Dems determined to ignore progress in Iraq

[Crazed Rabbit]

Another brillant piece by that Canadian Conservative:

EDIT: Link: http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn04.html


BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
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Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, came out with a big statement on Iraq last week. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Everyone was still raving about his Democrat colleague, Rep. Jack Murtha, whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

Also, the United States Army is "broken," "worn out" and "living hand to mouth." If the reaction to Murtha's remarks by my military readers is anything to go by, he ought to be grateful they're still bogged down in Iraq and not in the congressional parking lot.

It's just about acceptable in polite society to disagree with Murtha, but only if you do it after a big 20-minute tongue bath about what "a fine man" he is (as Rumsfeld said) or what "a good man" he is (as Cheney called him) or what "a fine man, a good man" he is (as Bush phrased it). Nobody says that about Lieberman, especially on his own side. And, while the media were eager to promote Murtha as the most incisively insightful military expert on the planet, this guy Lieberman's evidently some nobody no one need pay any attention to.

Here's why. His big piece on Iraq was headlined "Our Troops Must Stay."

And who wants to hear that? Not the media and certainly not Lieberman's colleagues in the Defeaticrat Party. It must be awful lonely being Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Party these days. Every time he switches on the news there's John Kerry sonorously droning out his latest pretzel of a position: Insofar as I understand it, he's not calling for a firm 100 percent fixed date of withdrawal -- like, say, Feb. 4, 2 p.m.; meet at Baghdad bus station with two pieces of carry-on. Don't worry, it's not like flying coach on TWA, you'd be able to change the date without paying a surcharge. But Kerry drones that we need to "set benchmarks" for the "transfer of authority." Actually, the administration's been doing that for two years -- setting dates for the return of sovereignty, for electing a national assembly, for approving a constitution, etc, and meeting all of them. And all during those same two years Kerry and his fellow Democrats have huffed that these dates are far too premature, the Iraqis aren't in a position to take over, hold an election, whatever. The Defeaticrats were against the benchmarks before they were for them.

These sad hollow men may yet get their way -- which is to say they may succeed in persuading the American people that a remarkable victory in the Middle East is in fact a humiliating defeat. It would be an incredible achievement. Peter Worthington, the Canadian columnist and veteran of World War II and Korea, likes to say that there's no such thing as an unpopular won war. The Democrat-media alliance are determined to make Iraq an exception to that rule. In a week's time, Iraqis will participate in the most open political contest in the history of the Middle East. They're building the freest society in the region, and the only truly federal system. In three-quarters of the country, life has never been better. There's an economic boom in the Shia south and a tourist boom in the Kurdish north, and, while the only thing going boom in the Sunni Triangle are the suicide bombers, there were fewer of those in November than in the previous seven months.

Meanwhile, Iraq's experiment in Arab liberty has had ripple effects beyond its borders, pushing the Syrians most of the way out of Lebanon, and in Syria itself significantly weakening Baby Assad's regime. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who's spent years as a beleaguered democracy advocate in Egypt, told the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland the other day that, although he'd opposed the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, he had to admit it had "unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change. But they were able to be the midwives."

The Egyptians get it, so do the Iraqis, the Lebanese, the Jordanians and the Syrians. The choice is never between a risky action and the status quo -- i.e., leaving Saddam in power, U.N. sanctions, U.S. forces sitting on his borders. The stability fetishists in the State Department and the European Union fail to understand that there is no status quo: things are always moving in some direction and, if you leave a dictator and his psychotic sons in business, and his Oil-for-Food scam up and running, and his nuclear R&D teams in places, chances are they're moving in his direction.

Toppling Saddam was worth doing in and of itself. Toppling Saddam and trying to "midwife" (in Ibrahim's word) a free society would be worth doing even if it failed. But, as it happens, I don't believe it will fail, not just because of Bush but because enough Iraqis -- Shia, Kurds and even significant numbers of Sunnis -- are determined not to let it fail.

And here's where the scale of the Bush gamble becomes clear. Islam and "the West" have a long history. And, without rehashing the last millennium and a half, the Muslim conquest of Europe and then the Crusades and the fall of Andalusia, if you take out a map of the world and look at the rise of the European empires you notice a curious thing: in conquering the world the imperial powers for the most part simply bypassed the Islamic world. They made Africa and South Asia and Latin America and everywhere else seats of European power, but they left the Middle East alone. And, even when they eventually got their hands on the region, after the First World War, they made no serious attempt to reform the neighborhood. We live with the consequences of that today.

So Bush has chosen to embark on a project every other great power of the last half-millennium has shrunk from: the transformation of the Middle East. You can argue the merits of that, but once it's underway it's preposterous to suggest we need to have it all wrapped up by Jan. 24. The Defeaticrats' loss of proportion is unworthy of a serious political party in the world's only superpower. In next week's election, the Iraqi people will shame them yet again.

What else is there to say?

Crazed Rabbit

[Tachikaze]

We don't have the right to transform other nations. Don't you understand that? This is why the rest of the world calls Americans arrogant.

The only progress I see in the Iraq is for the terrorists in neighboring countries who went there to fight against the US forces. Before, they had to come all the way to the US to attack Americans. Now they just have to plant a roadside bomb.

If the Middle East has problems, most are a result of longterm Western meddling. Bush has committed the most damaging form of meddling by invading a sovereign nation there and trying to set up a puppet government.

[Devastatin Dave]

The only progress I see in the Iraq is for the terrorists in neighboring countries who went there to fight against the US forces. Before, they had to come all the way to the US to attack Americans. Now they just have to plant a roadside bomb.


DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!!! Sounds like you are finally getting it even though you probably won't really analyze what you just said. Take the fight to them and don't let it come to our country. Thanks for putting it so eloquently. Sounds lie a sound stratagy to me. :bow:

[Kaiser of Arabia]

We don't have the right to transform other nations. Don't you understand that? This is why the rest of the world calls Americans arrogant.
Yet France does? Yet China does?

[Xiahou]

It's just about acceptable in polite society to disagree with Murtha, but only if you do it after a big 20-minute tongue bath about what "a fine man" he is (as Rumsfeld said) or what "a good man" he is (as Cheney called him) or what "a fine man, a good man" he is (as Bush phrased it). Nobody says that about Lieberman, especially on his own side. And, while the media were eager to promote Murtha as the most incisively insightful military expert on the planet, this guy Lieberman's evidently some nobody no one need pay any attention to.That's the truth isnt it? Murtha is a hero and don't you dare criticize/disagree with him. Lieberman? He's not even loyal to his country -the scumbag- so to hell with anything he says. ~:rolleyes:

[Tachikaze]

Yet France does? Yet China does?
Who's supporting China?

France, in recent years, has done nothing compared with the US. I've never said France was so wonderful, either, except in their resistence to Bush's invasion of Iraq.

I specified the US also because I was responding to the quoted article whose topic is the US in Iraq. It said that the US was doing what others had failed to do in the Middle East after WWI. It implied that the West is superior and needs to guide the inferior Middle East towards enlightenment.

It also implies that colonization by the European powers during the era of political imperialism was good for Africa, South America, and southern Asia. It implies that the rest of the world is stupid and backward and needs our fatherly wisdom.

That's arrogance to me.

[Reverend Joe]

Edited... it made sense a minute ago.

[solypsist]

arguing against an op/ed piece is ridiculous. let me know when someone decided to make a thread (supporting the Iraq invasion) with some facts.

liberman got plenty of publicity.

[Tachikaze]

DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!!! Sounds like you are finally getting it even though you probably won't really analyze what you just said. Take the fight to them and don't let it come to our country. Thanks for putting it so eloquently. Sounds lie a sound stratagy to me. :bow:
So, you're saying our troops are there to get blown to pieces so we don't have to? Kind of like human shields, huh?

Soldiers are just civilians in military uniform. Their lives are not any less valuable than civilians'. Those people dying in Iraq now are the same as the ones who died in the WTC and the four airliners, only their undershirts are a different color.

If someone with the resources wants to do another attack like the WTC, they will do it in the US regardless of whether US soldiers are in the Middle East. Since Bush invaded Iraq, it is probably a certainty now.

But the small-time car bombers there, who don't have the resources to attack across the Atlantic, now have plenty of local targets since the invasion. And the conservatives can no longer rightly say the bombers are committing terrorism, since they are attacking an occupying military force.

[solypsist]

DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!!! Sounds like you are finally getting it even though you probably won't really analyze what you just said. Take the fight to them and don't let it come to our country. Thanks for putting it so eloquently. Sounds lie a sound stratagy to me. :bow:

fact: since the US invaded Iraq the number of terrorist attacks around the world has increased.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/29/terror/main614786.shtml
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/10/powell.terror.report/


so please tell (for example) london, spain, belgium, bali, myanmar, egypt, bangladesh, riyadh, jakarta, jeddah, the phillipines, and of course, iraq (which didn't have a single terrorist attack since the early 80s on its citizens until 2003) that this is a sound strategy.

[Tachikaze]

fact: since the US invaded Iraq the number of terrorist attacks around the world has increased.
As many of us here predicted before the invasion was launched, not needing high intelligence or crystal balls, but common sense.

It's so depressing that the logical conclusion that we reached in 2001/2002 in the virtual world of The Org has become so real. We were watching as the hawks condemned those people to death and maiming.

The violence is escalating and no one will listen.

[Xiahou]

As many of us here predicted before the invasion was launched, not needing high intelligence or crystal balls, but common sense.

It's so depressing that the logical conclusion that we reached in 2001/2002 in the virtual world of The Org has become so real. We were watching as the hawks condemned those people to death and maiming.

The violence is escalating and no one will listen.
Yes, when will we learn? It's so easy to stop the terrorists- if we would just surrender and give into their every demand and move western society back to the stone ages, then they might just leave us alone. ~:rolleyes:

[Geoffrey S]

Lieberman and Murtha present two options: either do the job properly by using more troops to control borders or pull out. I'd support the first, but certainly not the current half-and-half policy excercised by the Bush administration, which drags things out needlessly.

[Tribesman]

They're building the freest society in the region, and the only truly federal system.~D ~D ~D ~D
OMG has he been following Iraqi poitics at all ~:confused:
Another brillant piece by that Canadian Conservative:

Yeah brilliant for blind optimism and refusal to face facts .

[Tachikaze]

Yes, when will we learn? It's so easy to stop the terrorists- if we would just surrender and give into their every demand and move western society back to the stone ages, then they might just leave us alone. ~:rolleyes:
A few months ago, I started a thread about ending or greatly reducing terrorist and other violent acts commited by Middle Eastern Muslims against the US. It did not involve surrender. It did involve greatly reducing our presence in that region.

How would giving up the "war on terrorism" send us "back to the stone ages"?

[Adrian II]

What else is there to say?

Crazed RabbitOne thing only. Americans are more at war with each other than with terrorism. ~:handball:

[Slyspy]

Yes, when will we learn? It's so easy to stop the terrorists- if we would just surrender and give into their every demand and move western society back to the stone ages, then they might just leave us alone. ~:rolleyes:

That is not what he was saying. He was saying that the whole invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder that has done nothing to reduce terrorism. Instead, IMO, it has increased the fear and so the threat of terror acts real or imagined. The "yes why not surrender you traitorous dogs" style statement as an alternative to actually admitting that mistakes have been made is used too often and is of little value.

[Hurin_Rules]

Ah, the Sun-Times, that bastion of penetrating insight, which puts girls in bikinis on page 2.

Yes indeed, its journalism at its best.

Was there some actual news here? Because it seems that, in light of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (rising body count, increasing sectarian tensions, torture 'as bad as it was under Saddam', the US military undermining the Free Press, and an insurgency that is anything but 'in its last throes'), things in Iraq are going quite badly.

Too many people now know the emperor has no clothes.

[Xiahou]

fact: since the US invaded Iraq the number of terrorist attacks around the world has increased.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/29/terror/main614786.shtml
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/10/powell.terror.report/


so please tell (for example) london, spain, belgium, bali, myanmar, egypt, bangladesh, riyadh, jakarta, jeddah, the phillipines, and of course, iraq (which didn't have a single terrorist attack since the early 80s on its citizens until 2003) that this is a sound strategy.Oh yes, the Iraqi's were better off under Sadam werent they? ~:rolleyes:

That does bring up an interesting question.... the statistics that show increases in terror attacks- do they include Iraq? If so, and I suspect they do, then it gets a big fat "no-duh" from me.

[Hurin_Rules]

Oh yes, the Iraqi's were better off under Sadam werent they? ~:rolleyes:

That does bring up an interesting question.... the statistics that show increases in terror attacks- do they include Iraq? If so, and I suspect they do, then it gets a big fat "no-duh" from me.

Interesting. So, instead of providing actual facts in a thread that is complaining that the facts are being ignored, you're telling us how you would spin facts that contradict your opinion, if your baseless assumptions should prove correct?

FYI: your baseless assumptions are incorrect. The attacks in Iraq account only for about a third of the total terror attacks in the world, yet the number of terror attacks has more than tripled since 2003.

Sources:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0428/dailyUpdate.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html

But I guess this us just all part of a secret plot by evil democrats to ignore the facts, isn't it?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

FYI: you are wrong. The attacks in Iraq account only for about a third of the total terror attacks in the world, yet the number of terror attacks has more than tripled since 2003.


This is almost to silly to address. Lets see we declared a war on terror. Now there are battle being fought in this war. What do you expect when you declare war? The otherside to just lay down their arms and give up or fight harder? Again if we had this attitude in either world war we would have lost. In fact any nation who has this attitude in any war is doomed to loose.

[Hurin_Rules]

This is almost to silly to address. Lets see we declared a war on terror. Now there are battle being fought in this war. What do you expect when you declare war? The otherside to just lay down their arms and give up or fight harder? Again if we had this attitude in either world war we would have lost. In fact any nation who has this attitude in any war is doomed to loose.

???

Silly? I was responding to a false assertion, which alleged that Iraq accounted for most of the increase in terror attacks. I showed that assertion was false. Now you're accusing me of being silly for pointing this out? Should I just have kept my mouth shut and bought the Bush party line then? Would that have been better?

Sheesh. Getting ridiculed for pointing out the facts is getting a little tiresome.

[Tribesman]

~;) Sheesh. Getting ridiculed for pointing out the facts is getting a little tiresome.
Don't worry , as now the Iraqi vice-president has pointed out the falseness of some of the Whitehouses "facts" . So add that the Alawis statement and you have two senior Iraqi politicians deserving of ridicule eh .

Oh yes, the Iraqi's were better off under Sadam werent they?
Well thats the second senior Iraqi leader to make the same statement this week about things currently being worse than under Saddam and rapidly declining to even lower levels , so perhaps you might want to stop throwing that silly statement around Xiahou , why not try "but you support the terrorists then" or "go and live in Iran if its so good" for a change , they make just as much sense .

[Geoffrey S]

Well thats the second senior Iraqi leader to make the same statement this week about things currently being worse than under Saddam and rapidly declining to even lower levels , so perhaps you might want to stop throwing that silly statement around Xiahou , why not try "but you support the terrorists then" or "go and live in Iran if its so good" for a change , they make just as much sense .
Couldn't possibly have something to do with the fact that they'll be running against the current government, could it? Politics are politics, even in Iraq.

[Tribesman]

Couldn't possibly have something to do with the fact that they'll be running against the current government, could it? Politics are politics, even in Iraq.
Yes politics is politics , but as the vice president is part of the current governmnet how can he be running against the current government ~;)
As for Allawi that is slightly different .

[Xiahou]

Oh yes, the Iraqi's were better off under Sadam werent they?
Well thats the second senior Iraqi leader to make the same statement this week about things currently being worse than under Saddam and rapidly declining to even lower levels , so perhaps you might want to stop throwing that silly statement around Xiahou , why not try "but you support the terrorists then" or "go and live in Iran if its so good" for a change , they make just as much sense .
Where are you getting the statement from the vice prime minister? As I've said Allawi's statements are at least partially politically motivated as he's campaigning for re-election and the current PM slammed him for making those comments.

[Strike For The South]

One thing only. Americans are more at war with each other than with terrorism. ~:handball:


That be the truth right there

[Tribesman]

Where are you getting the statement from the vice prime minister?
I am making them up Xiahou , didn't you know~:rolleyes:
BTW its Vice-President not V-P.M. and it is from his speech in Dubai yesterday(monday) .

As I've said Allawi's statements are at least partially politically motivated
Hey hey what do you say As for Allawi that is slightly different .~D

the current PM slammed him for making those comments.
Yes that might have something to do with the accusations that Allawi made against the current Prime ministers militia being involved in murders and torture , that sort of thing normally does bring a bit of a slamming doesn't it .

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Originally Posted by AdrianII
One thing only. Americans are more at war with each other than with terrorism.



That be the truth right there


OK who has hacked SFTS s account. Ive seen people change but this is ridiculous. I think saying americans are at war with eachother is a bit of an overstatement dont you?

[Strike For The South]

No G-man it isnt. Everytime Iraq comes up. It just leads to demonazation or the parties trying to get votes from eachother. All any of us ever here is lib this or conservative that. Few people honestly give a crap about Iraq. Oh they might say they do but in all honesty they just look at ORileys or Moores talking points. That makes me sick. It spits on the people over there. We need to be finding a real damn soultion not worrying about votes or saving face. Now wether that means pulling out or staying there I dont know. The whole political climate needs to change in this country


And Gawain I really havent switched positions on much

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Who's supporting China?

France, in recent years, has done nothing compared with the US. I've never said France was so wonderful, either, except in their resistence to Bush's invasion of Iraq.

I specified the US also because I was responding to the quoted article whose topic is the US in Iraq. It said that the US was doing what others had failed to do in the Middle East after WWI. It implied that the West is superior and needs to guide the inferior Middle East towards enlightenment.

It also implies that colonization by the European powers during the era of political imperialism was good for Africa, South America, and southern Asia. It implies that the rest of the world is stupid and backward and needs our fatherly wisdom.

That's arrogance to me.
France intervened in countless african nations because they didn't like the government, and when they got their collective arse whooped (Ivory Coast), they cried.

China...hrm...Tibet anyone?

[Strike For The South]

China...hrm...Tibet anyone?

Arent there like 8 people in Tibet~:cool:

[Reverend Joe]

Arent there like 8 people in Tibet~:cool:
Seven... one of them escaped.

[Tachikaze]

France intervened in countless african nations because they didn't like the government, and when they got their collective arse whooped (Ivory Coast), they cried.

China...hrm...Tibet anyone?
I'll repeat myself. France is not so wonderful either.

I implied that I don't support China.

So, what's the problem here?

[Soulforged]

I'll repeat myself. France is not so wonderful either.

I implied that I don't support China.

So, what's the problem here?
I think that the problem here is as always: "But mom my little brother of the east just did it, why can't I do it, even if it's so notoriously wrong". Two evils don't make a good.

[Idaho]

...whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

...the Defeaticrat Party.

...These sad hollow men may yet get their way...

Meanwhile, Iraq's experiment in Arab liberty has had ripple effects beyond its borders, pushing the Syrians most of the way out of Lebanon, and in Syria itself significantly weakening Baby Assad's regime....
...in conquering the world the imperial powers for the most part simply bypassed the Islamic world. They made Africa and South Asia and Latin America and everywhere else seats of European power, but they left the Middle East alone. And, even when they eventually got their hands on the region, after the First World War, they made no serious attempt to reform the neighborhood. We live with the consequences of that today.


What else is there to say?

Crazed Rabbit

How about "What a bag of sh*te from start to finish"

[Geoffrey S]

Yes politics is politics , but as the vice president is part of the current governmnet how can he be running against the current government ~;)
As for Allawi that is slightly different .
I haven't seen anything on the Vice President's comments yet, so if he did say so my bad; could you provide a link of some kind so I can read up on it?

Regardless, my post was aimed more at Allawi since his comments I had read; he's got political motives to say the least.

[Ice]

OK who has hacked SFTS s account. Ive seen people change but this is ridiculous. I think saying americans are at war with eachother is a bit of an overstatement dont you?

He's just going through a stage. Same thing happened to me a little bit over a year ago. I'm managed to revert mostly back, though.