A tiresome and annoying question for many of you, I’m sure. But…reality must intrude.
Much like in the national press, Iraq has been off the SDMB radar screen for quite a while now. Given the turn of events over the past couple of months, it’s quite understandable. But politics being what it is, it’s time to discuss how the premature investment in defeat is going to impact the Democrats next year.
For starters, It puts the Democratic presidential contenders in quite a bind. Bill Richardson has apparently made the choice to continue to pretend that it’s November 2006 instead of 2007 with his statements about the situation in Iraq. The surge is not working he says in the Las Vegas debate.
Umm-hmm.
Is he (a) delusional? Or (b) trying to cynically play to the far-left base of Democratic primary voters?
Richardson and the rest of the Democrat presidential contenders will soon find themselves unable to straddle the fence. Those that keep desperately looking for any hint of bad news or spin to appeal to the left side of their base run the risk of looking like idiots to moderates and other potential swing voters.
It will be interesting to see how Hillary Clinton deals with the issue. She’s probably hoping that those in the press who support her will not put her in the uncomfortable position of having to talk about it. But the eventual Democratic nominee is certainly going to beaten over the head by their own soundbites in political commercials and debates next summer and fall. And the better things in Iraq get, the worse it gets for the Democrats.
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Much like in the national press, Iraq has been off the SDMB radar screen for quite a while now.
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It’s been on the front page of all major press organs and in many threads here in the past couple months. It may have been off your radar screen for a while, but you should refrain from projecting your own mistakes onto toehr people and organizations.
The Democratic declaration that the war was lost was four years late; it was not premature. Hence your question makes no sense. In any case, the most recent polls indicate that the Democrats are likely to clobber the Republicans next year, so there’s your answer.
Obviously he’s not delusional, since what he says is true. Obviously he’s not playing to a left-wing base, since what he says is what most Americans believe. I would say he’s (c)honest and straight-shooting. This would explain why he’s being bashed by Republicans.
I will readily acknowledge that it will be tough for Hillary to explain why she voted for a war that never had the slightest chance of success, but the Clinton family has made a lot of reversals of this sort and frankly I’ll imagine she’ll find some excuse eventually. In any case the real question is how the Republicans will deal with the failure of the surge, especially since casualties are once again rising. (1.4 American deaths per day in November thus far, up 10 percent from last month.)
Just in the past 24 hours, here’s what’s happened in Iraq:
In the past couple of months, American military deaths, Iraqi military/security and cililian deaths are all down. Many more of the locals are working with the military against the insurgency. AQ has been driven from Baghdad. Anbar province is now considered secure. Five thousand troops are set to come home soon. More shops are opening and other signs of a normal life are returning to Baghdad and elsewhere.
We can start with a reduction in military and civilian deaths. I’m fairly certain that was a goal. As well as all of the other positive developments.
If you’re suggesting the things I’ve referenced haven’t happened, I’d be happy to discuss that. And if I’ve left any out, please bring them to my attention. The current fact that the Democrats are comforting themselves with at the moment is that more military deaths happened in 2007 than any other year. That’s true. If you put more troops in more danger to accomplish your mission, death totals rise. But how are those death tolls looking in the past couple of months since OJ Simpson suddenly became more important than Iraq in the minds of most of the media?
That was the premise of the OP, yes. Do you have an opinion on the question at hand?
Your first cite says 21 people were killed or found dead nationwide on Sunday. That’s 24 people in the entire country. Doesn’t that seem to be an improvement to you?
The cite where you say that “bodies were littered” in Baghdad says that four bodies were found. Does four rise to the stadard of “littered”? Or was that hyperbole on your part? Most of your other cites are repeats of each other…with some of them happening two or three days ago not “in the past 24 hours”.
I could continue, but it would do me no good.
You can continue to dig for these sorts of things and find political comfort in them if you wish. But to continue to deny that deaths nationwide are down and other improvements are being made daily is delusional.
At risk of stating the obvious, if all of these things constitute “success”, then success has been limited and is not likely to last. As I’ve already mentioned, American military deaths are up this month, rather than down. Iraqi civilian deaths tend to parallel military deaths, so those will probably be up as well. Do you have any reason to believe that either of these will turn around and go downward throughout the remaining year until the election? If not, then we won’t be experiencing any success according to your own definition.
I suppose it depends what level of improvement those voters are willing to accept as being a success. And whether those politicians agree with that level or not.
I am sure that either way, both Democrats and Republicans are going to be pretty happy with success for personal reasons.
I believe that Democrats are trying to invest in defeat simply because they think it will bring them political gain. I can’t imagine that anyone would personally enjoy the deaths of american soldiers and others.
I’m not so certain that “defeat” is the correct word, though. Investing in a pretty crappy situation, certainly, if it’s statements like “This will never work” and so on. But defeat to me implies getting to a point where the U.S. simply cannot afford men and machines at some point, and I don’t think anyones arguing (besides the nutjobs) that the U.S. will actually be beaten. It’s just a matter of how many lives people are willing to spend versus chances of success. Also i’d argue that perhaps the Democrats in question could simply be wrong (assuming you’re right) and that their positions are not entirely cynical, but you don’t seem to see that as an option (beyond their being delusional).
I think that the urgency of dealing with the issue (ie, getting us out of there) has lessened, but Americans still seem to be negative towards staying in Iraq and Bush/the Republicans ability to deal with the situation over there.
These polling results may look different a few months from now, assuming the lower level of violence holds, but right now the Democrats are doing fine:
68% disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war (vs 66% in Sept).
54% think victory isn’t possible (vs 56% in Sept).
55% want most troops out by 2009.
50% think the Dems would do a better job managing the war (34% favor the Pubs)
63% think the war was not worth it (vs 59% in Sept).
The Republicans have an uphill battler, here, not the Democrats. Even if things really get better and stay that way, someone like Hillary will do just fine-- she’s been careful to walk a fine line between “let’s get out now!” and “we can’t afford to back down now”.
I’m assuming that will be the case. I could be wrong about the positive developments continuing, but I don’t think so. If I am, I’m sure someone will be happy to point it out.
The basis of the OP was the idea that as things get better in Iraq, the get worse politically for the Democrats. And the further out on the defeat limb they climbed, the worse they look as things improve.
Considering there’s still no significant movement towards a political resolution in Iraq (which was the stated goal of the surge, reduce violence so the Iraqi government would be able to come to terms with itself, meet certain benchmarks, and actually govern), why shouldn’t we assume that discontent with Republicans will grow?
As said, military deaths are going back up. Civilian deaths are down in large part because the ethnic cleansers have succeeded; they are down because we’ve failed, not because we are suceeding. And there’s no reason to believe that the killing won’t go up again.
And at any rate, all of that and more could have been accomplished by simply not invading; you are trying to define “failing slightly less badly for a short time” as “success”. There is not going to be a success in Iraq because no achievable one has been defined.
As said, I do; at least when it comes to American forces. So do the majority of Iraqis, and I expect that a lot of the rest of the world as well. Plenty of people like to see members of a conquering army killed off.
I’d greatly enjoy it if they were ALL killed, as I’ve said before; it would be simple justice.
Success in Iraq means that we have accomplished our goals there.
AQ wasn’t there in large numbers to begin with.
Iraqis weren’t dying at such an enormous rate.
Civil War had not broken out.
American forces weren’t dying daily.
Markets were open.
One-fourth to one-third of the civil employees were women.
A return to the way things were in no way means that we have had success! The way things were plus 4,000 American lives plus two million refugees plus coalition deaths equals success?
If there could be true success in Iraq and that country healed of its wounds, and our torturing of prisoner ended, I would serve up a Republican presidency to you for the next eight years on a silver platter. This stopped being just a partisan problem a long time ago.
The surge is damage control performed on a botched occupation. The occupation followed on the heels of a war sold on pretty questionable promises. As far as I can tell, the Democrats position has been one of “This war was a damn fool idea”, and the surge can be as successful as all out, that point still stands.
You’re assuming that things getting better in Iraq will make the war any more popular, and I think it’s way too late for that. For many, the Iraq war has turned into an unpleasant process that can’t end soon enough. And as nice as it will be for it to be over, there’ll be little gratitude to the republicans who worked hard to start the entire debacle in the first place.
If that’s the case, then Hillary is probably better positioned than the others. She refrained from the overt, “The war is lost” rhetoric that some of the other candidates engaged in. As usual, she’s been very canny. If things turn around by the next election, she can point fingers at the others while having no ‘smoking gun’ of her own.
Or did I miss her flat-out saying that the surge was hopeless and should be abandoned? She’s usually more careful than that.
The situation in Iraq looks better now simply because it was so bad before. This post illustrates it perfectly. We are supposed to be happy that only 24 people, 4 in Bagdahd, showed up dead in one day.
