Of course, it always helps to get good press coverage with headlines like this: "McCain Will Be in Lehigh Valley Today -- But Where?"
Unrelated...no blood in ants.
This is an open thread -- that means you guys can talk about whatever you want for the whole day. I'm writing a book. Stop annoying me. :-)
Posted by Will Bunch @ 10:00 AM
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Where's Joe Lieberman when you need him?
At least the NY Times has stopped pretending that they don't care who wins the election and embraced their role as Obama's campaign paper. It's kinda refreshing, this honestly.
Will, why don't you examine Obama's claims that he believes things are better in Iraq but he still would not have supported the surge. I mean, talk about a disconnect. Doesn't he know that he will be asked about the surge in every debate. He's gonna get hammered on this. Why doesn't he just admit he was wrong? Oh I forgot, he's a liberal.
Why does the home page of Philly.com show all Eagles and no Phillies stories after a win like last night. It's training camp b.s. while there is a first place showdown with an awesome result. Any body know a good editor?
Hey Will- any brains in ants?
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How exactly is that a disconnect? That things are better now doesn't change the facts that existed in January 2007. Obama's statement is really no different from the people who say they would still have voted for Iraq, even knowing now about the intelligence failures, the lack of WMD, the mess that's been created, etc.
Let McCain try to hammer him in the debate. This is what's going to happen. McCain will get his history lesson thrown right back in his face because the awakening had nothing to do with the surge, and ultimately all the surge has done is to prop up a pro-Iranian puppet government. You're always quick to forget that the good old USA is supposed to be the benificiery of operations, not the Iraqis. It's ironic that to win an election, you are the ones willing to hand Iraq to Iran on a silver platter.
Politburo: That is not the same thing. Not at all. Obama is saying that making Iraq stable was not worth an extra 2 years of our effort. He is saying that, even knowing the surge would lead to victory, he would choose defeat. Because, according to his own muddled, confused answer, he had to oppose Bush's policies, even if they would work. (This is why McCain rightly points out that Obama would rather win an election than win the war in Iraq.) Someone who thinks deposing a genocidal, destabilizing dictator in the heart of the middle east was a good idea is not making any such odd logical leap. They simply think the WMD were a supplemental reason to an already justified war.
SteveMG: That is simply not true. Not at all. The awakening began in 2006, but it did not flourish until 2007 when two additional "surge" brigades were sent to protect the Sunni who wanted to fight AQI. McCain is 100% right, without the surge, the awakening would have been smothered in the crib. ----- You keep repeating the "Iranian puppet government" line. It remains incorrect (and I am pretty sure you know that at this point). If the Iraqi government is an Iranian puppet, whya re they fighting and dying to rid their country of Iranian-backed militias? Iraq will be a stable, independent, democrat ally in the war against terror. No matter how much you repeat the same fallacy.
bon: I can't say I'm surprised that you disagree.. However, you're once again drawing conclusions that are unsupported by reason and logic. First off, you are basing your argument on a false choice, specifically that the surge was the only viable option at the time. Obama's response specifically mentioned his alternate plan that existed in Jan 2007. Obama specifically said that we have no way of knowing what would have happened had the Obama plan was implemented instead of the surge. Obama did specifically state "What I can say is that there is no doubt that our US troops have contributed to a reduction in violence in Iraq."
It was Iran who got Sadr to order a cease fire after Maliki's offensive fell flat on its face.
bon: You're spinning for McCain, but you should really read his statement first, cause you're losing what little credibility you have left. He said "[The surge] began the Anbar Awakening". He didn't say it accelerated the Awakening, he didn't say it helped the Awakening, he said it BEGAN the awakening. And yet you readily admit that the awakening actually began in 2006. Keep spinning.
Politburo: It did not the surge "accelerated" it. Indeed, the awakening, despite having gone on for months, had not gotten any traction or had any results. It did not really begin until those two additional surge brigades were added to protect the Sunni groups who wanted to fight AQI. The number of people involved directly in the movement skyrocketed and AQI was suddenly on the run. The statement makes sense and is factually correct, even if you want to quibble with when a movement "begins". ----- Do you think quoting Kieth Olberman's take on foreign policy is something different than "spin"? When you are finished denigrating what I have to say perhaps you will actually address what I said? :)
SteveMG: You are asserting debunked facts. Maliki's offensive was initially reported as a failure, but those early reports were wrong. The Iraqi military took over Sadr's strongholds easily and Sadr was forced into a ceasefire because he was being overrun. Iran is pulling Sadr's strings, and the Iraqi military has badly defeated him and disarmed his forces. This is a prime example of the Iraqis fighting Iranian influence in their country. There is nothing puppety about that. (Iraq is a regional superpower. So long as we stay long enough to allow them to build up an air force, they do not need to bow to anyone.)
Ah, so it began in 2006, but didn't "really" begin until mid-2007. Sorry that I didn't understand your use of such technical terms. (I haven't quoted anything from Keith Olbermann, so I dunno what you're referring to there.)
"The awakening began in 2006, but it did not flourish until 2007 when two additional "surge" brigades were sent to protect the Sunni who wanted to fight AQI." . . . . . . bon, the Iraqi army could have done that much. I wonder why they didn't?
All right bon, now based on your words, the surge has removed the Sunni tribal leaders' rivals (AQ in Iraq). Has it made it possible to see Sunni/Shiite integration? Has it made national reconciliation a realiity? All it did was buy time that we wasted. The UN resolutions authorizing the occupation by the coalition are due to expire, and a Status of forces agreement has fallen through. In spite of the denials and spin, Maliki did in fact discuss getting US forces out of Iraq. Now why would he do that? He's certainly no where near building a real democratic government which has no chance without our presence, and he doesn't want our presence.
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MSL: The Iraqi army was not capable of it at the time. You seem to think there is something sinister behind that, but considering the Iraqi army is currently in control of Anbar (I don't think we have a single marine in the area) that theory does not hold up.
Politburo: Again, you an quibble with word usage if you like. That seems sort of nit-picky, given the importance of the wider discussion. Think of it this way. The civil rights movement in America "began" long before MLK was a national figure, but when MLK came to the national stage the movement took hold. In the same way, the surge was the moment the movement in Anbar was allowed to take hold. One can quibble about which moment is the real "beginning" of either one, but the important thing is that neither movement would have been possible with the intervening factor.
Well, if McLame keeps this up, he'll probably get a few more votes due to pity. This is just embarrassing.
"Build an air force"?!?!? Are you nuts? Some day either we or Isreal may need to transit Iraqi airspace to attack Iran. When are you going to understand that the US has interests of its own, and they don't necessarily include an armed Iraq.
I am going to class. Please no one be offended if I do not respond to your attacks until this evening. :)
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"MSL: The Iraqi army was not capable of it at the time." . . . . . . If all you're talking about is helping protect Sunnis who would do the actual fighting, the Iraqi army certainly was capable of that. And there's nothing necessarily sinister about why it didn't. These Sunnis were insurgents until we agreed to arm them, so they could eliminate their competition from AQI. They never asked for a surge, just weapons and logistical support. They're as anxious as anyone in Iraq to see us go. We made a devil's bargain, in other words.
bon the word usage is important because of the claim McCain is making. You can add all the nuance and spin you want, but that doesn't change the fact that McCain is wrong. He wasn't talking about things "taking hold" (and your analogy is so historically wrong it's not even funny)
So let's see if I have all of them covered. The "news" orginations that are in the tank for Obama are NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, NYT. Any others? And he still opted out of the public financing with all of this free coverage. Obama never held any hearings on Afghanistan and just visited there for the first time, EVER. Did we all forget this guy has 143 days of experience? How would he even know that Afghanistan is a problem? Oh that's right he's got over 300 foreign policy script writers telling him what to say; more then 2 people to every day of experience he has in the senate. Obama, it doesn't matter if you thought we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq; you weren't in the senate. You weren't on the field, you were a spectator. You're like a monday morning quarterback saying how YOU would have won the game. So when you actually were in the position to do something, you voted against the surge; which the results have proven that the surge was the correct course of action. But the news organizations are making sure to get you in all the nice photos with the troops and foreign leaders and video of you shooting hoops. So, what do you think Petraeus thinks of Obama and his plan, considering the senator gave the general low marks on his report on 9/11/07 and wrote that oped piece of the NYT that already had his mind made up before he even got there? By the way the same NYT that denied McCain the change to publish his oped piece and ran the General Betray Us ad. Obama are you really prepared to send our troops back in for a 3rd Iraq war? If we listen to you, you'll pull the troops out to soon, Iraq destabilizes, then we go back in? That's like a fireman turning off his fire hose before the fire is out thinking the fire will stop all on its own; then the place erupts in flames.
Or we can stay until we achieve "victory" without definign what that means. However, we do know that the cost of that action will be prohibitive.
The Awakening would NEVER have happened if we weren't there. We helped make that happen.
Just so everyone knows, the Iraqi army has control of at least 10 of the 18 providences of Iraq, Iraq has an elected government that has already had a reelection and they are currently debating the future involvement of US and other forces in the regions; including bases. Sounds like they are doing pretty good in there.
And to think, if we listened to Obama; it would have been like the killing fields of Cambodia.
And, bon, you continue with the false choice. We simply do not know what would have happened with the Awakening without the surge (or with an alternate action), just as we do not know what would have happened with the Civil Rights movement had there been no MLK (or had his involvement been different, or had he not been assassinated, etc.). That's just playing with hypotheticals and accomplishes nothing. No one is claiming that the surge hasn't helped, but that doesn't mean it's correct to say that the surge was the only option. I'll repeat Obama's statement: "there is no doubt that our US troops have contributed to a reduction in violence in Iraq."
Not if we listened to Obama in late 02/early 03.
Bon, Let me reiterate what I said the other day, the surge is not a success. The first reason violence is down is that regions of country have been ethnically cleansed of shiite, sunni, kurds and especially Christians. Where are the stories of the four million people who are displaced from Iraq? What plan do we have for their return? Second, we are paying the same people who where killing our soldiers, too not kill them any more. These are the same ones which where labeled al-Qaeda in Iraq. How long can we continue to pay these people and what is going to happen when stop paying the brides? This leads us to the Iraqi Army, when are they going to be ready to stand up? They still have the tenancy to change sides in the middle of a battle. If this Iraqi government is going to survive, they must address these conditions and correct them. When we leave be it today or in hundred years, this country is going to go through some major growing pains. The Bush administration has known this for years and have been deferring this problem to the next administration, cowards.
Why do many newspapers rail against the claims they are left leaning (NY Times, LA Times, both Philadelphia papers) when they actually are? I will never understand this. I'm not saying being liberal is right or wrong, but it seems like people in the media become upset when charged with being liberal, when really, they are.
What's so pathetic is the fact that you guys keep repeating that the surge worked. By what standard? There is no mission to accomplish. It's Vietnam all over again. We can win every battle, but we can't leave. Victory in Iraq does not mean a reduction in violence. It means the creation of a stable democratic government, and that is not something that is under our control. So now that you said the surge worked, now what? Where do you think we are supposed to go from here?Do you really think the Sunnis can go back to their homes in Shiite territory? Do you really think the Kurds will give up the autonomy they've been enjoying and rejoin Iraq? There real issues don't seem to be covered by the talking points, so you just keep repeating the surge worked, the surge worked.
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"The Awakening would NEVER have happened if we weren't there." . . . So very true. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, there would have been no need for it.
"Or we can stay until we achieve "victory" without defining what that means." . . . . . . . There's a reason we celebrate V-J day on the anniversary of Japan's surrender, and not on the anniversary of our ending the post-war occupation of Japan. When you wear out your welcome, you leave. It's not victory or defeat. It's simply the polite thing to do.
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"If we listen to you, you'll pull the troops out to soon, Iraq destabilizes, then we go back in? That's like a fireman turning off his fire hose before the fire is out thinking the fire will stop all on its own; then the place erupts in flames." . . . . . . LastRepublicaninPhilly, while the bulk of your rant reads like a jealous jilted lover (yeah, remember the good old days when the press loved McCain?), I thought that last sentence was worth a comment. You do know, don't you, that grease fires are only made worse by throwing water on them? Iraq is one of those fires.
"It was a paradise before we got there...children flying kites." . . . . . Don't know about the kite flying, but our real enemy was cornered in Afghanistan instead of opening new franchises in Iraq.
"Why doesn't he just admit he was wrong? Oh I forgot, he's a liberal." . . . . . . Did Bush ever admit the invasion was wrong in the first place, or is he a liberal too?
Bon: For when you come back, just wanted to say, this garbage: Obama "would rather lose a war than lose a campaign," destroys any credibility you had left. What's next? I would suggest, "the vast majority of American view Obama as more dishonest than McCain," but you tried that one already. Maybe you could go with: "Obama wants all his family and friends to die in an AQ attack so he can criticize Bush?"
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And another thing about the press coverage.. while I can agree that it's been a bit unfair to McCain (not as big a deal as he's making it out to be, though. Jeez, what a whiner), he kind of asked for it. He made such a big deal about how Obama hadn't visited. It really added to the hype surrounding the trip, and everyone knows how much the media loves hype. Also, McCain isn't in the news because he's not making news. He's just responding with the same old tired attacks. It seemed like they were going to pull the VP trigger to get some press, but then decided not to.
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Wow. McCain is now resorting to cheap shots at Obama's holocaust museum speech. You could say Mccain is desperate, but this is sheer lunacy.
SteveMG: It has lead to a great deal of national reconciliation. You seem to be unaware, but the iraqi government has met 15 or 18 political benchmarks and another one (the oil sharing) has been met though not in the way the benchmark is written. The Sunni bloc rejoined the government last week. Political progress is taking place, even if Obama and his supporters want to close their eyes to it.
Politburo: You are focusing on one word while I am articulating McCain's whole position. Of course his answer in an interview did not go into nuance, it was a 30 second answer. If you read his position papers and listen to his speeches you would see better where I am coming from. Again, you can quibble with when a movement "begins" all you like. Does it begin when it is first conceived or does it begin when it has a demonstrable effect? Neither answer is wrong, but Olberman, Sullivan and other Obama's supporters would rather have this pointless discussion than discuss the policy as a whole. ----- If you are curious, I will tell you what would have happened to the Sunni awakening if not for the surge. It would have been the same thing that happened to any dissenters in AQI controlled territory for years in Iraq. The leaders and followers of the movement would have been killed in brutal ways. Thanks to the protection of the surge troops, the movement was a success. That is a good thing though. We should be happy. :)
TPS: A lot of lefties have gotten up in arms about that quote. (Joe Klein had an online breakdown over it. It was pretty funny.) I don't see the big problem. Obama said in an interview with ABC news that even knowing that the surge would succeed he would still oppose it. So Obama himself has said he would choose to lose the war in Iraq, even knowing it could be won. I see no compelling reason for Obama to take that position aside form his desire to win this election. :)
MSL: I am not nearly so pessimistic as you are about the prospect of the Sunni staying loyal to the Iraqi government. They are currently fighting alongside Shiite and joining security forces to keep the neighborhoods safe. Why would they return to lawlessness after that? The Sunni bloc rejoined the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government has made a very public push to rid the country of Iranian-backed Shiite militias. All of these things point toward political reconciliation and a bright future for Iraq. Of course either of us could be wrong, but we are not dealing with some kind of fate written in stone, here. It is within our control and the control of the Iraqis to see this through to a happy ending.
"I don't see the big problem.."----))) I'm not going to bother breaking down your absurd and deliberate spinning that "Obama would choose to lose the war in Iraq, even knowing it could be won." My assumption is that you're actually intelligent enough to figure out on your own how that conclusion is based on a basic logical fallacy. If you were as much of an ill-informed idiot as battyboy, for an example, I could just chalk that kind of fallacy up to a lack of reasoning power. But given that you've shown your not an idiot nor ill-informed, there is nothing left but for me to conclude that your accusation that Obama would rather have America defeated in a war than lose an election amounts to a blatant disrespect for being credible and accountable in what you say. Congratulations, bon, you've just earned a full-fledged membership in the Republican lackey club.
You're changing what McCain said. He was claiming to be giving a "basic history" lesson. It was an absolute statement, and had nothing to do with his "whole position". The statement was also factually incorrect, and that's all we're talking about. We all agree that the additional troops have helped, but you continue to commit a fallacy in insisting that the surge was the only option that would have been successful. There is just no way of knowing that. I do agree that this discussion is relatively useless since it is all focusing on the past, but it continues to be a campaign "issue".
Let me see if I understand this Iraq thing. The Dems told us the war was lost. It was over. It was hopeless. Then the "surge" was instituted. Then the war turned around, and now we're winning, if we haven't already won. Now Barack and the Dems are telling us that all the things that failed in the past are now responsible for the turnaround. It was not the surge, they say. It really is all the failed efforts of the past that have now miraculously turned things around. Only a coincidence they all came together to coincide with the surge...Wow!
If McCain is senile, then what exactly is The Messiah's excuse? Barrack said today he serves on the Senate Banking Committee. He doesn't. Barack says there are 57 states. There are 50. Barack says Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. One would hope. Barack said he was conceived as a result of the march on Selma. Selma march 1965. BHO born 1961. Barack thinks he will be president for 10 years. 2 terms only add up to 8 years. Obama said he didn't think his church was particularly controversial. Oh really?
McCain is truly desperate. What other lies aand outright falsehoods will he come up with this week? Let's see" we've had Obama alone responsible for high gas prices; Obama wanting to lose a war just to win a campaign; outright lying about the surge, then somehow trying to explain it and making no sense; saying bush is responsible for oil prices dropping, not noting the fact that a bill is now being pushed to rein in oil speculators. Staright Talk? B S! McCain is truly a desperate dispicable little old man and we haven't even reached the real campaign yet. Welcome to the GOP party of liars.
ocjones, can you define (in quantitative terms) what "winning" means in Iraq?
Politburo: If you are interested in McCain's explanation you will find it here, written up by a non-partisan reporter: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/mccain_defends_anbarbeforesurg.php ----- TPS: Call me names all you like. By your guy's own admission, knowing full well his country could win a war, he would choose to lose it. All the reasons he has given are transparent, illogical lies. It is clear he just wants to win an election.
Captain Awesome: You are a few months behind the curve here. Victory is a stable, democratic Iraq which can handle its own internal and external security and is an ally of the US in the war against terror. Both Bush and McCain have articulated this many times. It is not a cloudy issue and with McCain in the white house we will achieve it. :)
Bon, who defines whether Iraq is stable and democratic? The United States? The Bush administration wants to negotiate base deals that will give us an open-ended presence in Iraq. The Iraqi government said they will require us to have specific dates by which we will withdraw. My issue is with people who look at this war in conventional terms of victory and defeat, but the difference is that there isn't a conventional enemy to defeat. For what it's worth, I supported the surge and I'm not one of those people clamoring for us to get out of Iraq asap. I don't think we should have gone in there in the first place, but that doesn't change the fact that we are there now. Many of the problems we are facing from the insurgency Iraq are ones that we created ourselves by lack of planning or strategic mismanagement.
I don't see how that "explanation" changes anything. He just subtly shifts his argument to "the awakening wouldn't have succeeded without the surge", just like you're trying to do for him. I've already pasted twice where Obama clearly said that the troops are responsible for the successes. Again, the reason that this matters so much is because McCain is making his experience the key part of his campaign. But being arrogant and trying to give a "basic history" lesson to Obama, he screwed up.
I guess I do need to explain it to you, bon. Hard to tell if you're just playing at being so dense (my suspicion), or whether you really don't get it. Different people of different definitions of what "winning" the war is. Different people have different metrics, different perspectives on a cost/benefit analysis. But rather than acknowledging that although might not agree with the perspective of others, there are valid questions of interpretation - you choose instead to make the absurd statement that Obama (and by extension, no doubt, anyone who would support him), would rather see Americans die, terrorists "win," blah, blah, blah, than lose an election. The most laughable aspect of such an argumentation strategy is that your such a devotee of a candidate that claims he wants to get beyond partisan vitriol. I think it's perfectly valid to attack Obama's reasoning, or to attack whether he doesn't contradict his call to get beyond partisan vitriol, but when you use "patriotism" in the manner of the last refuge of a scoundrel - hiding behind the weak and desperate strategy of calling those who disagree with you traitors - you lose all credibility, and rightfully earn the label of Republican lackey.
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About Will Bunch
Will's book: Learn about it here and purchase it here.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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