This is NOT mereley quibbling over semantics – Reid said the war is lost, ostensibly quoting David Petraeus. However, Petraeus didn’t say the war is lost, he said it couldn’t be won by military means alone.
There is quite a difference between saying the cake cannot be baked, and the cake cannot be baked with flour alone. Given butter, eggs, sugar, milk, baking powder, and a good oven it can be.
“Nobody” raises an important point – which is the moral standing of Reid saying what he did. Regardless of what you think of the rationale of the war, the rationale for continuing it or not, or whether or not empirically the war *is* lost, it’s hard to see the benefit for *anybody*, especially the soldiers, of saying that. If Reid wants to say bring the troops home, or redeploy them to Afghanistan, that is a different matter. In the end, I think it will be up to the CIC, who can consider Reid’s counsel, and that of everybody else, and make his own decision.
The other interesting point that Nobody didn’t raise is the opinion of the Iraqis, who seem to be divided as well IIRC the last big survey. They seem to believe, simultaneously, that the Iraqi security forces are inadequate, and yet that things will improve after the U.S. forces depart.
We can parse Reid’s words until the cows come home, but he spoke a fundamental truth.
The concept of moral standing is not only relative but it has taken an awful beating over the last few years. Exhibit A in this regard is the commander in chief, who by his very position had enormous moral standing six-plus years ago because of the inherent power of his office but has squandered every shred of it in the eyes of many people here and abroad. Even that Jesus dude, whose wisdom the president says he channels, must be pissed off.
This is not to say that Reid’s standing is higher. He’s just another career pol who is a bigger part of the problem than the solution.
But again, Reid spoke a fundamental truth and that is obvious, if largely unspoken, to anyone who has followed the war closely. I myself do not believe the war can be “won” not only the traditional sense, but also politically.
George Bush broke Iraq. It cannot be fixed with American troops and it won’t be fixed after they come home. That too is a fundamental truth.
No he did not speak a fundamental truth.
The WAR IS LOST??
Shaun are you wanting to give up. Leave Iraq. Afghanistan? bring them all home and hire the afl/cio to protect you?
If you are then the WAR is lost.
Iraq does not equate war on terror. There is a WAR. Iraq is PART of that WAR.
Reid and the democrats and evidently you as well dont understand the differences.
Herein lies the HUGE blunder he made. THE WAR IS LOST?
I hope not for if it is then the USA is purely at the mercy of the terrorists and if thats the case then the USA is in for one hell of a rough future.
The WAR is lost? I don’t think so!!!
But you go on….Blow up and enlarge a picture of those sobbing Iraqis in the desserts of Iraq waving their White Underware and begging for Mercy. You worship that scene because if the WAR is lost then that is what we have elected to congress and PUT REID in charge of.
“but he spoke a fundamental truth.”
No, actually he didn’t. He spoke an interpretation of noisy data. Think of all the things you could measure in Iraq – including deaths due to car bombs or not, number of hours of electricity per day, etc. Then think of all of the (possibly mutually contradictory) predictive models you could imagine for what could be forecast in Iraq, e.g. the surge should initially produce more violence initially, and then it will taper off, or it should produce initially less violence because militants will go into hiding, at least temporarily.
In other words, uncertainty is at the heart of this decision and because of that, whichever policy one advocates, one has to grapple morally with the consequences of more or less likely, and more or less acceptable outcomes.
Finally just to muddy the water still further, most people find it morally repugnant to do a sort of numerical moral calculus – some set of x lives is worth some other set of y lives (e.g. in medical triage, or when sending troops on a suicide mission) and yet the tradeoffs must still be confronted.
So I think it’s possible for moral people to argue either to stay, or to withdraw, based on their assessments of of likely outcomes, based on the implied commitments the U.S. has made to Iraqis to bring stability, and so on. I.e. it’s possible for rational people to vigorously disagree on this. The only thing that I think is unaccpetable is either to assert glibly that some particular future will happen with absolute certainty, or to refuse to consider the consequence of some pretty nasty adverse outcomes that are at least somewhat likely to occur.
“…but he spoke a fundamental truth.”
Shaun, I think the issue here is partisan speech. Truth is not the point.
In early 1942 the Allies were losing the war. The Japanese were rolling over American forces in the Pachific, winning victory after victory. Rommel was hammering the British in North Africa, and the British were anticipating retreating from Egypt into Palestine.
At that time any GOP senator could have stood up and declared – President Roosevelt, we are losing this war!” – and he would have been speaking the truth.
No GOP senator did, of course.
Reid has been an effective Democratic pol…but part of his tactics has been highly provocative speeches. Sometimes the firestorm has forced him to apologize…sometimes it is bad, but not enough to force an apology, so Reid gives a mealy-mouth one and concedes he may have “gone too far” as in his attack on Sen. Santorum.
Reid’s speech gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the US. It was widely covered in ME media — often with no qualifications, simply leading democrat declares “The war is lost.”
It was dumb. Once again, Reid went too far to achieve a partisan end. It was not the first time, and it won’t be the last.
Got that? The truth is irrelevant…..
Ladies and Gentleman, it is this type of thinking, or more correctly, refusal to think, that got us into this mess.
And of course, that’s got to be followed up with.. wait for it…. a World War II analogy. Because after all, we’re doing battle against three huge industrialized nations with massive militaries.
Well, that’s what Broder claimed. But like Broder, you ask us to take your word for it. So give us a few examples of Reid apologizing would ya?
Marlowe:
Comparisons with WW2 and Iraq, which you will recall that Rumsfeld and others drunk on the neocon Kool Aid frequently made, are inapt.
It is beyond question that Germany, Japan and Italy were enormous and well-defined threats to the world order. I reread Churchill’s six-volume “History of WW2″ a couple of years ago and there were numerous instances such as that which you cited in which opposition politicians in England and the U.S. declared that all was lost. The Axis powers broke a lot. Churchill and FDR led the effort to destroy them and fix what was broken.
Iraq was not a threat. An irritation yes, but not a threat. The neocons needed a war. The 9/11 attacks and Saddam were the excuses. Bush broke Iraq. Unfortunately, neither U.S. troops, U.S. money nor a tractor trailer packed with economy sized boxes of moral standing will fix it.
“First, the guy obviously has lost a step or two… and the clearer-headed and less self righteous Broder of old…”
So Broder is getting senile as evidenced by his deviation from the party line. Yet, Helen Thomas continues to fire on all cylinders. Amazing.
and there were numerous instances such as that which you cited in which opposition politicians in England and the U.S. declared that all was lost.
Acutally you are quite correct Mullen. There was in fact the naysayers in both countries.
This is exactly the reason why you dont fight a war by consensus. You do not ask the public to vote on every move. This is why George Bush is not LISTENING to you. For if we listened to the naysayers we would still be in caves sharpening our sticks.
I think many people here who support the war are missing a fundamental point. You all believe that we must put everything and win no matter what, and refuse to stop and think whether or not what we are doing is moral and whether or not we can actually sustain this blunder.
Taking all anti-war considerations aside, just look at it from the standpoint of our ability to sustain the war. Go ahead, take a look. You’ll see, if you are willing, that what we need to win this war is an occupation force of at least 500k troops. Our military is so stretched that it is having trouble maintaining the 150k there now.
Also, comparing this to WWII or any other is ludicrous. Terrorists are not nations, they are not soldiers, they are not armies, they are criminals. Their existence, if you will, is ethereal. They can be anywhere, they can be anyone, not just the Muslim extremists this administration is trying to focus us on.
Reid spoke the truth, like it or not. He understands where as this administration does not, I think, that we cannot go into a country like we did in Iraq. It is only spawning more terrorists. Instead, if Bush were a leader he would have continued with the Clinton policy of containment for both Iraq and the terrorist threat. Sure, it did not stop the problem, but terrorism cannot, and will not ever be destroyed. And that is the major flaw in the plan of this administration, to destroy something that cannot be destroyed. Sure it will fade out in one area after a few decades, only to pop up somewhere else under different circumstances. As long as there are impoverished, desperate people in this world, such will continue to be the case.
Shaun,
You’re argument about the relative threat levels of the Axis powers in the past or Iraq today was a perfectly valid argument in 2002-2003, for why you feel we should not have invaded Iraq. That however is now totally irrelevant as Bush did make the decision to invade and now we have to look at the national security interests at stake in our present circumstance. Just as you say that the Axis powers had broken a lot of things and it was up to the Allies to fix them, in our present situation you could easily say that WE have broken Iraq and we now need to fix it. Different people, of course, will attribute different levels of culpability to Bush for “breaking things”, and I think you could easily argue the position that I think you’d take, that it is Bush’s fault. I really don’t care, but what I do care about is dealing with the present reality which is that Iraq truly is broken and the stability of the Middle East as well as our own national security are at stake. I don’t think that we should cut off our noses to spite our faces by saying that since it is all Bush’s fault, we should now not stick around to try to fix it.
Ashen Shard:
Amen.
Ashen Shard
You are now trying to equate WAR…any WAR to being Moral?
Is there such a thing as a moral war in which one side kills the people on the other side?
Terrorists are not nations. Agreed.
Iraq is full of terrorists. They are everywhere. They are like ants on a watermellon skin in the sun. Yet we should flee Iraq because of????
Reid did not speak the truth. He lied. The WAR is not lost. Perhaps this phase of the battle in Iraq needs to be reexamined but the WAR is not lost.
Clintons plan of containment got us what? 911. Iran working on Nuclear weapons. North Korea detonating under ground Nukes. Yes I can see how Clintons plan of containment worked.
The fact that it did NOT work is why we are at war. This is not to blame the WAR on Clinton. I do not. He tried something for 8 years. It failed. Now we are trying a new plan. However there is not even anyone trying to give this plan a go.
We’ve lost. Run! Hide! Isolate. Cover our eyes. If we cant see them we will not know they are there.
Then we can let our Children and Grand Children ask why we shirked our duty. Why we let the world get this way.
Nobody: you said
“Iraq does not equate war on terror. There is a WAR. Iraq is PART of that WAR.”
It seems like there’s a minor word or two missing that matter in discerning your intent.
CStanley:
Regardless of whether going to war (which I initially supported) was wrong to begin with, our commitment cannot be infinite. Give the circumstance, your prescription is for precisely that.
These are the circumstances: There were and remain far too few troops to tamp down sectarian violence. The Iraqi Army is a bad joke. The Al Maliki government is deeply corrupt and cannot wipe its ass, let alone meet meaningful benchmarks. Shiite power sharing with the Sunnis is a pipe dream. The war has drained $400 billion from the U.S. treasury with no end in sight.
It is the responsibility of Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with an ample assist from the U.S., to see that there is not an even worse humanitarian (read refugee) crisis after American troops withdraw. That would be the best possible outcome.
The rioting was the worst seen since the Baltic state won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and has raised concern throughout the European Union, of which Estonia has been a member since 2004.
The war in the DRC claimed over 4 million lives, the majority by disease or famine, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II.
The conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan between the Janjaweed, a government-supported Arab militia, and non-Arabs has, by some estimates, claimed 200,000 lives and displaced nearly 2 million people in what many are calling genocide
“There’s a civil war underway,†a police officer said. “We can no longer withstand this situation on our own. My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical or theoretical training for street fighting.†PARIS, France.
Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan.
What do you guys read?
Uganda: Some 20,000 children have been abducted and used as soldiers or sex slaves, while 12,000 civilians have been killed and 1.4 million displaced. The government has been unable to subdue the LRA which often uses neighboring Sudan to launch attacks.
The conflict in Angola began just after independence in 1974 and formally came to an end in 2002, making it Africa’s longest civil war.
A second civil war began in 1999 when a rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, emerged in the north.
In 1994 in a period of 100 days, 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians were slaughtered by machete-wielding Hutu militias, also composed primarily of civilians. The genocide in Rwanda has become one of the most notorious conflicts of the 20th century
Somalia is fighting Islamic Insurgents and the country has divided into different factions as the Non Muslim government fights for its life against Al Queida led forces.
Iran has fallen to Islamic Militant Students who are now attempting to create nuclear weapons.
Putin has declared Russia a Muslim nation. Nationalism is on the rise in Russia and becoming a serious problem.
CONTAINMENT. What comic books are you reading????????
When do we say its time to take action. Or do we just contain this and let them murder themselves and become one more Muslim nation in a long row of dominoes.
Everyone used to scream at the USA for standing against the Domino Theory of Communism. Its a fallacy. It cant sustain itself. Well the cold war cost trillions and lasted for 60 years. We stood against the fall of nations to communism. Sometimes with wars (Korea, Vietnam, Phillipines, Indonesia) Sometimes with force of arms(Europe, South America) Sometimes we failed.
Yet we stood for what was right.
Now you ask to do what is wrong. Run. Hide. Give up.
I can only shake my head.
Our invasion of Afghanistan, I think, could be considered morally justified. We were attacked, and thats where the criminals were. Taliban refused to extradite said criminals, so we went in. Unfortunately we did not follow through in capturing those criminals. Instead we changed our attention from where the problem was to where the oil was.
Iraq is not full of terrorists. It is full of a myriad of rebels, tribes and militias some of which use terrorist tactics to achieve their goals. The al qaeda presence is minuscule by comparison. These groups, for the most part, will not follow us, though they will continue to target us until we get out. Take your hand out of the tank, and the piranha will stop biting.
The Clinton plan of containment was actually successful, if you are not looking for the magic wand total solution to all the problems. There is no magic wand, the Clinton strategy was the best available plan. As such, there are going to be terrorist attacks from time to time, it would just be something we would have to learn to live with, which is what Iraqi’s live with every day due to our invasion of their country.
As for 911, Iran and North Korea especially, those all have happened on this administrations watch, not Clinton’s. And also, under this administration terrorist attacks have climbed sharply around the world. The policy of direct military engagement of the Bush administration has proven itself a failure.
Phillipines, Laos, Cambodia. Even China is having trouble with ethnic Islamic tribes in the outer regions of its country.
Lets look at India. 15 percent Muslim and growing dramatically in a Hindu(peaceful)nation. A nation armed with Nukes.
Pakistan is teetering and has an arsenal full of nukes.
Seriously what do you guys read? Do you just read MSM talking points about how evil the USA is because we are TRYING to do something on terror?
Containment was Bill Clintons Idea of revelling in the Internet boom and the ECONOMY STUPID mentality while milking his Poll Numbers in route to being a very popular President that would get him rave reviews by historians.
Then Came 911 and the world exposed terrorism and the march of Jihadi in frightening magnitudes. The worldwide Caliphate is exactly that people
WORLDWIDE.
Containment is not a policy of hiding. It is a policy of effective engagement against our enemies without great cost. I wish our country, our military had the ability to be everywhere, occupying countries like Sudan and Uganda to halt the violence, but it is not a practical solution. Actually, we could have been of use in these places where there have been and continue to be problems, but Bush decided that creating a whole new problem in Iraq was the best way to go. This administration has not been using an effective strategy to use our military as a force against chaos and genocide, it has created more chaos and genocide.
I love your thinking. Let Saddam continue to murder his people. But we created problems by freeing them and giving them an Opportunity to be free and to ultimately, Hopefully have a life.
Containment is the appeasers catchword. Contain. Dont spend a dime, dont lift a finger and have dialogue over martinis while millions die.
Register outrage and put diplomatic pressure on collapsing governments to be nicer, fight harder and resist more while we discuss your situation in the UN.
Good plan. I like my Martini Stirred, Not shaken.
Nobody: I think your thoughts about containment have merit, but I think they are problematic on some other levels, as follows:
1. I think you are conflating morality and empirical data a bit. For example, when Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon recently, the thought was that what were largely “containment” efforts were failing to stop the rocket attacks. Now, the interesting thing is that the number of people dying, on a daily basis, during that conflict was much, much, larger than the daily rate prior to it. So from a purely empirical standpoint you could start asking, “how many additional people I am willing to lose or kill now to stop what I forecast to be some number killings in the future”.
2. The second thing is, just because you do something more ambitious than mere containment, doesn’t necessarily mean that it will actually work the way you think it will. You may, for example, lose 1000 years worth of people at the pre-ambitious rate. It’s hard to imagine that there isn’t some level of casualties that would render the trade-off undesirable. That, as far as I can tell, is the problem with North Korea.
3. Finally, even if you estimated the total number of future attacks as a result of emboldening the enemy by doing no more than containment as being “not worth it”, you might choose to escalate because you just don’t want to tolerate someone having that power over you, and you are willing, essentially, to take a bet that results in higher expected lives lost because you want to live free.
Ahh Robert Bell.
Thank you. Thank you for reflective dialogue that wants to look at issues instead of spouting talking points.
Thank you.
1. This is a deflection to Israel. But I will address that. Israel attacked in response to kidnappings not rocket attacks. Secondly prior to the attack on southern Lebanon there were no people dieing as a result of rocket Attacks launched by Hezzbollah. Thirdly no wars are moral. They have no moral justification. In the end talk should always win out over the use of the bomb. To justify anything either side did would be an exercise in futility and spend days going around and around to end up right back where we are.
In short even one death more then was the status quo cannot by ethical standards be justified on moral grounds. But wars are not MORAL CHOICES. They are Expedient choices.
2. There cannot be any doubt that if you try something that has never been tried that it might or might not work out. However not trying is a guarantee that said notion will have NO chance to succeed. Bill Clinton embarked on containment and I just posted a dozen civil wars in which we stood by and did nothing because his advisers said its the economy stupid. We now have a world that is much more dangerous then it ever was in 1992. After 911 we attacked Afghanistan. How many people were dieing in Afghanistan before we invaded as compared to after we invaded? Someone said Afghanistan was justified? How so? On what grounds?
3. Simply put How many 911′s can we absob before we fail as a nation to be a cohesive society. Look at nations around the world that have slipped into attacks and counter attack. Blame and counter blame that have slipped into chaos as a result of FEAR. Democrats claim that Bush rules by fear of an unseen enemy. Yet the left rules by fear of Fascism and Radical Christians going to take over the government and fear of rights being usurped and on and on.
The sides are no different.
Shaun said: “Comparisons with WW2 and Iraq, which you will recall that Rumsfeld and others drunk on the neocon Kool Aid frequently made, are inapt.”
Shaun, I never implied Saddam was Hitler…which is a quite mad neocon justification. He obviously did not represent a threat on that level.
My point was that it was dumb and disgraceful for Reid to say: “The war is lost” as he did. Yes, there were politicians like Londonderry, Halifax etc. who thought that WWII was lost and some arrangement must be made with Hitler.
But I don’t think any of them stood up in the House or in the Lords to say so. They would have been stoned in the streets as traitors. Instead, they sniped at Churchills heels.
Personally, I agree with you that the “Surge” will not be effective. Case in point: the Iraqi government is taking the summer off!!!! The American presence seems to foster infantilism and irresponsibility among the Iraqi government.
But neither you nor I are Majority Leader in the Senate. He should have found a better way to express this. Reid chose the most partisan dramatic language that he could. He should not have done so.
BTW: Congrats on igniting another firestorm of comments…and on a sleepy Saturday
Marlowe:
Perhaps Reid should have said in a Uriah Heep–ish way: “‘Scuse me, Mister Presidente, but there is a possibility that victory as you have defined it will not shine on the happy burghers of Iraq. And that as much as we have appreciated spending $400 billion on body bags and not wasteful domestic needs, we sorta oughta think about declaring victory anyhow and getting the heck out.”
“I love your thinking. Let Saddam continue to murder his people. But we created problems by freeing them and giving them an Opportunity to be free and to ultimately, Hopefully have a life.”
It is not the duty of the US to sheperd the world, or invade countries to “spread democracy”. You are chanting for nothing more than what the USSR did in the previous 75 years which amounts to nation building. Now how did that spreading communism work out for the USSR? They no longer exsist eh? Hmm I see you and the people that advocate this “spreading of democracy” as a giant collection of fools, and destroyers of THIS nation for the sake of a crazed non-democratic ideology since most americans care not for nation building with their tax dollars.
Do it on your own damn dime, and with your own army, not ours.
According to Nobody’s assessment, we should stop talking and rush off to invade nearly every other country on earth – to stop terrorism.
The basic question re Iraq is this: is our presence doing more to eradicate terrorism or to inspire it? No historical analogies apply; this is a unique situation. And, as no one knows the answer for sure, we should all get off our high horses of moral superiority.
As for the surge, as long as it’s in place, I hope it helps. Somewhere down the road we’ll have to ask the same question. Is our presence helping the Iraqi governement to act like a government or is our presence a sop to keep them off the hook?
The bottom line is approaching fast. Regardless of what anyone thinks we should do, what can we do (I mean realistically, not in dreams or wishes)?
Shaun said: “Perhaps Reid should have said in a Uriah Heep–ish way…”
Reid doesn’t have to do a Heep. He can say whatever he likes about Bush’s incompetence etc. etc. He can do what any number of Churchill’s critics did in snipings and sneering. He can pass bills for withdrawal etc.
But for the Majority Leader of the US Senate to declare – “The war is lost” – while tens of thousands of troops are in the war zone is irresponsible.
Napoleon, who granted was no Wesley Clark but still knew one or two things about war, said that morale was to material as 3 to 1.
The Democrats have done their damndest to undermine morale for partisan gain. They clearly wish to revert to a 9-10 world, pull all the troops out – first Iraq, then Afghanistan will be declared lost – shut down covert operations overseas that do not meet Kerry’s “global test”.
Case in point: Pelosi refused to meet Petraeus to be briefed on Iraq.
If the MSM had any guts they would ask what was so damn important on the Speaker’s schedule that she could not make time for a briefing on that Democrats constantly say is the No.1 issue facing America. It was only when the media criticized her for this that that her aides scrambled for a phone conversation.
That one incident is revealing of how the Democratic leadership sees the war. The Dems see Iraq in purely partisan terms…they don’t give a rat’s ass about the conduct of the war, only how it factors into their domestic power games.
Reid’s comment is simply an exemplar of this condition.
Oh let them have their little straw. As long as they are concentrating on undefined Reid remarks, the rest of the Democrat candidate pack can give their easy explanations and “takes” on Reid’s remarks. Conservatives are so easy. Its free press.
Did anyone read Reid’s latest position report.
It goes like this.
Cluck, cluck, cluck.
“The war is lost”
Broder is right on the mark, Reid handed the right the perfect propaganda tool on a silver platter. If Reid does not understand that in his new position every word will be carefully scrutinized then he needs to step down and let someone who understands this basic political fact take his place. Like it or not, “great truth†or no every word must be measured, particularly any remarks on the war effort. As far as the frothing at the mouth snide remarks on Border by Mullen, it looks like there is plenty of kool aid to go around.
Fact is, the war is Lost.
It was lost the day someone with a neocon’s brain dead, cheep skate, go it alone, rush to war, dimestore cowboy ideology decided it was necessary. Continuing to occupy Iraq will only destroy our nation. However it obviously serves to create more Democrats, but, well, we don’t trade blood for votes like republicans do.
grognard is correct.
Harry Reid is guilty of telling the truth when he knows full well that the GOP will twist his words and use them to taunt him like schoolyard bullies. This is very foolish of him. He should learn to dish out a stream of utter bullshit…a taste treat that nearly 30% of Americans still find to be a delicious comfort food.
Over and over again the supporters of this war speak of how important it is. Really? Then where is the massive fund raising to pay for it? Where is the courage to roll back tax cuts or sell war bonds? Where is the draft if measures to increase the size of the volunteer force quickly enough to provide a meaningful increase in forces in Iraq fail? Nowhere. Quit trying to draw WWII analogies if you lack the courage to support the kind of commitment that was made to win that war. And I am speaking of the catastrophe in Iraq, not the necessary campaign against jihadists.
Well said, Jim, but don’t expect to change Nobody’s mind. He really thinks this debacle can be compared to the war against Hitler and Japan, where we were all under direct and imminent threat. Saddam was a two-bit dictator in the twilight of his powers, a nobody. He was wicked as all hell and he killed people, but so do lots of evil dictators. Who ever said it was the duty of the US to spill its blood and treasure to bring democracy to the world’s peoples? It might be a noble goal, but it was not a matter of life or death, and by depleting resources from the real war on terror in Afghanistan it was counter-productive in every way. With Japan and Hitler we had specific goals. With Iraq, no one can define what victory is or how we get there. Because we are in the middle of a civil war the roots of which go back thousands of years. All we can do is try to contain it the best we can and get the hell out with as little loss of face as possible. There is no victory to be had at this point. We lost as soon as the looting started and the insurgency began picking off our soldiers. That proved we had not considered the difficulties of occupation, and now, four years later, we have a seething catastrophe on our hands. To those who stay we need to stay and finish, I ask, when do we know we’ve won? What are the fruits of our victory? We gave Iraqis a choice, and they opted for Iranian-style Sharia government. This is what we died for? This is what we are willing to throw countless US bodies into defending? This is our greatest priority, when the Taliban are resurging and global terrorism soaring? It was a bad idea in 2003 and a bad idea now. There is no victory, only a steady and relentless chipping away of America’s reputation and pocketbook.
I beg to differ. How have I compared this war to Japan or Germany?
I have not even mentioned Germany Or Japan in this thread.
I for one am opposed to a draft for one very obvious reason. A draft would give the antiwar a reason to march in the streets and pull the Vietnam crap they did back in the 60′s and 70′s. Sorry.
Why is rolling back tax cuts going to help us fight the war?
The war in Iraq is nothing more then the roaring 20′s where gangsters were mowing each other down every day accross America. They are just a little more sophisticated today then back then. We did not give up cause it was too hard then.
Im all for redeploying our troops into a holding pattern, cutting the forces in half and letting the Bastards kill each other mindlessly till they are tired of doing it.
This war was about looking for bad stuff that would kill Americans and killing terrorists. It was never about Democracy. The comparisons here to WW2 are silly and I HAVE NOT USED THEM.
I have never been opposed to any new plan, redeployment or a shift in policy.
I am just opposed to FLEEING IRAQ. That is bad for everyone for the next 40 years.