Like many, I mocked Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon not because I want them to be wrong and I want us to fail in Iraq, but because it is pretty clear that there will be no end to violence without a political solution. Every day there is more and more evidence of that:
Three bomb explosions in Baghdad today killed more than 65 people, as sectarian and militant violence continued to rage in Iraq.
The Shiite-led government that is trying to cope with the violence, meanwhile, suffered a political blow today, when the largest Sunni Arab political bloc in the parliament followed through on a threat to walk out of the coalition cabinet that is trying to unify the country.
The Sunni Accordance Front, which has 44 of the parliament’s 275 seats, said it was withdrawing its five ministers from the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki because the prime minister has refused to respond to a list of demands, including a greater say in security policy.
I fail to understand how a permanent American presence is going to resolve these issues. At best, it appears an American presence can serve to keep a small lid on the violence.
Obligatory TROLL Response- That does not mean I want us to fail or I just want this to go badly because I have BDS.
*** Update ***
Guess it would be cool to read my own website to make sure Tim hasn’t already said the same damned thing.
over_educated
Damn you Scott Beauchamp!!!!!
Jake
Conversely, it is hard to see how there can be a political solution without a drop in violence. We will look back on this time as the Paradox Years.
Fixed.
And screw the trolls.
over_educated
Seriously though, what is so absurd is that I will see hundreds of threads on CY. Flopping Aces, etc… claiing that we are winning hte war, with absoulutely NO EMPERICAL EVIDENCE to support that statement.
They refer to vague “on the ground reports” but every time you try to apply a metric like, oh, I don’t know, less folk being blown up on a daily basis, they argue that it is simply more proof the surge is working. (We got them on the run!!!)
It’s bizarre and maddening.
Zifnab
Don’t worry. I’m confident that, come Jan ’09, this war will have devolved into a catastrophic failure that is entirely the fault of the guy holding the bag. Iraq will be a firm reminder to the American people that if you elect the Democratic Party to power, you’re a LO-SER! I’m sure they’ll also mention how Democrats lost Vietnam and North Korea, and how only the blessings of President Eisenhower and President Reagen got us through WWII and the Cold War respectively.
If Obama is elected, we’ll see wingers flock to the theaters to watch “The Manchurian Candidate”, then rush off to the local book depository with loaded weapons. If Clinton is elected, we’ll just see them start wetting their pants and taking pot shots into the sky at anything that looks like a black helicopter.
The bottom line is that what’s left of the conservative movement is fucknuts insane. Don’t expect them to act rationally.
JoeTx
Once the Oil Law is passed in Iraq, you’ll see a “Mission Accomplished” moment. But unfortunately, you continue to see US troops there to protect the Oil Companies assets.
The Other Steve
I think it’s fair to say we should all give this about six months to work. Otherwise you hate America.
ThymeZone
We can all mock them for our own reasons, and mine would be that I am disgusted by a government that manufactures “news” and deliberately muddies the water around events in order to prolong a war that had no business being started in the first place, will soon be five years old, and continues to wreak havoc and destruction for no good purpose whatever.
These guys are nothing but clowns in a grim circus of continued death. Fuck them, and fuck the media for bending over and taking yet another Bush broomhandle up the ass.
Rusty Shackleford
I’ve noticed that the “Democrats are unserious about terrorism” talking point has been shifted into overdrive the last week or so. The major talking point being pushed before that was “Democrats want to pull the troops out of Iraq – but what happens then? It could be The Killing Fields all over again…”
All this “the surge is working, the war is going better than what’s being reported” talk lately is being put in place for when a Democrat wins the Presidency – “everything was getting better until the “unserious about terrorism” Democrats took over.”
U.S. troops can’t go anywhere for at least 6 months – not because of the situation – because of the White House/Pentagon not having any plans drawn up to begin redeployment. The White House is going to play a hybrid of college’s basketball’s “four corner offense” and football’s “prevent defense.” Petraeus will keep the ball swinging from side to side while the pro-war neocons will set up the prevent. Their goal is to run out the clock and pass this off to the next President, who they will ultimately blame for the entire mess-o-potamia.
TenguPhule
Damned if we do, Damned if we don’t.
You can always count on this administation to make all options bad ones once they’re finished digging the hole down to hit the sewage main.
jg
Its not. Its meant to protect the folks working the oil fields. This worthless argument over the ‘merits’ of the rights position on the war is a sideshow. We’re yelling, ‘tastes great, less filling’ while the administration is moving on with whatever it wants to do. As long as we let them control the argument we will never have an argument. We’ll just have name calling and jackalope hunts. We need to stop engaging the right from their own perspective. We know this shit that’s going on now ain’t winning or ending the war so why discuss this shit as though that’s the goal of the surge? With this approach the left can’t win because the whole discussion is designed to make the left sound defeatist. Turn it around. We need a discussion that shows Bush has no desire to win this war. Winning means war ends and they don’t want that. Make the right play defense on an issue for once.
HyperIon
and you would have known about Falafel Bill, too.
because *i* had the same question as you but it was answered in a comment on a previous thread….
Bill O’Reilly, Human Sewage Dump
By: John Cole July 30, 2007 at 7:20 pm
BTW i haven’t seen anyone comment on B-J getting linked to by James Walcott.
AND I noticed that JC now refers to Greenwald as Glenn. This is progress. Previously the default Glenn was InstaHack.
srv
It never ceases to amaze me about all the good news that goes unreported.
Look at this wildly successful new industry in Iraq.
Anne Laurie
Seriously though, what is so absurd is that I will see hundreds of threads on CY. Flopping Aces, etc… claiming that we are winning the war, with absoulutely NO EMPERICAL EVIDENCE to support that statement.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Our countrymen at the Wingnut blogs, however, prefer to believe in the Tinkerbelle Effect: If all empirical evidence points to immanent failure, it’s time for everybody to shut up and CLAP HARDER,DAMMIT!
Davebo
Well, at least O’Hanlon and Pollack can hang their hat on the claim that Iraqi deaths are down by 1/3rd since the begining of the surge.
Wait a minute. Do we even know for sure if these two guys exist??
Davebo
And by the way John, Kos, Americablog and Kevin Drum are now “center to right” blogs?
What’s it take to get a Moonbat label these days?
Zifnab
Is it me, or does Kevin Pollack’s logic remind anyone else of Jackson Pollack’s artwork?
Pug
in his interview with Larry King last night, even Dick Cheney cited the Pollack-O’Hanlon article in the New York Times (with the obligatory ‘hardly a conservative paper” bs) to support his lunatic position. When Cheney uses your article for support you have entered the Limbaugh-Hannity zone.
ThymeZone
Not sure that Kevin can drink as much as Jackson Pollock did. But, based on the report he is making, not sure he can’t either.
Steven D
This blog is full of disingenuous folk.
If you are truly open minded, you would give the strategy a chance and not claim failure before it started and quit half-way through.
It was a Democrat (JFK) who said something like, “We will bear any burden, pay any price and face down any foe to advance liberty.”
Today, the dems say, “We will only advance liberty if its easy.”
ThymeZone
Okay, if you are going to float a new handle, you might also try some new material.
This sounds like some shit you copied from G. Gordon Liddy ten years ago.
What the hell do we have to do to earn first rate spoof trolls around here? Are we not contributing enough, or what?
Shabbazz
If you think this war has anything to do with “liberty” or “freedom” or “Democracy”, then I’ve got a plot of land to sell you — real cheap, too.
Try using a JFK quote that actually has some relevancy to the situation at hand, like this one:
“The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.”
Rome Again
The day you get liberty in Iraq is the day I will look like I’m 20 again… it will NEVER happen!
ConservativelyLiberal
Fixed.
Zifnab
Whoa, whoa. Slow down there. We can’t pull out of Iraq, guys. It’s an absolute mess. Why, this civil war just started – what? – three or four years ago. Quit now and the terrorists will laugh at us and call us quitters while they butcher innocent Iraqis. Iraqis that would be alive if not for those horrible, horrible Democrats. Democrats who like to kill unborn babies. I hate Democrats. Wait, what?
srv
It’s like SNL and most modern comedians. They just aren’t very funny anymore.
Explain to us what this strategy has to do with political and cultural reform. You know, the real issues that get in the way of ‘liberty’.
Nope, that’s what y’all said about Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Beirut and Gaza. Your opposition is just consistent, whereas your values are relative.
Tuna
I read a report that one of these car bombs ruined the paint job on a wall constructed by an American contractor. That’s when the true cost of this war really hit me hard. There are so many of our young men and women who left for Iraq after recently painting a room or barn here in the United States.
How can they, or their families, reconcile the differences between our Christian society and their tragic barbarism? Sure, we argue about stuff here. But once we’ve put up some new sheetrock panels in our homes or schools, we paint them and let them dry in peace.
These animals. These inhuman animals. I can only hope that someday the people of Iraq will erect a memorial for all the freshly painted walls that they have blown up. And I hope they understand the true costs of these suicide car attacks: Good vehicles have now been destroyed, and insanely expensive drywall and paint (purchased from Halliburton subidiary) is wasted. Oh, the humanity.
Tim F.
Stand behind your words, Steven D. Tell me what metric you would use to determine whether this “plan” is working. Give me a time frame. If we meet target X within time frame Y then the surge is working. If we don’t then it’s not. Any intellectually honest person should be willing to submit their ideas to a real-world test.
Making up metrics after the data is in and dropping old metrics when the situation fails to meet them are signs of rank dishonesty and an intellectual inability to come to terms with reality. Show that you’re better than your party.
jg
What is the strategy? All I ever hear from the right is our goals. Never a plan to achieve them.
And why is it ok to debate publicly the strategy, which seems to involve troop numbers, movements and tactics but to mention a timetable for withdrawal is giving aid to the enemy?
jake
I dunno. I offered to perform an act frequently associated with Bill Clinton and got no takers.
But wait. What is this my lame-ass spoof and crippled jackelope weary eyes do see?
Alleluia!
buck smith
To say there military progress is meaningless because the only solution is a political solution misses a key point. The military sphere drives events in the political sphere. Progress against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Shiite militias, evidence that the US military, Iraqi Army and police are deploying to the neighborhood level – these things allow moderate voices to speak with less fear of have their heads cut off (literally!) As they speak, a new poltical consensus can emerge.
rachel
You suggested that you’d let them blow your virtual dick? That’s not the bait for spoof trolls, that’s the bait for Republican Florida State Reps.
Zifnab
That we’re not really making much military progress either? I mean, I don’t mean to point out the obvious, but there wasn’t a civil war going on when we invaded. Casualty numbers are going up, not down. And the Green Zone is less safe today than its been in the last two years. We didn’t turn the corner, kid, the corner turned us.
Fixed.
srv
Buck, perhaps after a few more years of beating, your wife will finally start behaving the way you want her to. You just have to bear her harder.
The day you can sit down with liberal and not recite Limbaugh talking points is the day Iraqis can sit down and sing Cumbaya together.
You people really don’t even know when you’re being ironical.