From where I’m sitting, the Democrats agree that there needs to be a pullout; the only quibbling is in the details. And honestly, I’d rather have politicians who don’t march in mindless lockstep agreement, but bring forth their different views and hash it out. Unquestioning acceptance of the One True Way™ is what got us into this mess, remember?
Being in the minority party – and getting locked out of raising issues by oppressive opponents – certainly can’t help matters any.
That’s not quite right. The quibble isn’t about the details, it’s about whether there needs to be any details. Kerry’s proposal, which did have details*, got 13 votes. But the Levin-Reed proposal, which got most of the Democrats’s votes, had only the vaguest of a suggestion of a detail. It was simply a call to Bush to make Bush’s plan public-- it was not a plan in its own right.
*not to mention that the details seem to change from week to week.
That’s what happens when a party doesn’t win elections. It looks like they are about to blow yet another golden opportunity in November to change things. Sorry, but complaining about those mean ol’ Republicans doesn’t earn my sympathy.
The “differing views” are “The war sucks, but we can’t set a firm date for withdrawl. Rather, let’s have a non-binding agreement to begin the process of withdrawl by the end of 2006.” This “plan” is about as vacuous as “Stay the course”. What does it mean to “begin withdrawl”? When should withdrawl end? How gradual should “gradual” be? What milestones must be met to initiate phases of withdrawl? If it’s non-binding, what conditions allow for deviation from the agreement? If it’s truly non-binding, why is the agreement worth more than the paper it’s printed on? “Get out by next July” is the alternative. Why then? Why not some other time? What’s supposed to happen until then? What would cause that plan to change? What comes after troops leave and Iraq implodes completely? What are our obligations post-departure?
There are no “details”, so far as I can tell.
Maybe the Dems. can’t talk to their Republican colleagues, but they can talk to us prior to the midterms. They could articulate a coherent vision of the withdrawl strategy, like, why it’s better than staying, what are our obligations, how do we meet them without troops, and so forth. Where’s the plan, besides “get out”? Any idiot can say get out, and any idiot could tell you a war can’t be fought forever, but when, how, why, and what comes after? Not only is there no coherent message, there isn’t much of an incoherent message. There’s not much of anything at all, as far as I can tell.
Not tradtionally, and certainly not in a well-functioning democracy. Have you forgotten the world before Gingrich already? Have you ever heard of comity?
The GOP has been remarkably successful in convincing people who should know better that the way they do business is simply the way business is done and always has been.
As Bush’s appointment of John Bolton to UN Ambassador demonstrates, today’s Republicans believe that diplomacy and good manners are for losers. :dubious:
Meh. I was referring more to the “minority party” bit anyway in that part. It was the “mean ol’ Republicans” comment that was directed at compaints about comity. At any rate, they can raise as many issues as they want, like the Republicans did in 1994. Take it to the people. What is the plan for Iraq that the Democrats are going to take to the people? What legislation concerning Iraq will be enacted in the first 100 days if they take over Congress. That lastest mushy piece of nothing that they floated up this week? BFD.
And further… I’ll be happy to see the Democrats win either or both houses this fall. The Republicans have done a horrible job of governing and deserve to be kicked out. What **Loopydude **and I are pointing out is that they just can’t seem to get off the dime. I’m starting to have flashbacks to 2004 when I thought for sure Bush would lose. The Republicans may be the party that can’t shoot straight, but the Democrats are starting to look more and more like the party that doesn’t even know what they’re aiming at.
How’s that for more jingoistic sound bites to throw into the fray. 
Just make sure you remember that on E-day!
I keep telling you, I live in a safe Democratic district in a safe Democratic state (for presidential elections). Our (Democratic) guy in the House won 70% of the vote last time. He’ll probably get one more from me in November, but I doubt he’ll appreciate it. 
Shoot straight? Aim? It’s more like that old saw “Never bring a knife to a gunfight”.
It’s asking a bit much to require that one guy sitting here in California dot all th i’s and cross all the t’s. If Murtha is right that our presence in Iraq exacerbates the insurrection then the procedure will be like formulating any plan. What would we like the situation to be a six months from now? What steps are required to get from here to there? What is the sequence of those steps and what is the schedule for them. We must have people who are expert enough in Middle East affairs that they can solve the problem you pose. If we don’t then we probably don’t have much chance of success in that region in any event.
First we need to thrash out whether or not Murtha is right and that’s not happening because the subject was changed from whether or not Murtha is right to whether or not his suggestion constitutes “cut and run.”
Yes. The Democrats, since they are out of power, have no leader who can get a concensus and so they are all over the place. All of them seem to have forgotten Murtha’s point that our presence contributes to the insurgency. They need to start collecting evidence as to whether or not that is true. If they can’t find evidence that it is true, then come right out and say so and change positions. If it is true then hammer away at that and come up with a proposal for changing things so that we are no longer in a stance that exacerbates the problem.
And if you have no “concensus” you sure as hell won’t get a consensus.
That is what I meant, there was no reason to go to Iraq at this time at least. I think if we would have just consentrated on getting the Terrorists, our country and the world would be a better place now. If people want a democracy it is up to them to do it. Their idea of a democracy may not be the same as ours;look at the Palestinian situation now. Is it better than it was 60 years ago?
The Taliban will not accept anything different than their own thinking and was forcing their beliefs on the rest of their country.That is why they allowed Osama to train there. Yes, there are some people here who would do the same if it was not for the Constitution stopping them, so they try to change the Constitution to suit their thinking.
Terrorists do not care who they hurt as long as they think they can get their way, Look at Tim MCVeigh as an example. Such mind set cannot be easily stopped. I wish there was some magic word to change their mind( which to me is demented).
Monavis
Yeah, I don’t buy into Murtha’s thesis, but I’m open to being convinced he’s right if there’s some real evidence. I just find it hard to believe that if we pulled out tomorrow, the insurgents would put down their guns and start working within the political system that’s being set up over there now. Some might, but how many? And do we really think that the local militias will be less bold in stirring up trouble, thus feeding the ranks of the insurgency with new recruits? Anyway, let’s hear the argument in full and have a thorough debate on the subject. I’ve seem Murtha on all kinds of political talk shows, and I haven’t yet heard him fully articulate the reasoning behind his assertions.
What Bush and his side needs to do is explain to us how “as they stand up, we’ll stand down” is actually working. I see a lot of what is being called “standing up” over there, but I don’t see much “standing down” by us. Yeah, we’ve fallen into the background somewhat and let the Iraqis take the lead more and more, but “stand down” to me means “come home”, not “move into the Green Zone”.
What we need to accept is that there will be a civil war in Iraq whether Coalition troops stay or go. The question is to what extent we’ll get caught up in it.
No, we don’t “need” to accept that. I can just as well say that what we need to accept is that the risk of civil war is higher if we exit prematurely.
But go ahead and tell your favorite candidates to campaign on that premise and see what it gets them in November.
One of Murtha’s points was that we lack sufficient forces to maintain order in Iraq and the (claimed) over 200,000 trained Iraqi police and military don’t seem to be able to do the job either. I’m beginning to be reminded of McNamara’s description in his book. “South Vietnam has to win this battle but they aren’t quite ready yet.” Those running that operation went around that loop for something like ten years before it became clear that they weren’t going to be ready.
You know perfectly well that Murtha didn’t propose “pulling out tomorrow.” As I recall he proposed phasing ourselves out over a period of nine months to a year.
And one serious problem that I have with “Bush and his side” explaining anything is their pretty consistent record of being either wrong or overoptimistic. And we have no way of independently checking their claims about the readiness of the Iraqis. Our news reporters and visiting congressmen hardly dare leave the green zone without a military escort and that isn’t really a satisfactory way to get an unbiased look at the situation. Such a situation makes if quite difficult if not impossible for Murtha or anybody else to gather evidence to support his claim.
I have great respect for the acument and skill of our generals (in military matters) but there is no way that they are going to disagree publicly with the CIC. They have been given a job and their training is to make every effort to do that job without any public show of reluctance to do it or doubts about its doability.
It’s already way too late.
Allawi 3 months ago:
That’s reality. Pretending it away will only help get more people killed uselessly.
Most Americans have agreed for some time now:
Of course, the Zarqawi killing has changed all that, right?
For some reason you forgot to quote this from your cite (emphasis added):
But there’s no strict definition of a when an insurgency becomes a civil war. I wouldn’t call it that, but if you insist that it is, then I’ll just say the civil war will get even worse, and (this is a huge problem the ‘cut and run’ crowd overlooks) could easily spill over into Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
And if we stay? Might that still happen anyway?