Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Gates Hearing: We're Not Winning




From an October 25, 2006 White House press conference:

Q: Mr. President, the war in Iraq has lasted almost as long as World War II for the United States. And as you mentioned, October was the deadliest month for American forces this year -- in a year. Do you think we're winning, and why?

President Bush: ...I am confident we will succeed. I am confident we'll succeed in Iraq.....Defeat will only come if the United States becomes isolationist and refuses to, one, protect ourselves, and, two, help those who desire to become -- to live in a moderate, peaceful world. And it's a hard struggle, no question about it. And it's a different struggle.

Q: Are we winning?

President Bush: Absolutely, we're winning.

From today's Senate armed services committee's confirmation hearing for Robert Gates, Bush's nominee for defense secretary:

Senator Carl Levin: Do you believe we are currently winning in Iraq?

Robert Gates: No, sir.


Levin, a sharp critic of the Pentagon and the administration, noted that Gates' admission was "a refreshing breath of reality." That's so. But what's needed is a hurricane-force gust of reality that will move through the Pentagon and the White House. In other words, how hard can Gates blow?

Senator Ted Kennedy, another committee member, pointed out that on November 5, Bush declared, "We got a strategy for victory [in Iraq] that will work." Yet Gates told the committee that Bush wants him "to take a fresh look and all options are on the table." Why worry, then, about "fresh looks" and "options" if a "strategy for victory" is already in place? Isn't there a contradiction here? Kennedy wondered. Gates assured Kennedy that he intends to be not a "bump on a log" but an "independent voice." The question remains: is the commander in chief prepared to listen to such a voice? But that's not a question for Gates.

Posted by David Corn at December 5, 2006 11:02 AM

26 comments:

capt said...

Mr. David Corn,

Good post, we all know Bush and his merry band of morons will (for the next 24 months) fix the facts around his failed and failing policies. That is what they do.

Thanks for all of your work.

Kirk

capt said...

Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record



U.S.-Backed Efforts At Eradication Fail


[…]

Eradication and alternative development programs have made little discernible headway. Cultivation -- measured annually with high-resolution satellite imagery that is then parsed by analysts using specialized computer software -- is nearly double its highest pre-Karzai level.

"There is supposed to be a tremendous energy associated with this," Jones said of the counter-narcotics programs, "but it needs a fresh look because . . . we're losing ground.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

So . . . we can measure the amount cultivated by way of satellite imaging but we can't find the poppy fields to eradicate the crops?

Sounds like BS to me.



capt

O'Reilly said...

Lindsey Graham is a douchebag.

His line of questioning represented no,none, nada investigation into the qualifications of Gates, it demonstrated only Graham's opinions about Iraq policy and Gates agreement with Graham's opinions.

Lindey Graham wins my Douchebag of the Week Award for the Senator who asserts his own self-righteous world view rather than uphold his constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent.

capt said...

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience.therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." : Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

=
"Some explanations of a crime are not explanations: they're part of the crime.": Olavo de Cavarlho

=
"And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war." Aristotle, Politics

=
"It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy ... The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States." : Boutros Boutros-Ghali

===
Read this newsletter online http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

capt said...

Bush Is No Conservative


[…]

Neoconservatism is actually a more extreme form of revolutionary utopianism than that of the Bolsheviks and the Jacobins. The Soviet communist party was content with trying to remake Russians. The Jacobins ran out of steam early, and Napoleon reinstituted the old order, dispensing titles of nobility and crowning himself emperor. Only neoconservatives are sufficiently ignorant and delusional as to believe that America’s overthrowing an Arab leader will result in Arab states reconstituting themselves in the West’s image.

Neoconservatives have demonstrated an unrivaled ability to detach themselves from reality. Americans should be terrified that delusional neoconservatives were able to seize control of the presidency of George W. Bush and commit the US to two illegal wars that have been lost and that have isolated the US from the rest of humanity with the exception, of course, of Israel.

The lack of any connection to reality makes the neoconservative print media, such as the Weekly Standard, the Wall St Journal editorial page, and National Review so absurd as to be unreadable. The December 4 issue of National Review, for example, has a cartoon portraying a US soldier in Iraq pondering the 2006 congressional election results. An Iraqi kid is tugging on the soldier’s trouser leg and saying "say you won’t go, Joe!"

National Review’s editors are as lost in delusion as President Bush. And they are just as irrelevant. It boggles the mind that there could be a journalist anywhere on earth who is unaware that polls of Iraqis consistently show that large majorities of Iraqis are "strongly opposed" to the presence of US troops in Iraq, believe the US occupation makes them less secure, and approve of the insurgent attacks on US troops.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

There is nothing conservative about being radical.



capt

Gerald said...

Levin: Gerald, are we winning the war in Iraq?

Gerald: Absolutely not! Bush has disgraced our citizens and our country! We are winning on one front. That front is in Afghanistan and the growing of opium. We can give each American opium so they can forget about the Iraq war. Sir, our mission is accomplished.

Gerald said...

They are not our friends

Gerald said...

Another sicko wants to be president

Gerald said...

What is there not to love about our rotten country

Gerald said...

Worse than Rummie

Gerald said...

Will Gates lead the charge to nuke Iran? I believe he will. He is up to his arm pits in sleaze.

capt said...

Email from Ted Kennedy:

Committee for a Democratic Majority



We're on the threshold of something big, and it's going to take big ideas to seize the moment.

You created a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress for the first time in over a decade. Your support for my campaign and campaigns across the country in the November elections truly paid off.

Now, at this key moment in history, we have a chance to define what a Democratic majority means.

Never before has our commitment to core Democratic values been more important. We know that the Bush administration will be doing everything it can to divide and conquer us.

But the results of the 2006 election are crystal clear. Every Democratic incumbent Senator and Representative was re-elected this November, and we'll have dozens more Democrats to join us in the new Congress in January.

There is not only a Democratic majority in Congress -- there's a Democratic majority in the United States of America!

So I have decided to build an organization dedicated to a single purpose: being a voice for the Democratic majority in America.

I'm writing to you now because we will launch a renewed Committee for a Democratic Majority soon after the new year, and it will take a committed core group to make it successful.

Will you join me as a founding member of the Committee for a Democratic Majority? Founding members can commit to any amount, whether it's $10 or $100 a month. We'll be conducting a small, efficient operation designed to be a voice for the millions of voters across the country who make up the Democratic majority in America.

Can I count on you to become a founding member?


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Not sure how much good it will do but I am thinking about chipping in.



capt

Robert S said...

I gotta say, and it is a bit early I realize, that I've been so underwhelmed by the new Democratic majority of late. Rethuglican light, how do we salvage an immoral, unjust, conflict, thousands of miles from our shores...

As Sessions remarks about what Justice requires, in real time comment, Justice requires the impeachment and trial for war crimes this whole misadministration...

...as I was saying, where was I, as I think Saladin asked me a thread or two back...

...in streaming conciousness prose, and having been here and there and in between...and shaking windows and rattling halls, because the times they are a changin, but only through the direct action of all of us...

So's I've been shakin' those windows and rattlin' their phones.

One of the things I pointed out in the comments I've left with our mouthpieces asking the questions of Mr. Gates is that one of the first acts of the Wush's Misadministration, before 9/11, before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before even the 8/6/01 PDB, was the sealing of the Presidential Records from the Reagan and 41 Misadministrations...back when Gates was working in the CIA during Iran-Contra...he's back, just like Abrams and Negroponte and all the other old torture and dirty war apologists and purveyors...

Cheers!
Robert Schwartz

David B. Benson said...

Roert Schwartz --- 'MALadminsitration', not just 'misadministration. IMO...

Robert S said...

Dr. B.

MALadministration works for me, just like the Mal-Warts they wanted us to shopping in...

David B. Benson said...

RS --- Very good. I've only been inside a Mal-Wart once in my life. Just barely inside. I was horrified. But I only went in to wait for a 'friend' who actually SHOPPED there...

capt said...

"Let no man think we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealous agents of the Government arrest suspected "radicals" without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail....we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity..." -- Robert M. Lafollette, Sr. (1855-1925) U.S. Senator - Source: The Progressive, March 1920

=
"Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units." -- Carl Gustav Jung - (1875-1961) Source: The Undiscovered Self, 1957

=
"Why nationalize industry when you can nationalize the people?": -- Adolf Hitler - (1889-1945) Source: quoted in Robert N. Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 74.


===
Read this newsletter online http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

David B. Benson said...

Gates was supported by the majority of his Senate panel. Grimace...

capt said...

House GOP scraps vote on Gulf drilling bill



WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders dropped plans today to vote on a Senate proposal to open up more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration.

Faced with the daunting prospect of getting two-thirds of the House to agree to open 8.3 million acres in federal waters west of Florida to drilling, GOP leaders opted to pull the bill and shop around for another vehicle.

"The House will revisit the offshore drilling legislation again at some point before the end of this week, though details on the mechanics of how the measure will be considered have yet to be decided." said Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Drilling supporters may try to attach the provision to a bill to extend some popular tax breaks. But whether the lame-duck Congress can, in its final days, still pass the controversial drilling bill remains unclear.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a prominent drilling opponent, said the decision to pull the bill "only further underscores how little support there remains for the Republican Party's bankrupt energy policy."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I think this is a good thing. I hope the GOPhers don't sneak it into some other bill.



capt

capt said...

Gates OK'd for defense by Senate panel



The senators voted 24-0 to support the nomination to replace Rumsfeld, who has become a symbol of the Bush administration's steadfast course in a war that has long since soured with the public and much of the world.

"I voted yes because in both the substance of his answers and the tone of his answers, he seemed open to course correction," said Carl Levin, D-Mich., who will be the committee's chairman when Democrats take control of the Senate next month.

During his appearance, Gates would not commit to any specific new course of action in the conflict. He said he would consult first with commanders and others.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

24 - 0



capt

David B. Benson said...

capt --- Oh! 24--0. Double grimace and a grimey gunk, too...

Saladin said...

Gates? Oh God, more bullshit, aren't we full yet? BRING THE TROOPS HOME RIGHT FREAKIN NOW!! No more talk.

Saladin said...

Denver housing market in free-fall as foreclosures eclipse record

9news

Denver's 2006 real estate foreclosure rate is now officially the worst on record.
With one month left in the year, foreclosures have already eclipsed the record set during the 1988 oil industry collapse which sent Colorado's economy into a tail-spin.
==========
Here we go, the beginning of a long overdue adjustment. And to all those naysayers, you know who you are, who said nothing I ever posted has come to pass, this is just one of several that we were warned about, that I and a few others have ranted about, WTF comes to mind, but then, if you can't see it from your house, who cares? Blind leading the blind, but if only it were just a ditch, this is a cliff.

Saladin said...

A vote for more cooked intelligence?

WRH

Robert Gates won't be forced to run much of a gauntlet Tuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing on the way to becoming the next secretary of defense. The former CIA director has bipartisan support. And during his interrogation, Washington's near-total preoccupation with the situation in Iraq will crowd out any serious probing of Gates' past, including his murky role in the Iran-Contra scandal and the cooking of intelligence on the Soviet Union during Gates' tenure at the CIA more than a decade ago.
But in the rush to discharge Rumsfeld, the Senate may not fully explore a blemish in Gates' dossier that seems particularly relevant now. A close examination of Gates' record, including little-known documents obtained by Salon from the National Security Archive, shows that as Gates was rising through the echelons of the CIA in the late 1980s to be CIA director in 1991, he was involved in the trafficking of intelligence reports that relied on compromised sources to show an exaggerated foreign threat. With the U.S. struggling for an exit strategy from Iraq and eyeing adversaries like Iran, President Bush has selected a man to head the Pentagon who was once in charge during an intelligence fiasco not unlike the one that unleashed the Iraq war.
===========
By golly, where have we heard that before? Right-left? Uh-huh. Too busy to look at details, that's how we got the Patriot act.

Saladin said...

Leading Democrat Wants More Troops In Iraq

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

The soft-spoken Texas Democrat was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade that country. That dovish record got prominently cited last week when Speaker designate Nancy Pelosi chose Reyes as the new head of the intelligence panel.

But in an interview with NEWSWEEK on Tuesday, Reyes pointedly distanced himself from many of his Democratic colleagues who have called for fixed timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Coming on the eve of tomorrow’s recommendations from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission, Reyes’s comments were immediately cited by some Iraq war analysts as fresh evidence that the intense debate over U.S. policy may be more fluid than many have expected.
==========
This is what I said all along, all that Murtha BS was just that, BS! pelosi got just the person she wanted, a rabid zionist Israel firster who will support this sick war until every last Arab is dead. pelosi is a backstabbing traitor who should be hung from the highest branch for high treason! Or at least thrown in the dungeon forever! Why do they keep voting her in?? IDIOTS!!

capt said...

New thread!