In the NY Times, bad news for democrats!

[John Gault]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/world/middleeast/21security.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPP8tEv2HHM


http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/wesley-clark-bushs-surge-will-backfire-431053.html

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070613203802.7yla5iav&show_article=1

The always objective and fair Keith Olberman :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18831132/

Another failed dem presidential candidate:

http://chrisdodd.com/feingold_dodd_iraq_speech

[Trueblue]

Bad news for Publicans:

They have these guys:

http://roadkillrefugee.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/mccain-bush-cake.png

[Lone Laugher]

Nothing makes people JG happier than to talk about the things that divide us in this country. To say that "Democrats" hope for US failure...even in the illegal and poorly run occupation of Iraq...is a straw man of the most vile kind.

What he fails to see is that no matter what comes of this fuck-up in Iraq, the ends do not justify the means. It was the wrong thing to do....it was done irresponsibly...it was carried out with lies.....and it has cost way too many lives.

Democrats do not hope for failure...they hope for closure for what has been one of the worst things this country has ever done.

[Yellowdogtexan]

The surge was suppose to get a functioning iraq govt in place. That has not happen Here is just one example. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/iraqi-re-baathification-law-not-being-implemented/In January, the Iraqi parliament passed a nominal re-Baathification law that was meant to allow thousands of former Baathists to join the Iraqi government. Conservatives and war hawks loudly touted the law’s passage as a sign of success in Iraq. But, as Reuters reported yesterday, the law is not being implemented:But five months later, implementation of the law is bogged down by infighting between politicians, and the committee once tasked with hunting out Baathists in government has found itself in the odd position of overseeing the process of rehiring them or offering them state pensions.

The government has still not appointed a seven-member panel to replace the deBaathification Committee, whose enthusiastic purge of Baathists from government posts prompted minority Sunni Arabs to accuse them of conducting a witch-hunt.Juan Cole writes that though the Reuters story is “a refutation of the whole Kagan-Bush-McCain victory narrative of the ’surge’ or troop escalation,” he doesn’t expect it to be “even be mentioned on American television.”

[issac the dragon]

I'm still waiting for someone in the government to explain what we will get if we win. The proposal that the Bushies want the Iraqis to agree to is a rewrite of a treaty the English forced on the Iraqis in 1930, the end result of was Iraq becoming the only Nazi country in the ME.

England's goal was always to set up leaving Iraq in such a way, it was absolutely certain that they would have to return. Rather like what we do in Haiti everytime we invade it. Is that what constitutes winning?

[Cookie Parker]

I'm still waiting for someone in the government to explain what we will get if we win. The proposal that the Bushies want the Iraqis to agree to is a rewrite of a treaty the English forced on the Iraqis in 1930, the end result of was Iraq becoming the only Nazi country in the ME.

England's goal was always to set up leaving Iraq in such a way, it was absolutely certain that they would have to return. Rather like what we do in Haiti everytime we invade it. Is that what constitutes winning?

Sounds as good an explanation as I have heard...course, now the big oil companies are there helping them drill their oil...there's probably that, too.

How any republican can look upon Iraq as a legitimate invasion is beyond me. This was and illegal invasion, it has violated EVERY Geneva Convention Treaty, AND it is now an illegal occupation. The Iraq OIL law was the ONLY reason for the invasion as has been disclosed time and time again and most recently by Scott McClellan.

The displacement of over 4 million Iraqis is being called the worse treatment of a nation EVER. The sex slavery of children has caught the attention of every world wide organization set against stopping this.

The ONLY success there could EVER be in Iraq is the success that comes when the US pulls out its corporations, its military, and provides that nation with peace and quiet from us...the worse inhumane nation to darken doors in the Middle East.

[toxic]

We all are aware the Surge is Working!

http://allhatnocattle.net/Copy%20of%20taliban.jpg

[matrixx8]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/world/middleeast/21security.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
This is good news. Why do you think it will hurt the Democrats? I fail to see the logical connection here.

The Bush administration involved America in a costly and unnecessary war (one not based on self-defense). The fact that most Americans apparently (according to the polls) do not support the war in Iraq would seem to reflect politically more on Republicans who supported Bush than on Democratcs who opposed him.

Setting a timetable to get the main US military forces out of Iraq actually becomes easier as the situation on the ground improves. Or so it seems to me.

[Yellowdogtexan]

Can someone explain to me what the Iraqi govt has done lately other than not meet benchmarks? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/06/iraqs_provincial_elections_cou.php - Iraq's provincial elections, seen as vital for fostering national reconciliation, could be delayed because of disputes in parliament over the electoral law, several lawmakers said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said the elections will be held on Oct 1, but a dispute has emerged between Arab and Kurdish lawmakers over what to do about voting in the disputed oil rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

"There are many problems hindering us from agreeing the provincial elections law. One of the main problems is Kirkuk," Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, head of the parliamentary bloc from the ruling Shi'ite Alliance, told Reuters.

"I think it will be very difficult to hold elections on time."

The electoral commission has said the draft law must be passed by the start of July to give it three months to prepare for the polls. U.S. officials have said the elections could be delayed until November, but have not elaborated.

The fate of Kirkuk, a mixed city of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen that sits atop rich oil fields, is already one of the most divisive issues in Iraq.

Minority Kurds, who control the northern Kurdistan region, see Kirkuk as their ancient capital and want a constitutionally mandated referendum to be held to decide its status. Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein want the city to stay under Baghdad and have been wary of a vote.

Given Kirkuk's status had not been resolved, Arab and Turkmen lawmakers said they wanted a separate law to govern voting in the city. Kurd lawmakers have rejected this proposal.

Some Arab and Turkmen lawmakers had also suggested sharing power in the city evenly between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. But Kurdish lawmakers said the provincial election results should be used to determine control of the city.

"We completely reject the suggestion of drawing up a special law for Kirkuk. We call for elections in the whole of Iraq on the same day," said Mehsin al-Sa'doon, a senior Kurd lawmaker.

He said Kurds were prepared to reach a political consensus on dividing up control of the city once elections had been held.The purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi govt. time to work out its problems and to hold additional elections. I doubt that these elections will take place while bush is in office.

[Yellowdogtexan]

BTW, the whole Carter line of attack is just plain stupid to me and to others. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/21/obama-carter-comparisons_n_108442.html While Carter's political legacy may roil older, conservative voters, few under 40 have any memory of his presidency. To them and to many others, Carter is better known for his work on Habitat for Humanity and as a global humanitarian whose endeavors brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University, said the Carter comparison would do almost nothing to help McCain attract young voters from Obama.

"For younger voters, there isn't any clear image of Jimmy Carter at all except for his international work," Black said. "The better way would be for McCain to talk to them about problems facing the country and what he'd do about them, rather than bringing up Jimmy Carter."

A former Georgia governor, Carter defeated incumbent Republican Gerald Ford in 1976. He served just one term, losing in a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

During his presidency Carter struggled with an energy crisis that contributed to high inflation. He also faced major foreign policy challenges including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis in which 52 Americans were detained by Islamic students at the U.S. embassy for more than a year.

When Carter left office, the inflation rate hovered at about 12 percent. The unemployment rate was 7.7 percent and much higher in some industrial areas.

McCain can't make the same comparison to the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who was governor of Arkansas and just 44 when elected president in 1992. Even though a sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, many voters remember his two terms in office as a time of peace and economic stability.

Jody Powell, who served as Carter's White House press secretary, noted that Carter had made serious proposals as president to develop alternative energies and clean coal technology but they languished in Congress after he left office.

"John McCain knows this, but he has a real problem with his base. And I'm sure attacking Jimmy Carter resonates well with the old, extreme right wing of the Republican base," Powell said.Bottom line is that this attack just makes mc :cane look older which is not a smart idea. This line of attack will not help mc :cane with voters under the age of 40 or so and will only be effective with the older voters who mc :cane is doing okay with to beging with.

Getting the young people to vote for mc :cane is probably a lost cause to begin with but stupid attacks like the comparison of Senator Obama to Jimmy Carter is not going to help.:LL

[Trueblue]

"John McCain knows this, but he has a real problem with his base. And I'm sure attacking Jimmy Carter resonates well with the old, extreme right wing of the Republican base," Powell said.

:whistle

[Yellowdogtexan]

The New York Times has a great article today about how the surge is failing as to the key benchmarks and standards. The GAO has done a study and it appears that things are not going that well in Iraq and that the bushies are again overstating their claims http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/world/middleeast/24gao.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=sloginBeyond the declines in overall violence in Iraq, several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

Over all, the report says, the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration’s goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines.

Newly declassified data in the report on countrywide attacks in May shows that increases in violence during March and April that were touched off by an Iraqi government assault on militias in Basra have given way to a calmer period. Numbers of daily attacks have been comparable to those earlier in the year, representing about a 70 percent decline since June 2007, the data shows.

While those figures confirm the assessments by American military commanders that many of the security improvements that first became apparent last fall are still holding, a number of the figures that have been used to show broader progress in Iraq are either misleading or simply incorrect, the report says.

Administration figures, according to the report, broadly overstate gains in some categories, including the readiness of the Iraqi Army, electricity production and how much money Iraq is spending on its reconstruction.

And the security gains themselves rest in large part not on broad-scale advances in political and social reconciliation and a functioning Iraqi government, but on a few specific advances that remain fragile, the report says. The relatively calm period rests mostly on the American troop increase, a shaky cease-fire declared by militias loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and an American-led program to pay former insurgents to help keep the peace, the report says.

“Clearly there are substantial changes in the security situation on the ground,” said Nathan Freier, a retired Army officer who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2007 and is now a senior fellow in the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The administration prefers to focus on those improvements, Mr. Freier said. But the accountability office report, which Mr. Freier read on Monday, and his own observations in Iraq contain a different message, he said.

“Iraq remains a mixed bag and will continue to do so in perpetuity, to be quite honest,” he added.

[John Gault]

Nothing makes people JG happier than to talk about the things that divide us in this country. To say that "Democrats" hope for US failure...even in the illegal and poorly run occupation of Iraq...is a straw man of the most vile kind.

What he fails to see is that no matter what comes of this fuck-up in Iraq, the ends do not justify the means. It was the wrong thing to do....it was done irresponsibly...it was carried out with lies.....and it has cost way too many lives.

Democrats do not hope for failure...they hope for closure for what has been one of the worst things this country has ever done.


I did not say they hope for it, I say that good news for the US is bad news for their political prospects.

That is a fact.

[John Gault]

The surge was suppose to get a functioning iraq govt in place. That has not happen Here is just one example. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/iraqi-re-baathification-law-not-being-implemented/

Give it up gramps, your Clintonian parsing is not going to change what has happened.

has the ultimate goal happened yet, not yet but steps towards it are possible because the surge is working and you leftists just have to keep finding ways to spin good news bad for political gain.

[John Gault]

This is good news. Why do you think it will hurt the Democrats? I fail to see the logical connection here.

The Bush administration involved America in a costly and unnecessary war (one not based on self-defense). The fact that most Americans apparently (according to the polls) do not support the war in Iraq would seem to reflect politically more on Republicans who supported Bush than on Democratcs who opposed him.

Setting a timetable to get the main US military forces out of Iraq actually becomes easier as the situation on the ground improves. Or so it seems to me.

That may be because you don't use logic often enough to make the connection. That seems to be a basic problem with you lefists/socialists.

Let me explain, when you constantly deny something as obvious as this, you look stupid, so democrats who said in the begining and even say today that it is not working look stupid, although a normal state for a democrat, stupid all the same.

I love Nancy Pelosi, she said that the reason th surge has worked is the goodwill of Iran!

There you go Nancy, you obviously never heard the advise that when digging a hole that you want out of, the first thing you do is stop digging.

[Yellowdogtexan]

Give it up gramps, your Clintonian parsing is not going to change what has happened.Silly conservative. The purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi govt time to get its act together and to resolve political issues. That has not happen. The GAO report is very clear that things are not going well on the political front and that the reduction in violence is fragile at best (we are paying terrorists now not to attack us and are dependent on a cease fire with Sadr). The Sunni's representatives in the Iraqi parliment are boycotting the current govt and the political progress has been none-existent.

These are facts that those of us in the real world deal with. You may not like these facts but the real world is what is going to drive this election

[Trueblue]

That may be because you don't use logic often enough to make the connection. That seems to be a basic problem with you lefists/socialists.

Let me explain, when you constantly deny something as obvious as this, you look stupid, so democrats who said in the begining and even say today that it is not working look stupid, although a normal state for a democrat, stupid all the same.

I love Nancy Pelosi, she said that the reason th surge has worked is the goodwill of Iran!

There you go Nancy, you obviously never heard the advise that when digging a hole that you want out of, the first thing you do is stop digging.

:bullshit :lol

[Lone Laugher]

I did not say they hope for it, I say that good news for the US is bad news for their political prospects.

That is a fact.

And......next January, will you say the same thing about Republicans? Somehow, I doubt it. We all know that the GOP will hope and pray that Obama and company are a great success in every endeavor...since they love America so much.

What a waste of breath you have become.

[John Gault]

Silly conservative. The purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi govt time to get its act together and to resolve political issues. That has not happen. The GAO report is very clear that things are not going well on the political front and that the reduction in violence is fragile at best (we are paying terrorists now not to attack us and are dependent on a cease fire with Sadr). The Sunni's representatives in the Iraqi parliment are boycotting the current govt and the political progress has been none-existent.

These are facts that those of us in the real world deal with. You may not like these facts but the real world is what is going to drive this election

Because it is not complete does not mean it is not going to be moron.

[John Gault]

:bullshit :lol

Wow, the that flag a new debate technique?

[John Gault]

And......next January, will you say the same thing about Republicans? Somehow, I doubt it. We all know that the GOP will hope and pray that Obama and company are a great success in every endeavor...since they love America so much.

What a waste of breath you have become.

Well speculation of that kind is useless and it does nothing to refute the accuracy of what I said.

[Trueblue]

Because it is not complete does not mean it is not going to be moron.

Come on, John. Everyone knows that the rest of the equation is political and not military. The only way to get what you are looking for is to install a puppet government in Iraq.

[Lone Laugher]

Well speculation of that kind is useless and it does nothing to refute the accuracy of what I said.

Oh! I see. That means you do not wish to admit that you are hoping that Obama fails miserably....even if it harms America's economy and security interests...so that you can get your beloved tax cutters back into office in 2010.

Honesty is good. Give it a try.

[Trueblue]

Wow, the that flag a new debate technique?

Sometimes what you say is just so ridiculous that nothing else needs to be said in rebuttal.

[Yellowdogtexan]

The premise of cappy's silly claim is that the surge is working. The GAO report shows that this claim is wrong and silly http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/the-surge-is-working-not_b_108976.htmlThe statement is made in the U.S. media, over and over again, as if it is as factual as the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening: "The surge is working." But just because the media has parroted the talking points of the Bush administration and John McCain's campaign in making such an assertion, it does not make it true. And a report released by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) yesterday does something that McCain and the White House probably wish would not be done: actually evaluating progress in Iraq against the goals the administration laid out in January 2007 when undertaking the surge. Guess what? In many material ways, the surge isn't working. Sorry to rain on the parade of CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, etc. with the facts.

The mainstream media is barely even acknowledging the report's release. At the time of this writing, the GAO report didn't even warrant a headline on the CNN.com home page, although CNN did see fit to include Imus's allegedly racist remark, pirates kidnapping European tourists, a British man accused of killing his wife and child, a prisoner's escape gone bad, the cost of orange juice in "paradise," a calf with an extra snout, and the denial of a U.S. visa for Boy George. And there is a headline that the Iraq military will control Anbar province, but there is no mention of the fact, cited in the GAO report, that only nine of Iraq's 18 provinces were controlled by the Iraqi government, even though the goal was to have Iraq control all 18 of its provinces by the end of 2007.....

Bill Clinton famously once said: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." The Bush administration had no effective plan to handle a post-war Iraq. The incompetence shown was disastrous. So why would anyone think for a second that the White House had a post-surge plan?

And the GAO report finds just that, that the Bush administration has no plan for what to do next. With the 18-month surge coming to an end in July, the report says that the administration has not set out "strategic goals and objectives in Iraq for the phase after July 2008 or how it intends to achieve them" and "an updated strategy is needed for how the United States will help Iraq achieve key security, legislative, and economic goals."

What did the Defense Department and State Department think of this statement? They were against it, of course. According to the report, the two departments said that the surge strategy "remains valid." But if most of the goals laid out by the president in January 2007 have not been met in July 2008, how can the plan still be valid?

Once again, the White House has no plan. Is this is a rerun?

When the White House and McCain say "the surge is working," how is it different than Bush's disastrous "stay the course" strategy in Iraq that failed and supposedly necessitated the surge in the first place? Keep that in mind the next time you're asked to support an open-ended troop commitment.

Violence
The report acknowledged that violence was down in May (after rising in March and April) and attributed the reduction to three factors: "1) the increase in U.S. combat forces, 2) the creation of nongovernmental security forces such as the Sons of Iraq, and 3) the Mahdi Army's declaration of a cease fire." What do these three conditions have in common? They are all temporary and unlikely to continue in the future.

Congressional testimony by generals in April, an April press release by Republican Senator Richard Lugar and statements by former secretary of state Colin Powell on Good Morning America in April all agreed on one premise: The U.S. military is stretched beyond its limits and cannot sustain current troop levels in Iraq indefinitely. The Sons of Iraq is a Sunni group that has fought al-Qaeda (fellow Sunnis) in Iraq. Groups like the Sons of Iraq are paid by the U.S. military. When the money stops, there is no guarantee the cooperation will continue. And as the GAO report points out, these groups have not reconciled with the Iraqi government, which is a recipe for future problems. As for the the Mahdi Army, its leader, Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said two weeks ago that he is setting up a fighting force specifically designed to fight Americans in Iraq, after making clear in April that he is not interested if fighting Iraqis but did want to fight U.S. troops. So the cease fire is, at best, to quote the report, "tenuous."

With all three elements affecting a drop in violence in Iraq being so precarious, it stands to reason that the drop in violence is also fragile, something both the GAO and the Defense department acknowledge. And the GAO report cites findings from the United Nations that violence in Iraq could "rapidly escalate."

Finally, the report notes that while violence is down from past levels, it is still high enough to keep a significant number of Iraqis displaced from their homes and to stymie rebuilding efforts in the country.

That, to me, sounds a lot more complicated than the simple campaign rhetoric of "the surge is working."

Political Reconciliation
The purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi government "breathing space" to enact laws to bring together Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, resolve their differences and establish a democratic government. In fact, President Bush said in January 2007 that the Iraqi government would be held to benchmarks, and if the government did not meet these goals, U.S. support would cease. Bush said in January 2007: "America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people."

Has the Iraqi government followed through on its promises? Well, the GAO reports that while some legislation has been passed to restore Ba'ath Party members to government (although many have questioned the legitimacy of these efforts), give amnesty to some detainees and define provincial powers, on many of the larger, stickier issues, no progress has been made. The report notes that the Iraqi government has not enacted "important legislation for sharing oil resources or holding provincial elections" and that "[e]fforts to complete constitutional review have also stalled."

In other words, we were told that the surge was put in place to provide temporary peace under which the Iraqi government could step up and pass necessary laws so that the Iraqi people could govern themselves. These laws were supposed to be passed and in place by now. This was one of Bush's benchmarks. But, according to the report, the Iraqi government has not met its obligation.

[Cookie Parker]

I did not say they hope for it, I say that good news for the US is bad news for their political prospects.

That is a fact.

Not really.....when your emphasis for good news for the nation is more money for the wealthy, only 10% find that good news. 90% find democrats have better news...:tarty

[matrixx8]

That may be because you don't use logic often enough to make the connection. That seems to be a basic problem with you lefists/socialists.
Name calling is not a substitute for reasoning, I'm afraid. Nor is making unsubstaniated assertions. That is the argument of faith, not reason. I asked you a specific question. So far, you have failed to answer it.

Let me explain, when you constantly deny something as obvious as this, you look stupid, so democrats who said in the begining and even say today that it is not working look stupid, although a normal state for a democrat, stupid all the same.
What did I deny, John? I asked you to explain your position. You still haven't done so.

I love Nancy Pelosi, she said that the reason th [sic] surge has worked is the goodwill of Iran!

There you go Nancy, you obviously never heard the advise [sic] that when digging a hole that you want out of, the first thing you do is stop digging.
As you again failed to answer my original question, perhaps you would prefer that I restate it in monosyllables?