Democrats Believe Iraq Defeat Bills Will Ensure They Get Re-Elected

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At least they’re being honest now:

Like so many of the war-related measures that Democrats have proposed this year, the spending bill sought to set a timeline for redeploying American troops, and to narrow the mission to focus on counterterrorism and on the training of Iraq’s security forces.

And, like so many of the war-related measures that Democrats proposed this year, it was approved in the House only to wither and die in the Senate, where on Friday it fell 7 votes short of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — with 45 senators voting to block the measure.

All signs indicate that Democrats will continue proposing such measures as long as Mr. Bush remains in office and troops remain in Iraq. “We are going to keep plugging away,” said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Democratic lawmakers and strategists on Capitol Hill said their hope was that even if Republican support for Mr. Bush’s strategy held firm, voters would reward Democrats for their efforts at the polls next November, and that there was no risk to failing again and again.

Why do the right thing when you can do the thing that will get you re-elected instead?

The surge is working, the Iraqi’s are fighting back against al-Qaeda, the parties inside Iraq are starting to work together, violence and deaths are down, and our troops are beginning to come home.

But they don’t admit any of those facts.  No, instead they bow to the alter of MoveOn to ensure they get re-elected.

How sad and pathetic.

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“Actually” Steve, you are WRONG AGAIN!

In the words of Osama bin Laden:

“The Whole World Is Watching This War And The Two Adversaries; The Islamic Nation, On The One Hand, And The United States And Its Allies On The Other. It Is Either Victory And Glory Or Misery And Humiliation.”

“. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world’s millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.”

“It has been made clear during our defending and fighting against the American enemy that this enemy’s combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war due to its large and efficient media apparatus.

The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever.”

U.S. “defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars”

Finally, in September OBL put out a video tape where he said: “”People of America, the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq. After several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose.”

You’ve got some nerve saying that “American Conservatives [are] furthering bin Laden’s objectives.”

Seems to me it is YOU and your defeatist friends who not only LIE about the nature of our enemy, you are more than willing to be a part of his propaganda campaign.

Do you really hate your fellow Americans that much?

P.S. I notice you dodged on the Reagan/Cold War analogy. If you were in the Army for 14 years you might just be old enough to remember the Cold War. You want to put that idiot Robert in his place for saying President Reagan was “one of the greatest traitors to the USA” or would you like to join him in moonbat land?

Mike,
I KNOW you’re not just a partisan hack, so let me ask you.
What would you say if Bill Clinton supplied arms to our enemy Iran?
Would traitor be a strong enough word?
Happy to see you finally admit you believe everything Osama says. (I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it!)

Rovin,
No class warfare stuff, please.
That war is over. The rich won in a rout (big shocker).
BTW, can you cite that 60% of the tax base figure that corporations are paying? I think you’ll be in for a big shock when you look that up. Maybe Mike will call you out as a liar. (FAT chance!)

Quick question: Who’s profiting from the war in iraq. (Financially profiting, we already know Iran is the big winner), and who is dying in Iraq (hint: the GOP likes to make believe they support them. The GOP is so cute, sometimes)?
You keep following the lead of Cheney and Bush, who never met a war they didn’t want their doorman’s son to fight.

“smoke their peace pipes” Awww, little baby. Still upset corporations aren’t making all the cash from the marijuana market? Get over it!

Robert: You’re an idiot! Nothing you have to say has the slightest interest for me and you deserve nothing but contempt.

Climb back under your rock.

P.S. You’re a fool too.

Poor Mike. I can see that in your world, making a comeback that might pass for clever on the playground somehow trumps the incredible damage that has been done to our country by your president.

Paul finally discovered he was WRONG about the benchmarks being the brain child of Democrats and can’t understand why the error is significant.

You’re right, I don’t understand why the error is significant. Nor do you, apparently, since you failed badly in making the case of why it has any significance whatsoever. You also failed to address exactly who owned those benchmarks and who promoted them. Here, you can have a do-over. Read this and attempt a response:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2007/11/18/democrats-believe-iraq-defeat/index.html#comment-31435

And Paul doesn’t feel the Regan/Cold War analogy is relevant? Really? How old were you back then Paul?

I already said how old I was, but I can see that you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and therefore missed it. In exposing your slow-wittedness, I know exactly why you believe the Cold War is relevant to the Iraq War: you believe that because a totalitarian wartime economy was bested by a free consumerist society, which finally brought the USSR to its knees (where it would have wound up eventually), that there is some lesson in there regarding thousands of terrorists under no flag and with no economy. Of course, you could never actually bring yourself to try and explain this tenuous connection, because the moment you began, you would sound insipid even to yourself. Therefore, you’re left to cluck about a complete non-reality, and in your ignorance believe that you have a solid grasp of what goes on in the world. I mean, really, your clinging to the Cold War as somehow instructive of our current disaster is an absolute showcase of Republican idiocy. Hats off, Mike. You’ve outdone yourself.

I’m sorry you don’t see the parallel Paul, but something tells me it is because of your relative youth and inexperience.

Right. Just like something told you Saddam had this massive stockpile of WMDs and could launch a strike on the US within 45 minutes. Just like something told you Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. Just like something told you that transforming Iraq from dictatorship to democracy would take weeks, not months.

I’m 41. You’re really batting 1000 there, buddy.

You’ve got some nerve saying that “American Conservatives [are] furthering bin Laden’s objectives.”

Let me spell this out for you in the most rudimentary terms. Do you know where bin Laden would be had the US not invaded Iraq?

Either dead, in jail, in complete disgrace, or a combination of those. Because America would not have pulled out of Tora Bora to begin the Iraq build-up. Because OBL would not have a glaring example to point out to the world, where America is invading an oil-rich nation under false premises. (Keep in mind, while 29% of this country of which you belong are obviously as dumb as a bag of hammers, the rest of the world can understand what is going on.) Because Zarqawi would have been taken out back in 2002 when the US military literally had him in their sites, rather than preserving him as justification for the Iraq invasion, allowing him to kill thousands while promoting the Al Qaeda brand. Because “brand America” which had captured the hearts and minds of the vast majority of the world, including young Muslims in predominantly Muslim countries, would not have been shown to be an utterly corrupt sham. Because the American Dream would have otherwise been far more attractive than a suicide vest.

Bin Laden owes all this to you Republicans. Seriously, the Islamists could never have dreamed of a more effective ally than the GOP.

Someday, this country will have its own Nuremberg trials.

Mike,

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

headen wrote:

Oh ChrisG, you say tomato I say tomatoe….disbanded or willfully allowed to disintegrate rather than being organized and controlled by the occupying forces, thereby letting loose thousands of armed men with no paycheck and no direction….really thats poor planning.

As Chris G. stated, we did not “disband” the Iraqi military. It “dissolved”, of its own accord, even though General Franks had tried to get Iraqi soldiers to stay in uniform for the purposes of being put to work in reconstruction. There were even repeated warnings made in Arabic and millions of leaflets that told Iraqi soldiers to lay down their arms, but remain in place.

freedumb followed up:

sure ’bout that?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/interviews/garner.html

From Garner’s interview: The only thing in the works at that time [was] we were trying to locate the [Iraqi] army and bring it back. We had a call out to the police to bring them back. We were setting up to pay the civil servants and the police and the pensioners.

… [Franks] was always promised a large constabulary force from allies. He was promised by DoD or by the administration — I’m not sure [which]. He was relying on me to bring back the Iraqi army, and we’re talking about 250,000 soldiers.

I think in his mind, in his planning process, he probably had 250,000 to 300,000 troops that he had been told he was going to have; when he was issuing those orders, those were the back of his mind. I never talked to Tommy about this, but I know him well enough that I know he wouldn’t have said, “Pull immediately out of Iraq.” I think he was counting on that. I know [CENTCOM Commander Gen.] John Abizaid was counting on that, and I know Dave McKiernan was counting on it. And I was counting on it. So the constabulary forces never materialized, and the decision was made not to bring back the Iraqi army. So those two things evaporated.

In Garner’s recollection, nowhere does he state that it was our decision to “disband” the Iraqi military. According to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, “the CIA told us that all we had to do was lop off the top layer of leadership, but when we did we found that the corruption went so deep that we had to start from scratch. Was that a mistake? You bet. But it was a mistake based on faulty intelligence.”

Philadelphia Steve wrote:

Considering that a McCain supporter referred to Senator Clinton with the “B****” word, and not one single Conservative has one word of complaint about it,

Addressing your apples and oranges comparison, you’re living in your own bubble, sunshine.

Paul wrote:

Pre-invasion, Bush sycophants all said the invasion would be a cakewalk,

The invasion was a cakewalk. Despite all the predictions of thousands of casualties, the invasion began on March 20th and we toppled the regime on April 9th.

Paul wrote:

This post is apparently caught up in being “approved by the moderator.” Perhaps these moderators will decide that my post is too much for the tender sensibilities of you 29%ers.

Probably had to do with the number of links you had in your post. It happens to me as well, and I have to go in and “publish” my own comments.

Wow! impressive attack from the Devil’s Advocate playbook.
Now everyone practice! When you see a fact you disagree with, either:
a)hold hands over ears, close eyes and chant “blablablabla” until it goes away.
b)assume standard cat-in-the-litterbox 100 yard stare and say “yeah, but” and insert an unrelated “fact”
c)insult Fact-Flingers with standard stereotypical extremist blather.
Note this method works for every fanatical activity, not just textbook righty-lefty politics…

Robert said:

BTW, can you cite that 60% of the tax base figure that corporations are paying? I think you’ll be in for a big shock when you look that up. Maybe Mike will call you out as a liar. (FAT chance!)

When Exxon showed a record profit of 39 billion last year (2006) they also paid a record income tax of 27.9 billion.

The Joint Economic Committee has released Top Half of Taxpayers Pay Highest Tax Share in Decades — New IRS Data Released:

The share of income taxes paid by the top half of taxpayers reached its highest level in decades, according to new IRS data released today [blogged here]. According to the new data, the top half of taxpayers ranked by income paid 96.70 percent of the individual income taxes paid in 2004, compared to 86.05 percent in 1949, 89.35 percent in 1959, and 90.27 percent in 1969.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/09/jec_releases_to.html

The Income Tax Burden is defined simply as who pays U.S. income taxes in the form of individual and corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and federal excise taxes. Based on this information, the following conclusions clearly emerge:
An enormous percentage of taxes are payed by a minority of Americans:

The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 29% of all taxes.
The Top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes.

Our tax system is not so much progressive as it is confiscatory — Frederic Bastiat called this phenomenon “legal plunder.” A progressive tax is based on the premise that those with more income can afford to pay more taxes, and conversely, those with little or no income should pay no tax. However, a quick look at Graph 1A below shows that the U.S. tax system has become far beyond progressive. Fully half the taxpayers contribute almost nothing in individual income taxes.

The Top 1% of income earners (comprising about 1 million families) earn about 15% of the total income earned by all wage earners in the United States, yet they pay almost 30% of all individual income taxes.

Furthermore, the Top 1% are shouldering a roughly 50% higher proportion of the overall income tax burden than they did in 1977.

The argument most oft used against tax breaks are that they benefit only the wealthy. It is clear from even a cursory look at the numbers below that the ‘wealthy’ will receive the majority of any income tax reduction because they pay a disproportionately huge percentage of the income taxes! To structure a tax break such that those in upper income brackets are excluded would constitute nothing more than transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who don’t (i.e. legal plunder.)

http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/

These figures include corporations moron.

Currently, the 1% of American households with the highest incomes — those earning an average of about $1 million a year — pay about 31% of their income in federal taxes, including payroll tax and income tax, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The 20% of households with the lowest incomes — those earning an average of about $15,000 a year — pay less than 5% of their incomes in taxes.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114505726515126546-7cazAvSnuLTS2SyIqH5VuprpZPk_20070415.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Claiming that too many rich people and corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes seems to be a sure way get applause on the campaign trail. But this populist appeal is based on two economic fallacies:

that higher tax rates cause rich people to pay more in taxes; and

that corporations rather than individual workers and consumers pay corporate taxes.

Lower Rates Bring Higher Revenues

When President Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981 through 1983, his opponents said it was a “giveaway to the rich.” But Internal Revenue Service data show those tax cuts actually increased the amount of federal revenues paid by taxpayers in upper income brackets.

In 1981, before the Reagan tax cuts could take full effect, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 17.58 percent of all income taxes in the United States. By the time Reagan left office in 1989, that same group paid 25.24 percent of all incomes taxes in the U.S.–almost a 50 percent increase in the share paid by the rich.

Conversely, after the Clinton administration pushed for tax hikes in 1993, the top 1 percent saw their share of income tax revenues drop from 29.01 percent in 1993 to 28.86 percent in 1994.

And we can thank Clinton for the early recession in 2000.

“smoke their peace pipes” Awww, little baby. Still upset corporations aren’t making all the cash from the marijuana market? Get over it!

I’ve lived in Humboldt County, California for most of my adult life Robert. I don’t need your pathetic lectures on the pot market. Half the county walks around in a stuper. Real “productive” folks. 90% of them are Republic of Berkeley implants from the 60’s. You’d probably feel right at home.

Re: “You want to put that idiot Robert in his place for saying President Reagan was “one of the greatest traitors to the USA” or would you like to join him in moonbat land?”

Actually it is Conservatives who keep making that point.

Conservatives, the ones beating the drums for another war to augment their brilliance in Afghanistan and Iraq, who declare that the US “has been at war” with Iran since the 1970’s. If they believe that, then what can one say about a person who sells US weapons to the Iranian government, sending birthday cakes and well wishes to their Ayotollah? That is exactly what Oliver North and John Poindexder did, with full knowledge (according to Oliver North’s own book) of President Ronald Reagan.

So, what does that, according to Conservative logic, make Saint Ronald Reagan?

Re: “Lower Rates Bring Higher Revenues”

That piece of Conservative dogma harkens to Democratic President John kennedy. In the case of Saints Ronald Reagan, federal revenuse did not increase until he signed tax increases, including one that was larger even then the one signed by President Bill Clinton (measured as a % of GDP).

The Republican Policy of “Borrow and Spend” has depended on that fallacy for years, allowing “Conservatives” to run up debt in order to buy votes, will lying to the American populace about their “dedication” to austerity.

As we all know, Conservative president George w. Bush, withe the help of a Republican Congress, outspent even Lyndon Johnson. But, of course, Conservatives are not permitted to acknowledge that fact, are they?

Philly Steve: I notice you didn’t answer the question.

No doubt it was for a reason.

As for the rest of what you, and Paul have to say, it really is getting tiresome.

But I do “feel your pain.”

With your allies abandoning you LEFT and middle it must be harder and harder each day to sell that defeatism to anyone, even yourself.

No serious Democrat for President is going to abandon Iraq and now even today, the NY Times has put Iraq’s progress on the front page with photos.

I posted it just for you Steve (Paul is to “slow witted” to read apparently):

Enjoy your shrining, lonely world of sour grapes and defeat! It’s a losing position and I hope you realize it soon.

Wordsmith.
That you are unaware of the bremer order to disband the military is unfortunate. See Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco and then this link as well. Im not some radical Bush hater but history is clear on this decision and its repercussions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63423-2003Nov19?language=printer

For those of you rushing to declare victory wake up. We are building the largest most expensive US embassy in the world in Iraq. We are NEVER LEAVING. This is about re ordering the Middle East and Iraq is the lynchpin state. We have taken Washington’s admonition on meddling in foreign wars and locked ourselves into an endless protracted conflict.

“This is about re ordering the Middle East and Iraq is the lynchpin state.”

And we either re-order the Middle East or the Middle East will reorder US.

Wise up freedumb!

Bush’s “keystone” strategy in Iraq is brilliant and bold! It transcends the tiresome arguments about WMDs.

The fruits are already paying off as Al Queda is being seen by Muslims everywhere to be DEFEATED. And that is being reflected by polls across the Muslim world showing a drop in support for violent jihad.

You got a better idea that doesn’t involve appeasement, defeat or surrender, then let’s hear it!

Mike.
Your partisanship ignores the reality that when governments or partitioned states are formed in Iraq they will be based on Sharia law, not Athenian democracy. The bureacrats elected will have been raised in the political culture of Saddam and the corruption will stagnate progress. Sadr is biding his time. His militia will have its day and he will not be sidelined.
Iran will see its influence spread into western Iraq even more thoroughly and the mullahs in Tehran see nothing short of hegemony that can push against Israel.
This war has always been understood in the most simplistic terms and analogies and it is perhaps the least simple war we have engaged ever.
And remember conservatives that this war is all on credit.

Freedum: My partisanship has nothing to do with my opinion regarding Bush’s keystone geostrategy.

I studied National Security topics at the direction of former Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzeznski and last time I checked he was a Democrat. He might not agree with my opinion, but it’s not based on partisanship, but an overall view to the best way to lance the boil of Islamic extremism.

As for Shariah law in Iraq, I recommend you read the NY Times article at the top of today’s main page here. Notice that liquor stores are reopening, men are smoking and barbers are cutting their beards. That’s not Al Queda’s Sharia Law.

Do you understand the difference?

Re: “Philly Steve: I notice you didn’t answer the question. ”

I assume the question was, “do I accuse the Late Ronald Reagan of having committed treason when he authorized the sale of US weapons to Iran at a time when Conservatives declare that we were at war with Iran?”

No, I do not. However Conservatives, by declaring that such a war existed, are stating that Ronald Reagan must have committed treason when he authorized the sale of weapons to a country they declared was at war with the United States, correct?

Re: “As for Shariah law in Iraq, I recommend you read the NY Times article at the top of today’s main page here.”

The New York Times has been the handmaiden of the Bush Administration since they published Dick Cheney’s lies about Saddam’s WMD’s, without once checking facts.

Quote from a reliable source, such as The Economist, or the BBC.

Re: “This is about re ordering the Middle East and Iraq is the lynchpin state.”

And, thanks to the Bush Administratrion’s bungled occupation of Iraq, it has been entirely in the favor of Iran.

Although we should add that, resulting from George W. Bush’s ordering of the breakoff of the pursuit of Osama bin laden to chance after non-existant EMD’s in Iraq, al Qaeda is doing very nicely in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well, even if their branch office in Iraq is not doing so well (although, again, the rest of the insurgency is alive and welland being trained and equipped by American money as we speak).

Steve said:“The New York Times has been the handmaiden of the Bush Administration”

Too funny Steve. You should do stand up comedy!

As for Reagan, glad you don’t think he was a traitor. But I was really more interested in whether you thought his National Security policies were instrumental in winning the Cold War?

The analogy between the left’s blind hatred for Reagan and their efforts to undermine and obstruct his National Security policy and the left’s blind efforts regarding Iraq could not be more clear.

And in both cases, history will judge. But apparently the judgement of history regarding Reagan wasn’t enough of a lesson to get most of you to rethink your blind opposition to the latest visionary strategic effort to defeat Islamic extremism.

Re: “As for Reagan, glad you don’t think he was a traitor. But I was really more interested in whether you thought his National Security policies were instrumental in winning the Cold War?”

Oh. Sorry about that. Fromyour other posts I just assumed that you had gone off the depp end at even the slightest hint that Saint Ronald was anything other than perfect.

Yes, I do give Ronald Reagan considerable credit for contributing to the end of the Cold War.

freedumb,

I’m well aware of what has been popularly reported.

From your Washington Post link:

Before the war, President Bush approved a plan that would have put several hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers on the U.S. payroll and kept them available to provide security, repair roads and prepare for unforeseen postwar tasks. But that project was stopped abruptly in late May by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, who ordered the demobilization of Iraq’s entire army, including largely apolitical conscripts.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said the army effectively disbanded itself in the face of the U.S.-led invasion. “They just disbanded and went home,” he told NBC television recently. “There were conscripts, and they weren’t paid very well, and they just left.”

Garner and his top aides, including retired Gens. Jared Bates and Ron Adams, proposed paying 300,000 to 400,000 members of the Iraqi regular army at war’s end. Also, Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to advancing U.S. forces would be formed into work units. Private contractors were recruited to help make that happen.

Military planners inside the government assumed, based on prewar intelligence, that some Iraqi units would switch sides during the war, while others would remain in their garrisons awaiting instructions from the U.S. postwar leadership. U.S. aircraft had been dropping leaflets for weeks calling on Iraqi forces to prepare for a brighter future by laying down their arms.

Garner consulted with Rumsfeld several times on the issue and briefed national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a knowledgeable official said. He won approval for his plans at a Feb. 28 White House meeting with Bush and principal national security aides.

In Paul Bremer’s book, My Year in Iraq, he writes that on April 10th, General Franks ordered Iraqi soldiers to “remain in uniform at all times. Maintain unit integrity and good order and discipline in your units.”

General Franks autobiography expounds upon this.

By the time Walter B. Slocombe worked out the decision to “disband” the Iraqi army in May, much of it had already “disbanded” of its own accord. The police and army institutions simply had already collapsed once the leadership was removed.

The prewar plan, based upon the information provided by the CIA, was to keep the Iraqi army intact. Iraqi officers fled their posts, and the army all but dissolved.

Throughout this conflict, there have been personnel in the State and CIA Depts who have had conflicting policies, interests, and agendas. Some, not politically in alignment with the wishes of the White House and actively subverting them.

Steve said:”The New York Times has been the handmaiden of the Bush Administration”

YOU REALLY HAVE TO HAND IT TO STEVE—–BY FAR THE FUNNIEST (OBNOXIOUS) ONE-LINER IN THE WHOLE THREAD.

Mike. Take off your AQ blinders. They are minor players in the long term in Iraq. It won’t be a Wahhabi version of Sharia at any rate. But it is coming and depending on how the JAM and the other major players sort it out it will be very close to current Iranian versions. All non US friendly.

Wordsmith. From an interview with Paul Hughes of the ORHA office on pbs.”
BRANCACCIO: Another major decision with huge repercussions, the decision to disband the Iraqi military, or from another point of view, make sure that the disbanded Iraqi military remains that way.

HUGHES: Yeah.

BRANCACCIO: You’re at the center of this.

HUGHES: It fell to me, because there wasn’t anybody else there, ORHA was tapped out. We didn’t have any people who could—you know, take on this responsibility.

I went out to the Ministry of Defense—because I was hoping to find somebody out there. Instead, what I found were squatters in their version of the Pentagon, civilians who had no place to live, and they were now living in the hallways of the—Ministry of Defense building.

a day or so later, a battalion commander from the 101st Airborne came in—to see me, and he said, “Hey, sir, I’ve gotta talk to somebody, I’ve got a group of Iraqi generals and colonels that want to talk to somebody from ORHA.”

And they—over the course of the war, even before the war, had been removing computers and software —of personnel lists from the Ministry of Defense and storing them at their home, because they knew they were not going to win this war.
And they wanted to help reestablish the Iraqi military with the Americans.

BRANCACCIO: So, when you connected to these guys, with this treasure trove of information about the Iraqi military, you saw that as a—as an important resource.

HUGHES: Absolutely. And I took intelligence officials with me to meet with these men. And these guys were willing to—to explain or provide information on anything that they could.

They were saying to me, “Colonel Paul, Baghdad’s burning. You tell me, and I can have 10,000 military police ready for you next week.”

I took that back, nothing ever became of it.
We were also going to—take some Iraqi units and let them become the labor force for reconstructing Iraq. If you needed the rubble from a bridge cleared, they would do that. And there on the news one morning was the announcement that the Iraqi army had been disbanded and abolished by—Ambassador Bremer.

You want to talk about feeling like the ugly American, that’s what I was. You know, here I was, trying to work with these men, to help them rebuild their country, to—to bring their soldiers under some semblance of control. And instead, they’re told they’re not worth the time.

BRANCACCIO: Walter Slocombe, who is the senior adviser for national security and defense at the Pentagon in this film, repeatedly cast doubt on this idea that you had come up with this helpful list of—former members of the Iraqi Armed Services that might be enlisted to—help in the future—rebuilding of Iraq.

SLOCOMBE: Hughes believed that he had an opening to some Iraqi officers who would have been prepared to reconstitute units. I don’t…

CHF: He already had obtained registration statements from 137,000 .

SLOCOMBE: He hadn’t done that. He may have… he may have gotten… ’cause nobody could have gotten statements from 137,000 anybody for anything in the chaos that prevailed at that point.

HUGHES: They had a courier system set up that was running around the metropolitan area of Baghdad, of Mosul, of Basra, and Kirkuk.

SLOCOMBE: And I don’t unders… I mean… I…Given how difficult it was to do anything just operationally, organizationally, nobody had 137,000.

HUGHES: They did. In fact, Slocombe’s first staffer to come to—to Iraq, came back with me from Washington D.C., And I drove him to Baghdad. And I had him meet with these officers. And he realized there had been a big mistake. I handed him the printouts. I handed him the computer disks, and I said, “Here you go, you’re in charge of this now. You handle it.” And he got on the phone right away and told Mr. Slocombe, “We’ve made a mistake. We’ve got to fix this.”

BRANCACCIO: These are—trained military people, some of them might be armed, if they still have some guns, et cetera, at home. And you’re telling them, not only you’re not going to work with them, but that they’re really going to be out of work.

HUGHES: Absolutely. They were gonna be out of work. And when you talk about an Arab society, where six to eight mouths depend on that soldier’s income you’re talking about millions of people suddenly not having a form of support. It was a decision that General Garner tried to have revisited, and—he was told by Ambassador Bremer that Bremer had his orders, and he was going to execute that. And that’s it, don’t—don’t open it up again.

BRANCACCIO: But if you think about it, there’s a line in the film that goes something like, “Overnight, rendered unemployed and therefore infuriated, are half a million armed men.”

HUGHES: Yeah, five days after Bremer issued that order, we had our first attack on the—international airport highway, commonly called BIAP highway. Two American soldiers were killed, and in my mind, that’s the start of insurgency.

BRANCACCIO: You know, Paul Bremer has suggested that we never really did disband the Iraqi military, they disbanded themselves.

HUGHES: It is a gross assumption on the part of the Secretary of Defense and his close staff and Ambassador Bremer to think that—because they didn’t see a military force that looked like the United States Army, that they had—the Iraqis had disbanded themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I apologize for that extended post but its pretty interesting reading.

freedumb: No one ever said that VICTORY in Iraq would be defined by the U.S. eliminating Sharia Law.

I love it how you guys shift the goal post!

We have an Iraq that has become an ally in helping us defeat Al Queda, WHO ATTACKED US, and now you’re saying I have “AQ blinders!”

This after hearing FOR YEARS that our efforts in Iraq have distracted us from the real enemy which is Al QUEDA!

Make up your mind freedumb. I’m getting dizzy from following you and your ilk around in circles.

The Bush Administratio hates our troops.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13660.html

The Bush Administration hates our troops

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13660.html

Oh come on Steve! Have you really joined the moonbat brigade?

Was I wrong in trying to provide you with some balance and perpsective?

Were my efforts just a collosal waste of time?

One by one, myself and many others have swatted down the flies you, Paul, freedumb and others have put up as a distraction from the KEY ISSUE HERE.

What is the KEY ISSUE?

Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and WE ARE WINNING!

Perhaps we can examine the article you cite in closer detail. But it will take more than one source from a local tv news station to make me take this seriously.

But if you want to use words like “The Bush Administration hates our troops” You’re probably beyond any reasonable effort to reason with.

I really do pity the position you are in. Being WRONG on the most important issue of our time must really hurt!

“Oh come on Steve! Have you really joined the moonbat brigade?”

“Was I wrong in trying to provide you with some balance and perpsective?”

“Were my efforts just a collosal waste of time?”

Mike, I don’t mean to be flippant here, but the obvious answer to all of the questions here are YES,YES,and YES.

The only solice here is if one other person has read this thread and really takes the time to think for a moment, instead of being locked into a meantal state that does not allow even a remote possibility that you might have credible arguments, then all was not in vain.

Unfortunatly, the “choir boys” you’ve attempted to shed some light of knowledge are just lemmings that (if you continue the “quest”) are so incubated in their hatred for our President, they have no ability to obtain reasoned thought. Therefore, YES, you are wasting your valuable resorces on a part of our society that is lost.

“The Bush Administration hates our troops” should have been the red flag, no, the stop sign that proves there is no hope for America in their pathetic pea-brains.

Steve,

“But more recently, Fox received a different piece of correspondence from the Bush administration.” (from your link)

This author of the piece is full of shit—-the correspondence came from the Pentagon.

Oh, and Philadelphia Steve—–You really are a piece of work. The Pentagon has already this afternoon admitted that this is an oversight policy by the PENTAGON—NOT OUR PRESIDENT…..do your diapers need changing? ’cause it’s really gettin to stink with your bile.

Re: “Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and WE ARE WINNING!”

The claim that Iraq is the central front is a White House line, meant to justify the wasted lives and treasure that George W. Bush has visited upon America and the world.

If a stable central government is ever established in Baghdad (much less likely now that the US military is arming, training and paying the militias of the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish militias), Osama bin Laden will still be running al Qaeda safely in Pakistan, spreading his reach throughout the world with the aid of the best recruiting poster ever invented for him: Bush’s occupation of Iraq.

The Taliban will still be taking over vast areas of Afghanistan, supplying the world with heroin to fund their government.

Paksitan will still be the country with nuclear weapons that proudly supplied nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran, with no accountability.

The Saudi Royal Family will still be funding Fundamentalist Muslim schools, teaching that The Holocost never happened and recruiting future suicide bombers.

All that will not be affected in the least when George W. Bush’s bungling occupation of Iraq (the one where $9 billion in cash was shipped on 175 pallets to Baghdad, then lost without a trace) is repaired by some future, more competent President.

That is the “victory” that Conservatives are so proud of that they worship George W. Bush as being as great a president as Abraham Lincoln.

Rovin: You’re right of course. It’s clear from his last comment here that Steve would rather revel in willful ignorance than face the painful reality that HE IS WRONG on the most important issue of our time.

And perhaps wasting too much time bothering to respond to people who are clearly beyond reach only validates their idiocy in their minds.

And when I find I am repeating myself, as I do now, I realize it may be time to close the conversation.

But I will say to STEVE:

I already shared with you the words of bin Laden as he regards the war in Iraq. For a refresher see my comment above:

If you don’t think Al Queda seriously that is your choice. But then perhaps you might want to stop obstructing the adults as they go about the difficult work of keeping you safe and free to indulge your anti-Bush prejudices.

As is rampant with Conservatives, you believe that a single public comment is the equivalent to actual action and results. That is why White House spin works so well at manipulation Conservatives everywhere.

The fact is that al Qaeda has a stated agenda of destabilizing Saudi Arabia, as well as bleeding the United States white in sideshows around the world.

The fact is that Osama bin laden was an enemy of Saddam Hussein, since Saddam’s Baathist Party was a secular one, just as in the rest of the Middle Eastern States.

By eliminating Saddam’s government (while simultaneously allowing bin Laden and his al Qaeda to get away and rebuild) George W. Bush did two great favors on the eve of what actually could have been President Bush’s great triumph (capturing the man responsible for the September 11 attacks and the terrorist spawning organization he lead). Instead Bush has mired the United States in a war costing $3 billion a week, almost all borrowed from the Chinese government.

Quoting a single public comment from bin Laden as though that were “proof” is about as firm a proof as saying that Richard Nixon “proving” that he did not cheat on his income taxes simply because he said “the president is not a crook”.

The real world demands more proof than a Conservative talking point garnered from a PR statement.

“Al Qaeda in Iraq” is an organization that is a bit player in Iraq (less than 10% of insurgents). It is a bit player in al Qaeda worldwide, considering that most of al Qaeda’s hierarchy and troops are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq.

The only reason to continue to pretend that a stable, central government in Iraq (something that all evidence indicates will not occur in our lifetimes, if ever) will make a difference is to assist George W. Bush’s stalling tactics as he runs out the clock to January 2009, as the cost of thousands of lives and Billions of dollars.

And Conservatives everywhere are agreeing with this fiction for the sole reason that they are more loyal to George W. Bush than they are to the United States of America.

That is why Conservatives are not permitted to admit that President Bush allowed bin laden to get away at Tora Bora.

That is why Conservatives are not permitted to notice that al Qaeda is rebuilding (outside of Iraq).

That is why Conservatives must still pretend that Osama bin Laden never issued a fatwa (death sentence) on Saddam Hussein.

That is why Conservatives are required to believe the Bush Administration every time they say “we are turning the corner in Iraq” or “The insurgency is on its last legs”, no matter how many times they say it.

That is why Conservatives must believe, with all their soul, that George W. Bush is the equal of Abraham Lincoln.

That is why Conservatives must hate, with all the venom that a human can muster, anyone who points out the degree to which the Bush Administration has botched the occupation of Iraq.

That is why Conservatives had to believe that Donald Rumsfeld was the greatest Secretary of Defense in US History… up until the day after the 2006 elections when he wasn’t. At which point everything was Mr. Rumsfeld’s fault ant nothing was President Bush’s fault.

That is why Conservatives are never permitted to utter in public a statement that George W. Bush ever made any decision that was less than divinely inspired in regards to the war and occupation of Iraq: That every decision he has made has been so brilliant that scholars will write of the exalted leadership of George W. Bush for a thousand years.

That is what it means to be a Conservative.

“single public comment” from bin Laden?

What planet are you on?

The quotes I offered above come from OBL’s multiple letters, videos and audio tapes.

They match exactly the statements of Al Zawahiri, Zarqawi and every other jihad johnny to come down the pike.

And I see you are going around in circles again about Saddam and Al Queda. You swallowed that LIE hook line and sinker years ago and there’s no way you are going to permit any evidence to the contrary past the guardian of your flawed ideological foundation.

After that you launch into full tilt hatemongering moonbat mode and it’s clear that despite my efforts to engage you and find some RATIONAL common ground you are lost.

Sorry, Steve, but YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK! I’m done with you pal. You’re willful ignorance, delusion and hatemongering are beginning to bore me.

Steve,

Don’t take it too hard.
Mike dismisses anyone who makes cogent points that don’t agree with his pre-set world view.

He still thinks a President who supplied arms to our enemy, Iran, is a hero.
I’m sure he has no problems with the Bush administration blowing the cover of CIA agents chartered with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program too.

If Rush and the RNC say it’s no problem, Mike’s right there to agree with them 100%.

That’s why debating with him is a waste of time.

Re: “And I see you are going around in circles again about Saddam and Al Queda. You swallowed that LIE hook line and sinker years ago and there’s no way you are going to permit any evidence to the contrary past the guardian of your flawed ideological foundation.”

The facts are otherwise. But, of course, since Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh say so, Conservatives are required to ignore facts and believe exactly what they are told to believe.

http://www.nysun.com/article/51976

WASHINGTON — Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Saddam’s regime was not directly cooperating with Al Qaeda before the American-led invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report by Acting Inspector General Thomas Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community’s prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report’s release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, repeated his allegation that Al Qaeda was operating inside Iraq “before we ever launched” the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Qaeda leader killed last June.

“This is Al Qaeda operating in Iraq,” Mr. Cheney told Mr. Limbaugh’s listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had “led the charge for Iraq.” Mr. Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing American forces from Iraq would “play right into the hands of Al Qaeda.”

I apologize for that extended post but its pretty interesting reading.

It is an interesting read, as was the Frontline PBS interview with Garner.

BRANCACCIO: Another major decision with huge repercussions, the decision to disband the Iraqi military, or from another point of view, make sure that the disbanded Iraqi military remains that way

It’s pretty interesting to cross-reference accounts and see the similarities and discrepancies. You have flawed recollections, half-remembrances, partial information, perhaps a writer’s own insertion of bias or misunderstanding/bad research, etc.

I’m reminded of something that Douglas Feith said:

“I know there are people out there who say one of the most significant decisions the United States made [in Iraq] was the dissolution of the Iraqi army. So it’s an interesting question. But very often on these things, until everybody writes memoirs and all the researchers look at the documents, some of these things are hard to sort out. You could be in the thick of it and not necessarily know all the details.”

I hope that everyone’s Thanksgiving Day was wonderful and joyous. Have a great holiday weekend.