Stinger

100% of it. The irresponible demagoging has come home to roost. The public by far no longer supports the war due to the constant denigrating of the government and the military. What did they expect would happen when all we hear is "Bush lied people died", "the war is immoral", "the war is illegal", "this is Cheney's war to enrich himself and his friends", "we are the evil ones", "it is hopeless", "it is unwinnable", "it is a quiqmire". and on and on and on and on.

This is the result, we no longer have the will nor the resolve to win and why on earth you'd expect any other countries to join in when this is what they are told is beyond me.

You're getting what you paid for so now it's time to hunker down and as the Dems want to do start training EMT's and rescue people.


Baloney, the public was behind the war until the Dems started their propaganda war and they have won.

Proving my case.

Baloney again. He hasn't done a very good job of countering the Dems propaganda, and started to late. I'll fault him there. But history will note how the Dems politisized the war, enagaed in their irresponsible campaign to turn the country against the war and won.

That the Dems were completely behind and then turned coat.

That's exactly what it is and it empowers our enemies and turns away potential allies. Had we shown a resolve to the enemy, the Iraqi's and the world we'd be much further along. But at every success the Dems demagoged and belittled it. And they have won.

Tell me what the Dems have done to help us succeed. Give me list proving they supported the effort and did what they could to keep the morale at home up and to keep our resolve up.

When we pull out, when the radicals declare victory, when they strike again, we'll see who's spinning.

NYStateofMind

You are one of the few who refuse to see that the emporer has no clothes. If there was progress shown, the public would be more willing to wait, but the incompetence of the idiots running the show in Washington has squandered the public's patience. Your nonsense about Dems denigrating the military is just more partisan garbage. No one has denigrated the military....they have done their duty, above and beyond what they should be expected to do....multiple extended tours in combat in a few short years is more than any military personnel should be asked to do.

What a joke that is, why would any of the countries want to join in when Bush has been flipping them the bird for 6 years? Oh, now that HE wants them to come back and play, they should just forget how he treated them before? Not likely. My mother taught me better manners before I went to Kindergarten.

Getting what I paid for? Oh no, I paid for a war that would succeed. I paid for competent leadership....that's not what I got. The military has done its job, the politicians have not done their job. This mess is clearly, unquestionably in Bush's lap. He had 100% control as CIC, he didn't do his job. Period.




Not so, if you look back to when the polls started turning against the war, it was long before the Dems started speaking out in any numbers against the war.



Not quite. It's pointing out the obvious....at least, it's obvious to the majority of Americans.



Who was in charge, the Democrats? No, the Reps have been in control, 100%, of this war. The Dems have had no chance to do anything about Iraq, and they have very little that they can realistically do even controlling both houses in Congress starting in January. The CIC controls the fighting of wars, so it doesn't matter, really, what the Dems want to do....Bush is the "decider", remember? Silly me, I thought you understood the separation of powers.

As far as resolve goes, I would argue that Bush has had tremendous resolve.....but that hasn't helped him to fight the war any more competently, has it? Resolve doesn't help if you don't know what you're doing. It's obvious to me that he doesn't, and he never did.

The clock is ticking. I don't think we have the luxury of waiting for the Baker group to come up with some sort of face-saving plan. I think by the time they get done "studying" the matter, we will be planning our pullout. Things are going downhill very quickly now. That's reality, not propaganda. Even Gunny sees the cards that are on the table.

BTW, you might want to note that I have never supported pulling the troops out as a solution to the mess in Iraq. I think we should have put a LOT more troops there to begin with, and I think that if we were to pull out now, it would only make things worse. What I see happening, though, is that we are accelerating into a full blown civil war, and when that happens, we will be forced to pull out. It's coming.

RightinNYC

Did the OP actually claim that it was "courageous" of Rangel to do this, despite the fact that he was "ending his career?"

Rangel did this two years ago, he's doing it now, and he'll probably do it in two years. He's not at risk of losing his job, just look at his district.

It's an attempt at making a bold statement that didn't really work. That's all.

__________________
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Stinger

Nope you are one of the ones who is so blind they cannot see. I am the one speaking of the reality of the situation and the historical perspective. Wars aren't won when the the homefront is lost. Thanks to the Dems it has been lost.

What do you call all the the steps I have posted repeatedely. But at everyone of the time the Dems denigrated them and attacked.

Calling them Nazi's is pretty denigrating I would say. Calling them people who can't do anything in life so they join the military is pretty denigrating I would say. Calling them stupid for joining is pretty denigrating I would say,

The military has been slammed repeatedly.


The left and the Dems have engaged in a successful campaign to paint the war as illegal, immoral, unwinnable, all the enrich Cheney's oil buddies, run by incompitents, and a quigmire? And if you even try to deny that the left and the Dems have painted it that way you are being dishonest and you know it.


Give me an example.

And what has the left and what have the Dems done to help? Not one person has been able to list one example.

I agree, the politicians I am talking about have done everything to can to demoralize the homefront and convince our enemies they can succeed if they will just hold out long enough for the Dems to take power and pull out.

He is CIC but that does not absolve the Dems and the left from their conceted campaign to bring him down and the war effort with him.


Not so, the public was behind the war until the Dems launched their campaign of misinformation, misrepresentation, and propaganda. History will long note how they put their own political gain above the security of the country. And now we have to live with the consequences.



That's your excuse for the Dems?

And having to fight it on the frontlines and against the left and the Dems here. But you are proving my point. The Dems have not joined in to assure our victory, have done nothing that would have helped to have ended this a long time ago, and even now prefer to retreat and give our enemies their victory.

What on earth prevented them from supporting it. From joining in and showing that we are a united country with the will to win which just might have encourage other countries to help. Else they would have helped alot by just keeping their mouths shut.

They can cut the funding, which if they believe what they say they should do immediately.

He controls the operational, that's all. It's up to the rest of us to pitch in and support it and show the world we are in this to win. The Dems have engaged in just the opposite.

Who funds it? Who authorizes it?

Give me a specific example of how the Dems would have fought it more comptitently when the fact is they have done everything to encourage our defeat?

We know exactly what we are doing, and you seem to be under the impression that the President does tactical planning which he does not. If you had ever bothered to listen to him you might know what we were trying to do.

We all do, there is no support here for the war. I have said that repeatedly. The will to win, the resolve has become a victem of the political sniping and propaganda of the left. Without that we cannot win and our enemies see themselves as the victors.

Hold on Babblou, it is YOUR side that has been crying for a pull out for two years. It is YOUR side that says this is illegal, immoral and unwinnable. It is YOUR side that has been saying STAYING will only make it worse and the longer we stay the worse it will get. Now there is a sudden change in tune here.

What do you hope to accomplish staying a minute longer? What will be made better?

Sure, our enemies see that they are winning and that the most important thing here is to get out. OUr troops see that the country doesn't support what they are doing and in fact are being told what they are doing is immoral, evil, creating more terrorist, illegal and on and on and on. What do you think goes through their heads when they hear the likes of Pelosi and
Rangel, Durbin and the rest of them.

So tell me if you believe the propaganda the left has been spouting what is the purpose of staying any longer?

NYStateofMind

What's the matter, Stinger, just because I don't subscribe to the democratic plan as you define it, I don't fit into the neat little pidgeonhole that you want me to? The unfortunate part about being as partisan as you are is that you can't conceive of someone NOT being subject to the talking points of one side or the other.

I don't believe that cut-and-run OR stay-the-course is going to work, and MY side is in the middle.....like MOST Americans. I disagree with most Americans in that I don't think we should pull out immediately....I think we have a short window of opportunity that we can take advantage of, but Bush is just twiddling his thumbs and waiting for somebody to tell him what to do. I think Gunny has spelled out pretty clearly what needs to be done to turn this war around....but, like him, I don't see it happening. The approach by the Bush administration has been deeply flawed from the beginning, and mistake after mistake has gotten us to this point. The military has done a magnificent job, but they have done what they can do militarily. They are basically being asked to hold on until the politicians can find a political solution. They are holding on by their fingernails at this point....and there is no political solution in sight. I think Senator Levin has spelled out pretty clearly that the Iraqis have promised, over and over, that they will get their act together politically, but they have failed to do so. We are basically at their mercy as long as we refuse to pressure them to find a way to head off the civil war. If that doesn't happen, the civil war will take the decision away from us.

The IRAQIS have to become responsible for their country. We have tried to do too much FOR them, not WITH them. We haven't taken advantage of the assets they have to HELP them rebuild...we tried to go in and do it FOR them. That is just one example of what the Bush administration has done wrong, and what needs to be changed.

The public began to turn against the war back when Cindy Sheehan started her anti-war campaign. Remember that? She was a lone voice in the wilderness at that point, most Dems wouldn't touch her. Yet, THAT is when the polls started turning against the war....not when the "Dems" started speaking out in numbers against the war. But besides that, should we all just close our eyes to the disaster unfolding over there and pretend that everything is just peachy? This is a democracy, and a healthy democracy depends on people speaking out when they think the government is going the wrong direction. If you oppose that, you oppose the very foundation our country was built on.

I hope that Bush will find a way to declare victory and bring our troops home without leaving Iraq in a shambles. I just don't see any possible way for him to do that....from looking at the situation in Iraq, not listening to political rhetoric here at home. I'm a realist....if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck....and there is a civil war escalating in Iraq. No matter who you want to point the finger at, our troops are in harms way over there, and they will have to be pulled out as conditions deteriorate. There is no time for the political finger-pointing that you want to engage in. It's time to stop being partisan and start looking for a way to salvage Iraq....and it isn't continuing the way we are. We need a change in direction....that's what the Dems campaigned on, not "pull out immediately and cut funding" which you insist on saying is the Democratic position.

There is middle ground, the problem is that I don't think Bush can get there because he has painted himself into a corner with his arrogant treatment of other countries. His cowboy "diplomacy" is now a huge liability for him. It will take time to repair the damage he has done, and time is what we don't have in Iraq.

You keep trying to blame the messenger, but I'm not buying it, and neither are the American people.

Stinger

So you don't think the war is immoral or illegal or unwinnable?

Fine if you support the war join in.

So you don't support the Dems and the left? Good, then what is your arguement with me?

So you don't support the Dems. I take it you didn't vote them in since they have no plan except immediate withdrawl, retreat.


Fine, that has nothing to do with what I have said. The Dems now have the pocketbook, they have regained power and done everything they could to bring defeat in Iraq. According to them the war is unwinnable, every minute there makes it worse and breeds more terrorist, it is a quiqmire, we are the evil ones. That is what THEY ran on and have convinced the majority of this country and the world. If that is what they believe then they should do everything they can to get us out immediately since staying any longer would only make it worse.

So why do you think staying a minute longer will change that?

Why on earth do you believe we haven't been doing that already? Do you REALLY think the current adminsitration wants to continue this any longer than we have to?

OK.

And you have been there, you know this first hand, or from whom? How long should it take to build a whole new military. It takes over 5 year to get NCO's trained to lead, longer for officers and then the units have to train together.

What specifically?

How would you change it and why should the Iraqi's fight when they see that the insurgents will be in charge shortly and they know the first thing they will do is line up the people who fought them and torture them and rape their wives and kill them all?

Yes she was made who she is by the left, by the Dems and by the MSM, she is part of the propaganda campaign they all engaged in to turn the country against the war and show the world it was not in thier interest to join us.

They embraced her, they celebrated her, they brought her to congress. Give me a break.

They went down that path hand in hand and now we face the consequences.


What don't you understand? I agree the people have spoken they want us out, they don't want the war to continue, they don't care what happens over there, the war is illegal and immoral and unwinnable and a quiqmire and making us the evil of the world. I have handed that to you and now you want to run away from it. YOU GUYS WON.

We can't get their because the country has been turned against it, the world has been turned against it preciesly because of the silly rhetoric from the left such as "cowboy diplomacy"

Keep denying that the left played a major role in our failure an when the radicals come knocking again just remember how we tried to establish freedom from tyranny in Iraq which would have boiled over into Iran and other countries, but the left was more interested in winnning back polictial power.

Then let's see you hold the Dems accountable for not defunding a war that is unwinnable and immoral and illegal and only gets worse everyday. Why are they willing to sacrifice one more of our soldiers if they believe what they say? How about you?

oldreliable67

Rangel probably won't get as much publicity as Kerry, but neither can he fob this off as a botched joke...

[emphasis added]

Source:reprinted at Hot Air blog

NYStateofMind

I was against going into Iraq from the very beginning, when Bush began lying to justify his choice to fight a war that wasn't necessary. We should have kept our focus on Afghanistan....which is steadily going downhill too, by the way, while all of the focus is on Iraq....but that's another thread. Unwinnable? Yes, I said that long ago, while the Congress rubber-stamped Bush's plans. It was folly to go there.



I don't support the war, I never did support the war. However, we are there, and it doesn't matter now whether I agree with the decision made 4 years ago. The reason that I support keeping the troops in Iraq, with a new direction, is that we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to not leave the place more of a mess than we found it. We made the mess, we destabilized the country, Iraq is now in chaos because of us. I don't like having our troops in the position they are in, they shouldn't be where they are, and it makes me very angry that Bush has twiddled his thumbs for YEARS while our troops have been asked to carry his water....and they have done it magnificently. I support the troops, not the war.



I support a new direction, a change in the failed policy of the administration. You support the failed policy, and you continue to blame anyone else but the administration for the administration's failures. That's my argument with you. You refuse to acknowledge that the mess in Iraq (and elsewhere) is a direct result of mismanagement, incompetence and the failed foreign policy of the Bush administration.



Of course I voted for the Democrats, there is no possible way I would vote for the idiots that made such a mess! And again, you continue to misrepresent what the Democrats ran on....they ran on a new direction, and that beats the he** out of the same old direction that made such a mess.




Staying any longer with the same playbook will only make it worse. You continue the same old talking points. There are more choices than "stay the course" or "cut and run." You seem to only see things in black and white.



Staying with a new playbook can change that. The unconditional, "we'll stay as long as necessary" policy has only made it possible for the Iraqis to avoid doing what they must....find a political solution.



See my previous paragraph. There has been no sense of urgency conveyed to the Iraqi politicians until now. Bush kept telling them that we would stay as long as was necessary. He has not put any pressure on them, which was a HUGE mistake.



As to whether I've been there, etc,....totally irrelevent. Completely disbanding the Iraqi army was one of the early mistakes. That directly contributed to the rise of the insurgency, which then took advantage of some of the other big early mistakes.....failure to use enough troops during the initial invasion in order to secure the borders, secure the weapons stockpiles....need I go on? Mismanagement, incompetence and total lack of planning.



The people, that's what! Iraq has educated professionals and skilled workers that we could have tapped into, put them in positions to do much more of the rebuilding for themselves. Instead, we put foreign contractors in Iraq, and many of them didn't get the Iraqis involved. When you involve the Iraqis in the projects, they are much less likely to be sabatoged....which has been another huge problem that continues to go unaddressed.



See above. Again, the only way I see that we can salvage some good out of this situation is to force the Iraqi politicians to stop the civil war/sectarian bloodshed/revenge killings.....that is the number one priority right now. If that doesn't happen, then we will have to pull out. That is the first necessary step to start the political ball rolling. Secondly, to fight the insurgency, we need to put them to work....we needed to do that from the beginning. If they are working, they aren't fighting. If they are building a power plant themselves, they won't be blowing it up. Get them investing in their own future.



You just can't resist blaming someone else for the mistakes of the Bush administration, can you? I guess if I was an apologist for a failed administration, I would try to point to anyone else too.




They don't want the war to continue to be fought in a way that isn't working. I don't believe that they don't care, it's that they are fed up with the inability of the Bush administration to get it right. IF substantial changes are made NOW (not next year, but right now) and progress can be shown, not illegitimately claimed, but actually shown, public opinion can be turned around. But it can't be tinkering around the edges, "adjusting to conditions" or any of the other failed attempts to make it look good.



Bush has earned the reputation by his own actions. He took a world that had great sympathy for us after 9/11 and managed to squander all of that good will by acting like an arrogant bully. The world was against the war in Iraq because the war was not justified, but he denigrated any country that wouldn't go along. Americans who disagreed with his folly were swiftly painted as unpatriotic. Calling it "cowboy diplomacy" is mild. The way he has racheted up the rhetoric has only complicated and aggravated an already bad situation. I guess you could call it "diplomacy by intimidation" if you prefer.



The failure is directly due to the failed policies of the Bush administration. Why anyone would believe such a fairy tale is beyond me. I see you are resorting to fear mongering again.

You will have to ask those who are saying that it is illegal and immoral about that part. As for me, I still believe that it was a big mistake to start this war, but as I said, that is not important now. Defunding the war is not a serious option...you know that as well as I do, it is disingenuous to suggest any different. I think it is still possible (although less likely with each day that Bush twiddles his thumbs) to salvage something positive out of it, and it's in everyone's best interests to try. I think the worst case scenario is that we are forced to withdraw quickly due to the chaos....bad for us, horrible for Iraq. We need to make a change quickly though, because our troops have been stretched to unacceptable limits. They continue to do their job well, but the strain is obvious. Some are on their FOURTH extended tour of duty, enough is enough. I'm quite sure that as strained as they are, the last thing most of the troops would want is to withdraw like we did from Vietnam. The politicians (Iraqi and American) need to get off their butts and do what needs to be done.....yesterday.

So, what's YOUR plan? I mean, other than blaming the left for the mess in Iraq....is that all you got?

Goobieman

Just out of curiosity:
You keep talking about the "new direction" for the war, touted by the Dems.

What, exactly, is that "new direction"?

__________________
Artificially supporting the weak, slow, sick and stupid strains already limited resources and weakens the species as a whole.
-Goobieman

NYStateofMind

Just out of curiousity, do YOU have a plan?

The new direction begins with holding the Iraqi politicians' feet to the fire, notifying them that our deployment is not open ended..... that has begun and it's long overdue. If Bush keeps saying that we will stay until they can be responsible for their own security, they have no reason to do anything. It's like saying to a 18 year old kid, "You can live at home as long as you want to, you don't need to work, pay any bills or do any chores....we'll take care of everything until you feel like you are ready to move out on your own. Here's the keys to the car and some gas money, too." How likely is it that that kid will ever decide to move out? Why should s/he?

I thought the Republicans were big on personal responsibility? Bush certainly hasn't made any attempt to hold the Iraqi government accountable for failing to honor their promises. Those days need to be over, now. If he continues to shield them from the consequences of their failures with a blank check and our troops' bodies, there is no reason for them to work on a political solution.