Thank you for taking the bait. Different time and different circumstances, but Napoleon indeed had the same abjectly lacking military leadership clouded by a profound arrogance.

The horrible winter retreat from Moscow where the Grande Armée that started out with 690,000 troops returned with 22,000, a defeat not matched in misery and death until Hitler tried the same thing. Napoleon was a callused and calculating, and became so convinced of his own greatness that he over reached. He was far from a saint.

Jason, Well you have previously written a lot of posts previously stereotyping the reactions and statements of the “left”- usually linked with some harmful effect on America, lol.

kritter, since I have for weeks now consciously avoided characterizing “the left” as a homogeneous group at all, this interpretation is very frustrating to me. It indicates that my efforts are wasted and that readers will interpret any criticism directed towards Democrats as partisan no matter what. My frustration on this point is elevated by the fact that a major theme in my posts has been immigration, where the primary focus of my criticism is actually Republicans. In those posts (which are ignored by those who on this and other threads accuse me of being a partisan Republican) I get accused of being a partisan the other way. Apparently, keeping the stereotypes consistent across different issues is too much work.

Anyway, I am coming to believe that accusations of the type of “you only criticize the left, so shut up” (like that posted at the beginning of this thread which you appear to be endorsing at this point) are not only completely inaccurate, but may also be merely knee-jerk reactions designed to avoid the issue by making a cheap ad hom attack. In short, they are devices to change the subject away from something that might challenge partisan presumptions and towards more familiar and EASY partisan tropes where the only people who would EVER DARE to criticize the Party of White Hats must, by definition, be an evildoer from the Party of Black Hats. Yawn.

And I really, really, really have no interest in such pointless discussions. I had honestly thought in recent days that you were not among those who pursued such tactics and I am disappointed in this response from you.

I might add that I usually listen to C-span a couple of times a week, and calls like I heard today are not unusual when the war is being discussed. Neither are the ones who call in supporting the president’s policies out of party loyalty either, though.

If so, my critiques about the anti-war movement are going to get really, really easy to write.

Then again, I suspect that some of the people who disagree with me but who do not endorse the ridiculous statements of a couple of C-SPAN callers might object to being lumped in with them, right?

The shameless attitude of a lot of those who haven’t signed up? That the enlistees shouldn’t have volunteered in the first place if they weren’t up to the task. (I have no source because I heard both of these types of callers on c-span this morning)

Correcto mundo. As further validated by my update.

Do you have a link for your poll, Laura? Most polls I have seen have shown just the opposite.

Looking at current US policy towards Iraqi immigration, I don’t see any chance of a little Baghdad in any city.
Kurds also have more to worry about from Turkey than from their fellow Iraqi’s.

I would hate to be a Kurd knowing that the U.S. is about the throw you under the bus so that the U.S. can stop thinking about Iraq.

I wonder were the refugee camps will be built and whichU.S. city will end up with a little Baghdad.

Astutely said. But I see the GOP as just one tree, albeit a damned big one (perhaps a weeping willow, which has notoriously shallow roots), in a forest of disillusionment.

IT is BECAUSE of Bush’s fatalist view that he does not care about the GOP but only the war, the war and nothing but the war.

If he spent as much time trying to drum up support for the GOP agenda that had nothing to do with the war as he did with the WAR then the GOP would not be deserting him.

George Bush has become Consumed, obsessed and haunted by the war in Iraq and yet life goes on. We as Americans have other things we have to worry about. Taxes, immigration, health care…etc…etc.

Yet Bush has abandoned ALL of that for the WAR. He said once he was going to be the President of ALL Americans and yet he has done the opposite because of the war.

This is why the GOP is abandoning him……..Not because of the War but because he has abandoned every other thing Americans care about to focus exclusively ON THE WAR.

More and more, Republicans are moving back towards the ISG’s recommendations. They are probably afraid that in ‘08 as in ‘06, they will go down with the ship if they stick too closely to President Bush’s surge.