Who Lost Iraq?

Your blindness to your own hypocrisy is astounding. You asked for ideas, and I gave you one. I didn't say whether I was for or against it, I was just answering your idiotic accusation that everyone is bashing poor little Georgie without bringing any other ideas to the table. Barak has brought one. You bashed it. And why? Because...hmmm...let me see...oh yeah, because he's a liberal.

What a dick.

Besides, I thought you conservatives liked it when people stick to their guns. The moron-in-chief hasn't changed his one-note symphony of stupidity in six years, and you seem to just love that. I guess you only like it when it suits your delusion du jour.

Have a lovely day, Ms. Coulter.

Amid intense speculation about whether he will run for president, Sen. Barack Obama on Monday used the spotlight to showcase his strategy for the war in Iraq, excoriating the Bush administration for its 'misguided' war and describing a solution that includes dialogue with hostile nations in the region.

Monte Cargo wrote:

Advocate wrote:

I think I now understand what MC was saying. He thinks that the Bush administration is made up of traitorists and liberals who lost the war. I would describe them as moronic neocons.

No, you obviously don't understand what I am saying. I said that the war in Iraq is proceeding splendidly abroad.....

It is?

Let's apologise to Mr Rumsfeld, and bring him back.

Monte Cargo wrote:

blatham wrote:

Come on, MC. I have (dwindling) hopes you'll take some care with these matters. Your response immediately above re the title of this thread just avoids the discussion/debate that leads up this thread...that is, the AEI and neoconservative individuals who designed and pushed the policy ideas which provided impetus and rational for the project of attacking Iraq who now seek to attribute blame for the negative progress of the project. Those people aren't anti-war.

Please try a bit harder.

There are two ways of seeing the current situation in Iraq. One way is to see the increase levels of violence and the call to end the "Iraq Quagmire" as proof of Bush incompetency and confirmation that toppling Saddam was in itself, too consequential in its destablizing influence on the ME.

The other way of seeing the current levels of violence in Iraq is to appreciate the increased violence, not as proof that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, but as a condition which must be countered with decisive military measures, including confronting Iran and preventing further bloodshed in the short run, while steering the factions toward a resolution to share power. I stop short of Biden's suggestion to geographically divide Iraq into three separate provinces or countries, because that will just provide the Sunnis and the Iranians with more well-defined targets.

Of course, the second paragraph here represents a complete avoidance of reflection on the prudence of decisions made which have led to the present situation. And it absolutely avoids accountability. You relieve yourself and the administration through past and future of any possible blame/failure with the implicit notion that all we can do - the only positive option open - is to continue barging forward regardless of all else. The "all else" being limited, it seems, to nothing more substantial than leftist media whining about stuff. Any other "else" (perhaps another half million or million dead, millions of kids and women blown to ****, american kids who won't be able to wipe their own ass ever again, increasing recruitment against the west, etc etc) is just stuff needing to be barged through. Forward, never reverse, no matter what. Is there any imaginable point of degradation of affairs where you would say "reverse"?

As to some version of the "3 state" Biden proposal (convincingly argued for by Galbraith and others as possible if complex option)...maybe. Forwarding valuable ideas on that requires a level of familiarity, experience and learning which I won't approach in this life.

As to your earlier post on Ricks etc... you play a game there I'm hoping you will cease playing because it has no more value than watching the Hatfields and McCoys piss at each other across the creek. You tempered your post later, but why engage as you first did? You demonstrate some knowledge of Ricks' book (but mis-state the content in what you limit the subject matter to) yet fall to a silly ad hominem response. And dishonestly in that, failing to mention that he covered the Pentagon for the WSJ for seventeen years. You compare his work to Coulter (at least for supposed rhetorical gain) framing how we ought to evaluate the worth of reporting/writing/commentary/thinking merely on the basis of partisan allegiance. One could compare Dowd to Coulter, but not Ricks.

Let me know if you agree with my last sentence here. You're a smart fellow and it would be nice to have you around for the thought-provoking challenges you are capable of presenting. But if you don't agree with my last sentence above, I'm not going to bother.

Paul Sperry, in an article titled the "Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal," notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division "Nazis.""Fact is," Sperry writes, "the Journal's news and editorial departments are as politically polarized as North and South Korea." (Source).

McTag wrote:

Monte Cargo wrote:

Advocate wrote:

I think I now understand what MC was saying. He thinks that the Bush administration is made up of traitorists and liberals who lost the war. I would describe them as moronic neocons.

No, you obviously don't understand what I am saying. I said that the war in Iraq is proceeding splendidly abroad.....

It is?

Let's apologise to Mr Rumsfeld, and bring him back.

First, the official transcription of events is that Rumsfeld resigned, not that he was let go, so we couldn't bring him back if we wanted because it was his choice. We may never know if he left of his own acord or was urged to resign in lieu of being replaced.

Rummy may have been hanging around until the returns were in and may have stayed if the House and Senate remained republican dominated. With all of the discussion of oversight and investigations, Rummy may just not have wanted to deal with that in this stage.

But, acknowledging that most of the free world thinks he was cut loose, the reason Rummy may have been cut loose could be more for his freight-train manner of communication than any question of competency of his decisions. The jury on Rumsfeld is that he would roll over people, whether he was dealing with the Pentagon here or the war room with the generals. Bush realizes that he faces an uphill battle with a democratically controlled Congress and that Iraq is a large issue. An equally capable but more diplomatic defense secretary might hold just the ticket.

All of which nonsense misses the point, which is that the "war" in Iraq is not proceeding splendidly, it is in complete disarray.

The Wall Street Journal is not a conservative publication. It is split between being a liberal and a conservative publication. Its news articles are liberal and its editorial section is conservative.

So, I have a basis upon which to suspect Ricks' reference point, while you have a basis to desire that Ricks' entire book not become summarily dismissed for this reason.{/QUOTE]
Yes. Here's an example of where we have to use criteria other than left/right or support for Bush/doesn't support Bush to wend our way through towards valuable analyses. And those will be the good scholarship, good reportage criteria...accuracy, depth, thorough citations, presentation of multiple viewpoints, etc. Krauthammer, for example, writes polemic but Ricks does not. He deserves a Pulitzer for this work and I suspect he'll get one. I hope you'll read it. I truly don't think you'll find it without great worth. Unfortunately I can't transcribe for you as I gave my copy to Thomas when he was here visiting from the land of his teutonic nazi ancestors.

Quote:

Your point regarding merely charging ahead is well taken. The philosophy of "Tough, we can lose a war every now and then", however, is much too unacceptable and cavalier to stomach with respect to our position relative to the rest of the world and the memories of the fallen soldiers and Iraquis that have already given their lives. This is not your POV or Ricks' POV, but is the essence of cut & run policy as distinguished from the first statement of the paragraph.

The problem is, "cavalier" can also be attached to a policy which has the consequence of further (avoidable) deaths and mutilations of americans and others. We both estimate, based on the information and ideas we hold, what probable consequences might fall from various policies. I do not think that American military/economic dominance as forwarded by the AEI crowd (not allowing any possible competitor to get to a stage where US hegemony might be challenged) is either realistically possible or morally acceptable. I expect Lincoln would have found the idea completely repugnant and foolishly short-sighted. "The only thing they understand is force" will be, inevitably, reflected back against America.

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I think that this is not necessarily about as much I refuse to look at backing off the war as you refuse to look at anything except for backing off the war. Are there ideas Ricks' book puts forth for winning that someone can sink their teeth into? Is Ricks' book more of an analysis with recommendations or is it a case to withdraw from Iraq because the condition is so degraded, as you commented in the beginning of your post?.

My pacifism isn't an absolute (I reject absolutes as blinding simplicities, which is why I reject the "barge on no matter what" idea). I accepted the rationale for hitting the Taliban in Afghanistan. I did not accept the rationale(s) for Iraq. Rick's book is an analysis of the progress of the war; the strategies, tactics, personalities, mistakes, successes, etc. Much of it draws from the Pentagon's and civilian authoritie's own analyses of situations. Military people in Iraq, mostly at command level, are quoted voluminously throughout the book. What might be done in the future comprises the merest portion of what he writes about.
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I know that win, lose or draw, Bush will begin withdrawing troops, and that this time next year, there will be only a small fraction of the troops there that are there now. The main difference I see is the philosophy between the administration and the antiwar democrats and republicans. The antiwar group inexplicably wants the president to define a strict timetable for withdrawal and Bush does not want to define a timetable..

I truly do not know what Bush and his people want to do. They appear to be from quite a different planet than mine. I do consider that electoral considerations will trump - they are at least that predictable.
If you were to have asked me what I would do, I wouldn't have a good answer for you. There are things I know I would NOT do, and the first of that list would be to not trust this particular administration (and the neoconservative folks in the background) to suddenly cease phucking up.
A pleasure talking with you, MC.

I truly do not know what Bush and his people want to do. They appear to be from quite a different planet than mine.

Bernie wrote-

Quote:

I truly do not know what Bush and his people want to do. They appear to be from quite a different planet than mine.

Have you seen this story over here about the poisoning of the Russian dissident and the gigantic fuss there is going on. An attack on New York's water supply with that stuff would make 9/11 look small potatoes.

You, we, all know about it now. Maybe the other planet was the one Mr Bush was on 4 years ago. Suicide bombers are really something else these days and they have shown how many they can get. There's even a Granny-shame on them- took the plunge.

spendius wrote:

Bernie wrote-

Quote:

I truly do not know what Bush and his people want to do. They appear to be from quite a different planet than mine.

Have you seen this story over here about the poisoning of the Russian dissident and the gigantic fuss there is going on. An attack on New York's water supply with that stuff would make 9/11 look small potatoes.

You, we, all know about it now. Maybe the other planet was the one Mr Bush was on 4 years ago. Suicide bombers are really something else these days and they have shown how many they can get. There's even a Granny-shame on them- took the plunge.

Slipshod, spendie. And lazy. And dishonest (polonium 210, available everywhere and you just tuck it in the back pocket of those tasteless plaid pants like the nasty foreigners buy for cheap, for phuck sakes). Fear-mongering of this sort doesn't become you. Not to mention your handy amnesia re Bush's spiritual X-ray vision into Putin's heart.

"This is wild," said Dr. F. Lee Cantrell, a toxicologist and director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System. "To my knowledge, it's never been employed as a poison before. And it's such an obscure thing. It's not easy to get. That's going to be something like the K.G.B. would have in some secret facility or something."

"To most chemists, this is astonishing," said Dr. Andrea Sella, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at London's University College. "This is not available commercially. It is present in food, but only in the kind of trace quantities that can be detected by ultrasensitive analytical techniques. It is one of the rarest elements on the earth's crust and also one of the most exotic."
(Source)
He added: "This is not the kind of weapon that any kind of amateur could construct. It would require real resources to do it."

Polonium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska Curie, a Polish chemist, in 1898. She obtained polonium from pitchblende, a material that contains uranium, after noticing that unrefined pitchblende was more radioactive than the uranium that was separated from it. She reasoned that pitchblende must contain at least one other radioactive element. Curie needed to refine several tons of pitchblende in order to obtain tiny amounts of polonium and radium, another radioactive element discovered by Curie. One ton of uranium ore contains only about 100 micrograms (0.0001 grams) of polonium.

Due to its scarcity, polonium is usually produced by bombarding bismuth-209 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. This forms bismuth-210, which has a half-life of 5 days. Bismuth-210 decays into polonium-210 through beta decay. Milligram amounts of polonium-210 have been produced by this method.

Polonium-210 is a very strong emitter of alpha particles. A single gram of polonium-210 creates 140 Watts of heat energy and is being considered as a lightweight heat source for thermoelectric power for spacecraft. Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138.39 days.

Polonium's most stable isotope, polonium-209, has a half-life of 102 years. It decays into lead-205 through alpha decay. Polonium-209 is available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the cost of about $3200 per microcurie.

I see where Hagel speaks to our "honorable intentions" in Iraq. You mean it was honorable for Bush to lie our way into a war there to steal their oil and gain political capital?

The Republicans still don't get it.

Bernie-

It is precisely that polonium 210 is not available anywhere and is not tucked into the pocket that is causing the concern.

You don't think they are bothered about a Russian dissident do you?

PS- It would help your case if you refrained from the assertions. Particulary the simple ones. They rather lower the tone don't you think?

COBRA has been in continuous session for two days.

Someone said the stuff was 2 billion times as poisonous as arsenic.

I wasn't scare mongering at all. I toned it down. There hasn't been much else on the news these last two days. They have impounded all the utensils from a restaurant where the poisoning might have taken place for a start. Then there's the posh hotel and the guys house and the ward where he was treated. Oh loads of stuff. Expert after expert is being trundled on.