HOUSE SHOWDOWN ON IRAQ

blatham wrote:

deb

For you or I or the Brits here, the event would have seemed quite normal (shouting, desk pounding, people up on their feet or even rushing down toward the speaker. But in the American context, it was (according to folks who've been watching the House for decades) completely unprecedented.

I tend to like the unprecedented, and think the whole thing quite wonderful. From the viewpoint of the Republicans, Murtha was exactly the wrong Democrat to speak about pulling the troops out. He is apparently well respected in and connected to the military community, he's been a long time strong supporter of defence and military, and he's of course a war hero. He was one of the Dems that the Republicans have been able to count on previously re these matters. I gather that all of that is why his statement caused such a kerfuffle.

The Republicans had to move quickly to do damage control and so made the motion under discussion, but left out the important proviso of his original as an attempt to portray his stance as more extreme than it actually was. That sort of gamesmanship is nothing new, of course. That's part of politics.

The whole thing hurts the administration in a notable way. It once again takes the appeaance of control or leadership away from the administration, and does so at a time when the administration is reeling from a whole host of other goings-on which have had a similar consequence. In any similar case this would hurt an administration somewhat, but this one has put a premium on their presentation of self as being in control and sort of big-dick dominant.

A very fine consequence is that it will likely really throw the Iraq war matter into the public's consciousness in a manner that will demand and foster open debate.

Hmmm...dunno. Hope so.

Top me it is a cheap trick, launching a pseudo debate about something that really matters.

But hey, you be closer than I to how Americans may see it.

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The GOP resolution took what Murtha said and converted it into a resolution that didnt ask for anything he desired
Murtha was complimentary of GHW Bush who, in his battle for Kuwait, didnt push in and take Iraq because, as he was advised
"This would lead to signing on to rebuilding a devestated country and sign us up to a neverending presence in Iraq."
GHW Bush had an Exit STrategy

GHW Bush otfitted an army several times larger than the one his son sent in to do what GHW didnt want.

Murtha has (perhaps no longer) the ear of the General officer staff and has (until yesterday) been a supporter of the Pentagon and the war effort. His military credentials, unlike the administration whos prosecuting the war, allowed Murtha to question the very foundation of logistics, strategy etc. of the war he supported (until yesterday)
He was concerned about how few Iraqis even give ashit about defending their own country and
'
Now , Murtha said 80% of Iraqis consider Us the enemy.
.
Were asking our kids to die for a cause that has been ill conceived, badly reasoned, poorly supplied and undermanned. Outside of that, everything is good.

He may become the WAlter Cronkite of Iraq

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deb said:

Quote:

Hmmm...dunno. Hope so.

Top me it is a cheap trick, launching a pseudo debate about something that really matters.

I don't think 'pseudo debate' is the best take. Although, as farmerperson suggests and as you and others noted above, there was something of the 'pseudo' in the wording the Republicans advanced.

But it has really helped to push the debate about REAL costs and options front and center. Previously, the terms of the 'debate' had been manipulated by the administration such that it was a false choice of 'stay the course' vs 'cut and run', with little honest appraisal of much of anything.

And as you appreciate, the real problems are fukking huge now.

Now,

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Quote:

He may become the WAlter Cronkite of Iraq

I'll give it about another four hours before the RW boys have a photo of Murtha dressed in Barbarella's outfit.

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blatham wrote:

deb said:
Quote:
Hmmm...dunno. Hope so.

Top me it is a cheap trick, launching a pseudo debate about something that really matters.

I don't think 'pseudo debate' is the best take. Although, as farmerperson suggests and as you and others noted above, there was something of the 'pseudo' in the wording the Republicans advanced.

But it has really helped to push the debate about REAL costs and options front and center. Previously, the terms of the 'debate' had been manipulated by the administration such that it was a false choice of 'stay the course' vs 'cut and run', with little honest appraisal of much of anything.

And as you appreciate, the real problems are fukking huge now.

Now,

Ok, this:

"I guess their asses will shut the hell up about taking the troops out too soon. Its impossible with their vote staring them in the face.

That was priceless."

is the kind of stuff I am referring to. (As well as, for instance, Fox's tone on this thread suggests she thinks it will be some sort of propaganda triumph for the war people.....ie I presume she thinks many people will not see it for the ploy it is?)

The complete lack of logic is obvious....since the house was voting on an utterly bogus "proposal", which, of course, people had to vote no to, but will that kind of stuff make effective propaganda for the less acute?

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I mean, the debate may have been good, I have no idea...but how many folk listen to it???

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ok, deb, I getcha.

I guess I can't underline strongly enough how pervasively the right wing media machine has saturated America. What you are getting from lash or tico or many of the others will be stated and reflected on Fox and on all the RW sites and blogs she visits. It's why the nature of the posts from so many on the right here, who aren't all stupid, take the same ideas and tone so frequently. Please take a look HERE when you get the opportunity. Lusatian is one product of this, on top of whatever childhood he had.

But though the problem is dire for debate (and thinking), there are other factors working in favor of greater reasonableness and fuller presentation of views/ideas. The turning of polls away from the spoonfed opinions and values and towards open dissent and questioning of the administration tells us this, even if the slowness of the turning speaks to the first element.

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I am beginnng to worry about Bernie's uncharacteristic (to me anyway) reasonableness lately. But I can't find too much to fault with it. The GOP of course were playing some politics here and, as is the case with all politics, their halos are a bit askew and tarnished as often as not. (But at least they have a few halos.)

I disagree with Farmerman that the bill--the one that was defeated--was not what Murtha asked for. I listened to Murtha's speech--twice since C-Span aired it again during a recess in the debate. It wasn't that the bill would have demanded that everybody load onto choppers and ferry out today. The Dems were howling that there was nothing in the bill about redeployment as necessary after the withdrawal, as Murtha had called for. But they know full well that all that would be necessary for redeployment on a moment's notice is for the Commander in Chief to order it, followed later by a consensus of Congress to keep them there. It would be ludicrous to attempt to write into a bill all the things that could happen to warrant a redeployment.

There was an honest motive in all this too. Those boots on the ground in Iraq need to know their government is 100% behind them, supports their mission, and is with them as they complete it. It is discouraging and demoralizing to them to hear constant public criticism of the President, the war, and, as Dan Johnson, veteran TX, stated last night, of them and their character as if a very few bad eggs was representative of the whole.

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Those boots on the ground in Iraq need to know their government is 100% behind them, supports their mission, and is with them as they complete it. It is discouraging and demoralizing to them to hear constant public criticism of the President, the war,

There are two dilemma's there, both not avoidable.

The first involves public criticism of a government policy to go to/continue a war even if soldiers (who believe in the cause) will hear and be affected by that criticism. But free speech concerns must be considered to trump the efficiency gains related to troop morale.

The second relates to the notion 'complete the war'. To hold to this as a principle is to forgo all citizen and institutional rights to speak out against a war no matter how that war is progressing and no matter how competently or incompetently it has been, or is being, implemented.

There is too, another notion sometimes forwarded which likewise cannot be sustained reasonably. That is, that to leave the war at any stage or circumstance not marked by total achievement of stated objectives does disservice to the memory of those who attempted achievement of that end.

Obviously, a war terminated keeps alive and uninjured all those who would have met that end otherwise. Where a war is deemed unsustainable or unwinnable, then to hold to some original mission, planned and hoped for by fallible men, then to continue on with more deaths and mutilations is not morally justifiable.

These are all dilemmas for which there is no solution.

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deb

If you are in a reading mood this day, I just bumped into another relevant piece on the threat to a free and independent press...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051205/nichoils

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Last night exposed the Dems for the hypocrites they are.

Score one for the good guys.

"Cowards cut and run. Marines never do.>

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These are all dilemmas for which there is no solution.

Sure there is. You decide what is the better course of action from what exists, not what has been or should have been. And then you take the advice given to every child: Just because you have the right to say something doesn't necessarily mean that it is a good thing to say it.

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Quote:

Last night exposed the Dems for the hypocrites they are.

Score one for the good guys.

"Cowards cut and run. Marines never do.>

Yeah, right!

Your party is drowning. You can't seriously believe that such a debate is what the Republicans want to be having.

Last night was undoubtedly a victory for the Dems. Why? It is plainly obvious (the Dems made it so) that the resolution the Republicans substituted for Murtha's was unacceptable and designed to fail.

I believe the finest moment was when ol' Count Chocula made this very point clear by backing the Speaker right the f*ck down. It must have been embarassing for him to admit that the resolutions were not the same.

Cycloptichorn

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The majority gets to word the resolution. It has always been that way and it will remain that way. What the GOP set out to accomplish they accomplished. The Democrats were forced to put up or shut up. The troops were affirmed and reassured that their government wasn't going to abandon them.

I wouldn't call that a defeat by anybody's definition. Well, maybe by Cyclops, but certainly not by almost anybody else's definition.

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The victory for the Dems has been to shift the Iraq debacle back onto the front pages of every paper.

This was an especially good time to do so, as the House will be out for about 2 weeks and there is little doubt that last night's showdown will be major news the whole time.

I don't believe that anyone is fooled by the Republican tactic of changing the wording of the resolution to mean something different; especially noone who watched the debate.

You should face facts, Fox, and quickly; support for the war, blame it on whatever you want, is seriously diminishing. You've been in America long enough to know how these trends work; unless your boys can do something to turn the opinions around, you can expect things to keep moving in the same direction as they have been.

The average person doesn't really give a damn about our carefully nuanced and studied arguments one way or another; they can support the troops, but also see the body count rising and the Bill for the war rising at the same time. The war also suffers under the perception that no progress is being made, because the amount of terrorism sure hasn't diminished any over the course of this year. This inevitably leads to the perception that the war isn't being prosecuted well.

I actually disagree somewhat with this perception, because I don't think our military is suited at all for the job they are being asked to do; I believe that the insurgency, and home-grown insurgencies such as this, are extremely difficult to deal with and represent a classic example of how a soft power can be just as hard to defeat as a hard power.

For those who say we should stay until the job is done, I invite you to head to my thread here and define just exactly what 'the job being done' means. I bet you can't do it.

Cycloptichorn

ps. You can try and convince yourself that the war hasn't become unpopular, but the poll numbers all disagree with you, big time.

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Foxfyre wrote:

The majority gets to word the resolution. It has always been that way and it will remain that way. What the GOP set out to accomplish they accomplished. The Democrats were forced to put up or shut up. The troops were affirmed and reassured that their government wasn't going to abandon them.

What a bizarre take. Do you really think the American people are that stupid that they would fall for this political trick? I haven't heard anyone (except you and some other Denialistas) spinning this as a GOP victory. What people are talking about is another incredible moment for Murtha.

I lost it when he started talking about Arlington and vets and vet's families calling his office and crying on the phone. The genie is now out of the bottle. Truth will conquer lies. Freedom will conquer injustice. Reason will conquer blind partisanism. It will not happen in one day or in one vote.

We shall overcome.

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I have read just about every credible opposing opinion out there, and I still believe we are doing good in Iraq and it would be disastrous for Iraq, for the Middle East, for the USA, and possibly for the world should we fail there.

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It would be disastrous if we fail? Well, define victory!

How can we win a war where we can't define what consitutes victory?

Cycloptichorn

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What would be so funny if it were not so disastrous is that the Republicans unanimously defated their own proposal.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
These are all dilemmas for which there is no solution.

Sure there is. You decide what is the better course of action from what exists, not what has been or should have been. And then you take the advice given to every child: Just because you have the right to say something doesn't necessarily mean that it is a good thing to say it.

Well, that's the handiest route to doing away with a dilemma (in this case, free speech versus troop morale). Simply deny one side.

Would you wish again for me or someone else to quote GW Bush's criticism of the Yugoslavia campaign when it was on-going? Or do we indict him for hurting the troops? By your formula, he must choose not to speak.

There are only 'bad' choices to be made in such a dilemma. Neither will be entirely satisfactory. We can argue which choice is most dangerous, but your move merely avoids choosing by saying one (free speech) is not really choosable.

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HOUSE SHOWDOWN ON IRAQ

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