Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Using The War To Win


David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation and the co-author, along with Michael Isikoff, of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War . Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com.


The 2008 presidential campaign is already under way, with aspirants in both parties declaring candidacies and opening exploratory committees. And thanks to George W. Bush, who is about to call for a "surge" of troops in Iraq, the war there is likely to dominate the discourse within both the Republican and Democratic primaries. At this point—only one year until the Iowa caucuses!—Republican John McCain and Democrat John Edwards may have the best starting positions among the major contenders for the coming political jockeying over Iraq, even though they are advocating opposing policies. Allow me to explain.

McCain, the Arizona senator, has adopted a hawkier-than-thou stance. He has been calling for more troops in Iraq since it became obvious the war was no cakewalk. The Pentagon’s resistance hasn’t mattered to him (nor that of GOP senators who have rejected the McCain plan). Several weeks ago, General John Abizaid, the now-outgoing chief of Central Command, testified before the Senate and told McCain directly that he didn’t have extra troops to deploy to Iraq and that he did not believe dumping more U.S. soldiers into Iraq would lead to victory. Though the military commanders are apparently yielding to Bush’s let-do-something desires and go along with the so-called surge (that’s spin-talk for escalation), it is unlikely that McCain will get the full-scale ramp-up he wants. That would be politically beneficial for McCain.



By urging the deployment of more troops, McCain, like Bush, is marching against public opinion. But to attain the Republican presidential nomination, he need not worry about vox populi. McCain, who in years past has alienated conservatives, has to win the votes of diehards within the GOP, who mostly still support Bush and his war. (They are practically the only ones.) Though McCain’s send-more-troops proposal has been an implied criticism of Bush, it conveys a clear message to those Bush-backing voters: I’m tough enough to be the next kick-ass president you Republicans know you want .

McCain’s position has a built-in advantage: His up-the-ante idea has not been fully tested. Consequently, on the campaign trail he will be able to say, If we had sent more troops when I advocated doing so, we might not be in such a fix today. And should he win the GOP nomination, he won’t have to stick with his escalation strategy. If Iraq has descended further into chaos and conflict by then, McCain could say that the time for injecting more troops has passed and that boosting the U.S. presence in Iraq would no longer be productive. McCain could get points for having been a gutsy hawk without having to be accountable for the consequences of his hawkishness. Not a bad political play for a Republican.

There are potential minefields for McCain. The war, post-surge, could get so ugly that even the hardest-core Republicans become turned off and cannot be won over by McCain’s tough-guy talk. McCain might also face an anti-war Republican challenger who will try to put the former Navy pilot on the spot. Sen. Chuck Hagel, a sometimes maverick-ish Republican from Nebraska and another Vietnam vet, has called for withdrawal from Iraq, and he has been pondering a presidential bid. None of the other non-McCain GOP candidates—outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback—are as qualified (or perhaps as willing) to challenge McCain as is Hagel, a member of the foreign relations committee who has been raising questions about the Iraq war since the start, even when he voted to give Bush the authority to attack. If Hagel jumps into the pool, the smart money would still be on McCain. But Republican voters—and the rest of the public—could be treated to an electrifying and dramatic debate.



On the Democratic side, primary voters will likely have one overriding question for their presidential candidates: What have you done and what will you do to end the Iraq war? At first glance, it may seem that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama—should he run—will be the top-tier candidate most able to tap the antiwar sentiment of Democrats. He was not yet a member of the Senate in October 2002, when a majority of Democratic senators—including Hillary Clinton of New York and John Edwards of North Carolina—voted for the war authorization legislation, but at the time Obama declared his opposition to the war. Still, he and Clinton share a problem.

The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, who are now in control of Congress, have repeatedly said they are going to press Bush to devise a withdrawal plan, not force him to do so. That is, they have no intention of defunding the war. Not even Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha, the leading Democratic critic of the war, favors pulling this plug. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has threatened to withhold funding for Bush’s surge, but other Democrats have questioned such a strategy. The Democrats fear being cast as unsupportive of the troops and worry about being blamed for losing Iraq. If Bush remains deaf to the Dems’ pleadings—as is likely—grassroots Democrats can be expected to become increasingly peeved at their congressional leaders and demand that the Democrats do more than issue demands. How will Clinton and Obama deal with this? They could each become caught between the Democrats’ strategic aim (don’t do Bush’s dirty work for him) and beyond-the-Beltway Democratic sentiment (get us out of there).

Edwards, the losing vice presidential candidate of 2004 who officially kicked off his 2008 campaign last week, will be in no such jam. He has already declared his 2002 vote was a mistake ("I was wrong," he wrote in The Washington Post in November 2005), and he has called for beginning an initial withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 troops from Iraq. But best for Edwards, he is out of the Senate. He is not encumbered by office. Whether he decides to call for defunding the war or not, he will have more maneuverability than either Clinton or Obama. And he will not have to back up his position with action or votes. Edwards is free to fire away at the war—and perhaps even at House and Senate Democrats should they not do enough (in the eyes of Democratic voters) to stop Bush’s misadventure in Iraq.

Within the Republican primary contest, there will be major disagreements among the candidates on issues beyond Iraq, including such hot-button topics as abortion and gay rights. (Imagine Giuliani and Brownback squaring off.) Global warming could make the list. (McCain has called for cutting back greenhouse gases.) But among the leading Democratic candidates (a group unlikely to include the already-announced Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a progressive firebrand who favors defunding the war), there will not be much issue separation, except perhaps regarding what to do in Iraq. And one of the front-of-the-pack Democrats (for reasons of politics or policy or both) will distinguish him or herself by calling for a more-and-faster approach to disengagement in Iraq. As of now, Edwards has the space to do so. But however all this plays out, the presidential campaign of 2008 will produce extensive debates on Iraq—as the war continues and perhaps grows.

28 comments:

Mookie said...

Spineless democrats won't be getting my vote come 2008. I'd rather vote third party than support people too worried about their own hides to denounce the war.

Any Vietnam vets wanna talk about what escalation means and if it even works?

Bush and his cronies did not have a clear-cut plan for Iraq. (Well, they did, but the main premise - WMDs - was false from the very beginning.) Sending more troops does not make the mission there any more apparent. For the Iraqis and the young men and women of the US armed forces, the number one mission is to stay alive. We can greatly aid the American soldiers by bringing them home, and possibly remove a source of strife and contention from Iraq and let them deal with the mess. Yes, it's horribly unfair, but that's what happens when you let a chimp determine foreign policy.

capt said...

Bring the troops home. All of them. We have no business being in Iraq.


capt

Saladin said...

Or anywhere in the middle east for that matter. All the oil in the world could never be worth even one innocent life.

Gerald said...

Americans want investigations of corruption and lies and Americans want our troops home now!!!!!

We are a damned nation because no one and I include the women in political office have the cajones to assume leadership.

Dear God, please show your mercy and have America rest in peace.

O'Reilly said...

It's very hard to care about the politics of the 2008 election at this time, and especially war policy politics.

Our countries war policy turns in the balance and it has a direct effect on America and Americans, much more the issue of which candidate might be elected two years hence.

To say it another way, I don't care whether McCain or anyone else's war policy puts them in a better or worse position to be elected. I care about our countries war policy of escalation, whether it will bring more destruiction of human life or less, and whether it expedites the end of hostilities or extends them.

Sorry David Corn. I can't go with you to 2008 presidential politics today. Address issues that affect citizens and mankind in direct ways over the next two years.

Gerald said...

capt, thank you for the links on your blogspot! I go to it at times and it saves time. Many of your links are on my favorite columns.

Gerald said...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer recently assured readers of the Jerusalem Post in Israel that the Democrats were fully prepared to back the use of force against Iran and this sentiment is shared by a cadre of leading luminaries including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Bilderberg endorsed 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards and even darling of the left Barack Obama.

While Americans are placated by promises that Democrats will "symbolically" oppose President Bush's insane troop surge for Iraq, while they actively fund the entire venture through the power of the Congressional purse, the roadmap to Iran is being dutifully upheld by those who came to power vowing change yet are showing all the signs of reverting to type and lining up to salute the continued frog march towards world war three, while ensuring the further downfall of America into a police state at home.

Gerald said...

Bush is a reckless assassin

capt said...

Extra 21,500 US troops to Iraq



Home » World » Article
Extra 21,500 US troops to Iraq
Email Print Normal font Large font January 11, 2007 - 7:56AM

US President George W Bush is expected to make one of the most crucial speeches on his administration today when he outlines his new strategy on Iraq, including the deployment of 21,500 more troops.

Officials have released some deatils ahead of his address, with a senior administration official providing a breakdown of the additional troops set to be deployed.

Bush will reportedly announce in the United States at around 1pm AEDT that he will send 21,500 additional American forces to Iraq, acknowledging that it was a mistake earlier not to have more American and Iraqi troops fighting the war.

A breakdown of the additional troops was provided by a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the increase has not been officially announced.

More HERE

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

Bush is insane, you know. He will say this with a straight face?



capt

Saladin said...

I more and more believe that the shattering of our troops is the goal. bush is brain-dead, he is a stupid puppet. I want the real controllers heads on a platter. Sorry anti-death penalty people, I am all for it in the case of these murdering lunatics. There is not one good reason they should be allowed to continue taking up space on our beautiful planet. Trials and sentencing is in order, or we will all soon be drowning in blood.
o'reilly, I'm with you, who cares whether war mongerers get elected? We need to cut this war machine off at the knees, the sooner the better. Later will be too late.

David B. Benson said...

"A breakdown of the additional troops was provided by a senior administration official..."

That can be read in more than one way. But the real breakdown actually won't come until Baghdad...

kathleen said...

Bush just said that Iraq will be a Democracy that "answers to its people". When will we have that?

He also said that the terroist will make sure our television screens are filled with death and suffering in Iraq. Our TV screens are not filled with anything but stupid reality programs, soap operas, movie stars and complete and utter hogwash. You can flip through 200 stations and never see one of the 650,ooo dead Iraqi people.

What a bunch of hogwash!

kathleen said...

Surge tomorrow night with True Majority. Protest around the country.

Damn that was a weak weak speech!

The neo-cons have produced an Iranian to repeat their fucking lies about Iran! They are shameless and ruthless!

kathleen said...

The Brits cut and Bush surges! Insane!

UK to cut 3,000 troops from Iraq by May
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will cut troop levels in Iraq by almost 3,000 at the end of May, the Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday, citing a timetable for withdrawal the newspaper said it had seen.

Within the next two weeks, Prime Minister Tony Blair would announce the reduction to Britain's 7,200-strong force based in the south of the war-ravaged country, it said

The news came as U.S. President George W. Bush prepared to outline plans to send another 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq.

A spokeswoman at Blair's office and a Ministry of Defence spokesman dismissed the Telegraph story as speculation.

"Our withdrawal from Iraq, we have always said it will be conditions based," the defence ministry spokesman said. "We would like to reduce our force levels as the Iraqis increase their ability to provide security for their own country."

The Telegraph, however, said it had seen a timetable for the withdrawal that would see the number of British troops fall to 4,500 by May 31.

The document revealed that barring "major hiccups" in the next few months, 1 Mechanised Brigade would enter Iraq with a much smaller force when it replaced 19 Light Brigade in June for a half-year tour, according to the Telegraph.

Blair on Wednesday said British operations aimed at preparing for the handover of security in Basra to Iraqi authorities could be completed in the next few weeks.

His comments may suggest an earlier handover than had been previously thought. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in November last year that Britain could hand over control of Basra to the Iraqi government in spring 2007.

kathleen said...

Please lock up the right wing warmongers!

Iranian news agency: Two nuclear inspectors begin touring Iran’s nuclear plants Associated Press
Published: Wednesday, January 10, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Two inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Iran on Wednesday to inspect the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities, the official IRNA news agency said.

The announcement came after Iran’s parliament urged the government late December to re-examine its ties with the UN nuclear agency following a Security Council decision to impose sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.

Iran says that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty it has the right to develop a peaceful uranium enrichment program to produce nuclear power.

But the UN Security Council voted in December to impose limited sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enrichment of uranium — a process that produces the material for either nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.

The United States and its European allies suspect Iran’s civilian nuclear program is a cover for developing such a bomb. Iran says its program is strictly for generating electricity.

The official IRNA news agency said Wednesday the two IAEA inspectors were conducting routine investigations in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“The inspectors arrived in Iran on Wednesday and they have already visited uranium conversion facilities in central city of Isfahan,” the state news agency said, quoting an unnamed official.

“Inspectors will stay for one week to inspect facilities in Isfahan and Natanz,” IRNA said.

The state agency said the IAEA inspectors would also “review the trend of co-operation with Iranian nuclear officials.”

IAEA inspectors regularly visit Iran, but the Islamic Republic’s lack of transparency has increased suspicions it was conducting a secret weapons program.

kathleen said...

CUT OFF ISRAELS FUNDING!

Maybe Israel should bust Iran's bunkers
The alternative could be a nuclear Iran that destabilizes the Middle East and sets off a well-armed Israel.
By Zev Chafets, ZEV CHAFETS is the author of "A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance," published this week by HarperC
January 10, 2007


LAST WEEKEND, the Sunday Times of London reported that Israel is preparing a strike on the Iranian nuclear program at several bases scattered throughout the country. The paper claimed that the attack would be carried out with tactical nuclear "bunker busters" supplied by the United States.

Israel quickly denied the Times' report. But the story, which may be wrong in its details, has a certain truthiness. Israel is certainly thinking about how to stop Tehran from getting its hands on nukes.

And why wouldn't it? Given the evident failure of American diplomacy and U.N. sanctions, Israel has two basic choices. It can sit and wait, hoping the Iranians do not drop a bomb on Tel Aviv; or it can preemptively attack, hoping to destroy, or at least retard, the Iranians' nuclear capacity.

American foreign policy "realists" tend to favor the first option. At the core of their argument is the idea that Israel has nuclear weapons and can therefore rely on Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) just as the U.S. did during the Cold War. Does Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say he wants to wipe Israel off the map? It's probably just rhetoric. After all, he knows that if he tried, Israel would retaliate, turning Tehran into a parking lot.

This may seem realistic in Washington or Cambridge, but not in Tel Aviv. Israel is a small, crowded country with a very poor civil defense infrastructure and a population traumatized by its own recent history. Perhaps the Iranian government doubts that the Holocaust happened, but there are 6 million Israeli Jews (that population figure is a macabre coincidence) who don't doubt it. For Israelis, "never again" is more than a phrase over a museum gate.

It is possible, even likely, that Israel could survive an Iranian nuclear attack physically — but not psychologically. It is doubtful that Israel could carry on as a sane, not to mention democratic, society. This is the great insight of Ahmadinejad.

An Israel assaulted in this way would react, of course. But it might not react in the predictable, proportionate, tit-for-tat fashion that the realists have laid out. What, after all, is the practical value (not to mention the moral justification) for killing a million innocent civilians in Tehran?

There are other ways a brutalized Israel might respond. For example, it could decide to settle accounts with a broader group of enemies. That would mean immiserating Iran and the Arab world by destroying their oil fields. Or, if the Palestinians cheered the mass murder of Israelis in Tel Aviv, as they almost certainly would, the Israeli reaction might be to settle the territorial issue of western Palestine once and for all. And if Hezbollah or Syria attempted to intervene, well, the genie would already be out of the bottle.

In other words, if you want to think realistically about the Middle East in a first-strike environment, you had better be ready to contemplate something more dire than a few flattened neighborhoods in downtown Tehran.

The only reasonable alternative to this nightmare is a guarantee that there will be no nuclear attack by Iran. This can be accomplished by changing the regime in Tehran, or by destroying the present government's capacity to build and deliver nukes.

There are Israelis who believe that it is in Israel's interest for the United States to solve this problem. But they are mistaken. The truth is, the U.S. is not directly menaced by Iranian weapons. When President Bush says an Iranian bomb would threaten U.S. friends and interests in the region, he is speaking primarily about Israel. The Iranians frighten a lot of Sunni Arab countries, but they pose an existential threat only to the Jewish state.

Israel needs to fight its own battles. If it encourages, or allows, the U.S. to disarm Iran on its behalf, it can kiss its sovereignty goodbye. Israel will become an American protectorate, a Mediterranean Puerto Rico. The United States is a great friend, but history's lesson is that friends come and go.

Israel's raison d'ĂȘtre is Jewish self-determination — and that includes the ability to survive without relying on the kindness of others.

That kindness, in any case, can't be taken for granted. Just last week, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO and a member in good standing of the Democratic establishment, confided to Arianna Huffington, on the record, that he fears that "New York money people" (by which he clearly meant American Jews) are already pressuring U.S. officials to go to war for Israel's sake.

This, of course, is a variation on the increasingly brazen charge that disloyal neocon Jews tricked the U.S. into Iraq on orders from Jerusalem — a theory propounded not only by Arab propagandists and academic Zionist-lobby-spotters such as professor Stephen Walt of Harvard, professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and David Duke of the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, but by many "progressive" Democrats and Buchananite Republicans.

If the Sunday Times is right and Israel is preparing a strike on the Iranian nuclear program, that may not be good news, but, realistically, it is a damn sight better than the alternative.

Hajji said...

Hey Y'all,

I think my TV's broke. Only PBS offered any insight/analysis to the MIC's (moron is a Chimp) little wimper of a speech. (I only get broadcast)

Senator Webb, VA (both Virginia and Veterans kinds) made a good stand, next to the hollow echoes of Thune, S(sd)D.

A retired marine General (not Shinseki) and an Army guy Odom (SURELY not THAT Odom) both agreed the "surge" was an anemic attempt to put off the enevitable. I guess they couldn't find a "Hawk's Hawk" to back Bunnypants, but then again, with commanders "retiring" like rats from a burning ship, where WOULD you find any?

On a personal note, I'd like to thank you all for your words, wishes and postal offerings for Grant. He has said that he fears the pile of "Thank you" letters he has to write will likely come home with him.

He got a date...February 12, as the day he's leaving Iraq.

The reason I didn't capitalize that and link to a cute picture of Snoopy doing some "happy dance" is that I am (WE are) scared as hell.

We cannot trust anything that comes in the next month. We cannot, WILL not stop worrying for a second until we get him in a chair by the fire with the cheap-assed cheap beer he drinks and a questionably young maiden in his lap.

THEN we can start worrying about the normal stuff...Like he's too goddamn good looking for his own good! His house is TOO goddamn close to the local high school and we'll STILL see too goddam little of him to suit us.

We're driving a trailer-load of furniture, his "memory boxes", his baseball card collection, etc. to Indiana this weekend so it'll all be there for him when he gets home. Most likely, it'll be the first week of March.

He'll fly into ATL and we'll let him de-compress here in the Mtns for a while, maybe a trip down to the Keys, before he resumes his life in the little Indiana backwater he calls home.

I know I no longer post much here, or HERE, but please know that I read often, just don't have much to say... I sign the petitions, forward the letters to the congresscritters correspond with the local anti- whatevers...

All the time though I'm biting my nails, trying to balance the worry with the pain of other families whose news will never again be hopeful, every day more fearful than the last...

Pray if you do, think positive if you can, sacrifice small, cute, furry things if that is your way...

...but most of all write, link, cut 'n paste....keep doing what you're doing...

It helps...ME, but, hopefully you and others, TOO!

-T

kathleen said...

"Israel is teeming with nuclear incitement. Nuclear incitement breeds nuclear use"
By Dr. Meir Stieglitz

01/10/07 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Galvanized by the mounting Iranian nuclear crisis, the "survival" word and its synonymies is the talk of Israel, rising in volume from day to day and spilling to almost all sectors of Israeli life. The prevailing dark mood is epitomized by Prime Minister Olmert rush to publicly stress, for all the world to hear, that for the first time in his life he feels that there is an existential threat against the State of Israel. On this background, an analysis of the Israeli open discourse indicates that the national security paranoia is dangerously nearing "a point of no cure".

Did Israel really cross the line between legitimate strategic security concerns and existential obsession? Yes, and perilously so. How did it get there? Well, in the last two decades, sowing WMD security alarms was a rather expedient move for the Israeli politicians and media and recently it has reached an exceptional intensity. It is imperative to remember that Israel is a country with long-range strategic capabilities and as such an injection of non-rational survival fears can turn it, in a short time, into a source of global hazard.

At Information Clearing House

kathleen said...

The truth hurts....As Americans we are drowning in oil and Iraqi blood!

This one is a must!

Why the US Is Not Leaving Iraq

"The military-industrial-complex [would] cause military spending to be driven not by national security needs but by a network of weapons makers, lobbyists and elected officials." Dwight D. Eisenhower

"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket." General Smedley D. Butler




By: Ismael Hossein-zadeh

01/10/07 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Neither the Iraq Study Group nor other establishment critics of the Iraq war are calling for the withdrawal of US troops from that country. To the extent that the Study Group or the new Congress purport to inject some “realism” into the Iraq policy, such projected modifications do not seem to amount to more than changing the drivers of the US war machine without changing its destination, or objectives: control of Iraq’s political and economic policies.

In light of fact that by now almost all of the factions of the ruling circles, including the White House and the neoconservative war-mongerers, acknowledge the failure of the Iraq war, why, then, do they balk at the idea of pulling the troops out of that country?

Perhaps the shortest path to a relatively satisfactory answer would be to follow the money. The fact is that not everyone is losing in Iraq. Indeed, while the Bush administration’s wars of choice have brought unnecessary death, destruction, and disaster to millions, including many from the Unites States, they have also brought fortunes and prosperity to war profiteers. At the heart of the reluctance to withdraw from Iraq lies the profiteers’ unwillingness to give up further fortunes and spoils of war.

Pentagon contractors constitute the overwhelming majority of these profiteers. They include not only the giant manufacturing contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, but also a complex maze of over 100,000 service contractors and sub-contractors such as private army or security corporations and “reconstruction” firms.[1] These contractors of both deconstruction and “reconstruction,” whose profits come mainly from the US treasury, have handsomely profited from the Bush administration’s wars of choice.

at Information Clearing House

kathleen said...

Hajji. Pray, write, call, protest, Pray, write, read, call protest...Pray pray pray!

kathleen said...

Hajji c-span 1 keeps replaying it!

Hajji said...

Kathleen,

Thanx...

I hope to someday have a springtime lunch with you in Athens. It has been FAR too long since I was there.

-T

Hajji said...

The Democratic Response You'd Love to See

I'm sure the Democrats' response to Mr. Bush's speech will be polite, thoughtful, and articulate. But this is the response I wish I could see. This is the response I would love to deliver:

"Good evening, my fellow Americans. Thank you for allowing me to share some thoughts on the President's speech this evening.
I believe I speak for most citizens when I say: IS HE FUCKING NUTS?! HOLY SHIT!! MORE troops?!! They should pad the Lincoln bedroom. He shouldn't be speaking to the American people tonight, he should be asking Nurse Ratchet to turn on the World Series! 24,000 MORE troops?! For WHAT?! To protect the Iraqi Government? WHAT IRAQI GOVERNMENT?! Who are these guys? Why should we sacrifice more American boys? What do they stand for? Here's their constitution: "Don't overthrow us." That's IT! They're light years away from tackling civil liberties or picking out a national anthem. This ain't Washington and Jefferson we're defending over there. It's Borat!

Just two months ago the President told us we were winning! Oh really?! Which war was he looking at? 'Cause even the one on Fox News had us getting our asses kicked. Out of respect to the office I'd like to think that the President wasn't purposely trying to deceive the American public. He truly believed it. WHICH IS WORSE!! This is Captain Queeg. The mistakes we made in the past were that we didn't use "geometric logic". If we don't send 24,000 more troops over there right away Al Qaeda is going to get our strawberries. They will. They will.

Honestly, when you watched that speech this evening, didn't an arctic breeze go right up your sphincter?

The President welcomes debate. Yeah. NOW. After a shitload of Republicans got handed their heads. That was the REAL "surge"! I mean, seriously, do you think for one minute that he's actually going to listen to and consider any opposing point of view? FUCK NO! He has his policy, he's made his decision, and they just installed his new wii.

It's time we stopped this nonsense. It's time American soldiers stopped being killed for nothing. If Mr. President wants to send more troops let him gather up the Halliburton Board of Directors. Let's cut through the bullshit already! And not let's get suckered again believing there's a critical need for a stable region when the message is being delivered by someone who's unstable.

Thank you, ladies and gentleman. Good night and God bless."

kathleen said...

Does the Aipac trial start on Jan. 16? Will the MSM cover it? I have not heard a peep!

kathleen said...

Yes southeastern Ohio or Kentucky in the spring. Spring beauties, bloodroot, purple and white violets, jack in the pulpit, redbuds, dogwood, dandelion daffodils,. It is hard to imagine that all of these incredible plants are dormant waiting for the warmth and sunlight of the spring.

Just as our nation and the world are waiting for the cold death and destruction that this administration has unleashed to have some serious sunlight applied .

Would be glad to take a hike in the spring!

kathleen said...

The warmongers are ramping it up before the Aipac trial begins.

January 10, 2007
Distracting Congress from the Real War Plan: Iran

by Paul Craig Roberts
Is the surge an orchestrated distraction from the real war plan?

A good case can be made that it is. The US Congress and media are focused on President Bush’s proposal for an increase of 20,000 US troops in Iraq, while Israel and its American neoconservative allies prepare an assault on Iran.

Commentators have expressed puzzlement over President Bush’s appointment of a US Navy admiral as commander in charge of the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The appointment makes sense only if the administration’s attention has shifted from the insurgencies to an attack on Iran.

The Bush administration has recently doubled its aircraft carrier forces and air power in the Persian Gulf. According to credible news reports, the Israeli air force has been making practice runs in preparation for an attack on Iran.

Recently, Israeli military and political leaders have described Israeli machinations to manipulate the American public and their representatives into supporting or joining an Israeli assault on Iran.


AT ANTIWAR.COM

kathleen said...

at Think Progress

Bush Warns Iran: ‘I Recently Ordered The Deployment Of An Additional Carrier Strike Group To The Region’
President Bush’s address to the nation tonight included “some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran.” Bush accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.”

Bush added, “I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.” Watch it:


Also today, the White House released a Powerpoint presentation with details about the president’s new policy. “Increase operations against Iranian actors” was listed in the “Key Tactical Shifts” section.



The New York Times notes, “One senior administration official said this evening that the omission of the usual wording about seeking a diplomatic solution [to the Iranian nuclear stand-off] ‘was not accidental.’”

Pat said...

I missed a good part of Keith O's program earlier and tuned in just before Howard Finemann came on. Howard looked like he could hardly speak. I think he said Wow. The show will repeat at midnight ET. From C&L's comments it looks like K.O. was never better.

Catch the repeat if you can.

No, I couldn't watch the speech. Afterwards even Joe Scarborough had some good remarks (MSNBC).

I'm going to check for local marches being set up for tomorrow.

Did any MSM cover the protest tonight at the White House? MSNBC spoke about it but I don't recall seeing any pictures - then again, I was not fully attentive.
Pat