While I agree the Dems deserve no credit (except, perhaps, for not screwing up what is handed them) I'm afraid you're wrong that they won't be able to pull off the revisionism. The country will fall for it hook, line & sinker.

what's the nyt readership, right now?
less than a million?

I figure 90% of those readers already believe Iraq is going in the loss column, which may provide for 'convincing' less than 100k that Obama won in Iraq.

money quote?
"He has to avoid giving Iraqi leaders the feeling that Bush did — that he’ll wait forever for them to sort out their politics"

hasn't a three year deal for withdrawal already been reached? I guess friedman is just one of the 299 million americans who doesn't read the nyt.

I hereby vow to bitch-slap the first person that tells me to my face that Obama or any Democrat did anything positive for Iraq, and I invite others to do the same.

"There is now, for the first time, a chance — still only a chance — that a reasonably stable democratizing government, though no doubt corrupt in places, can take root in the Iraqi political space."

heads-obama wins, tails-bush loses.

"Hook, slime, and stinker," you mean, Deuce Geary?
--
http://booksinq.blogspot.com

I wish the Bush Administration would use the Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement recently passed by their legislature to declare the war a US-Iraqi victory.

Sherlock:

Senator Joe Lieberman was the only one, but I guess he's now an independent.

It is too early for anyone in either party to take credit for "winning the Iraq War".

I do not believe that this war has been won or lost or can ever be won or lost in the definition of a "military victory". This is not the gauge that can be used. It is political and cultural peace that will come or fail to come to Iraq.

I still say we made a mistake going in. Saddam kept order and it is not our calling in the world to get involved militarily to decide on who runs a country. That's what revolutions and change from within are about. Many countries have done just fine without our military intervention, including most of the entire former Soviet eastern block!

The real definition of success or failure of the Iraq war will be when we finally withdraw and the Iraqis come to an internal peace within all the factions. I do not believe that this will happen anytime in the near term!

We will also not "win" a military victory in Afghanistan.

I will tell you one thing: You and I will not live long enough to see a president of this country launch a pre-emptive war again! They will continue to strike hostiles, but you will not see an Iraq again!

Ernest --

"Saddam kept order and it is not our calling in the world to get involved militarily to decide on who runs a country."

Absolute horse crap. He did not keep order, that's a direct lie. He was an evil murderer. We're not talking about screwing with an election. We're talking about feeding people feet first into chipper-shredders, having movies made of people's tongues being cut out, gassing entire villages of men, women and children and much more.

You side with that?

Not be able to pull it off ? Ha ! They're still taking credit for a couple of balanced budgets in the '90's under Clinton. Back then, House Republicans dragged Bill kicking and screaming through 7 budget attempts resulting in the federal government shutting down. Remember, America ? The one Republicans got blamed for ? Remember ? Newt Gingrich ? Book Deal ? To this day, polls show Americans trusting Democrats more than Republicans on economic policies. Sorry to the author, but Democrats will end up taking credit for all good that happens in this country and Republicans will always take the blame for all that is bad. It's just sad that Republicans aren't bright enough to point these facts out during critical elections.....

Bush won the war. Can Obama win the peace?

I don't read it that way, perhaps because Thomas Friedman was a hawk on Iraq from the outset. He thought that the execution of the occupation was terrible, but lots of people thought that including McCain. But Friedman was down with the whole regime change, establish-a-democratic-Arab-center thing. He defended Bush in the NY Times, which took balls.

What I read here is a plea to the DEMOCRATS (the people who read the &%$# paper) to not turn the victory into defeat just because it was Bush's idea.

As far as the Democrats claiming a win in Iraq, they tried much the same thing with the Cold War (Reagan had left office, just happened, etc) and it didn't work. This is just internal Democrat argument, and the rest of us should ignore it.

I agree with Deuce. After all most of the idiots in the country voted for someone they didn't know and still don't know anything about. They will believe anything, especially if it reflects badly on Bush. Incidentally, I won't live to see it, but decades from now, legitiment historians will catagorize Bush as one of the great presidents.

Obama doesn't need to "pull off" anything. He needs to DO NOTHING and allow the plans in place to execute as planned.

The public may be stupid, and have a relatively short memory, but they're not going to swallow revisionism over this one. Returning vets won't allow that to happen.

Sadly, revisionism WILL work.

It was worked in VietNam. Even though I am a conservative, there are things about VietNam that I did not know until 2006 (age 32), which I found out by going pretty far out of my way to research :

1) Most US casualties in VietNam occurred by 1968. From 1969 onwards, US casualties were very low.
2) The US withdrew from VietNam in 1973. So while Saigon fell in 1975, that was 2 years AFTER the US left. So the South Viets lost VietNam, not the Americans.
3) China invaded VietNam in 1979, and LOST about 40,000 troops in 2 months. Very few people even remember this short and bloody war.
4) Of course, no one mentions that VietNam today is a peaceful country with a booming, capitalist economy (though still not a democracy). So in the long run, didn't we 'win' in our goal of having free markets replace Communism?

So even the most pro-US people think we 'lost' in VietNam. We didn't. The South Vietnamese lost it 2 years after we withdrew, and 7 years after the most intense fighting by US troops finished.

This is extremely effective revisionism, and will be done again.

Barry is despicable human trash

Much like the dem politicians in the sixties didn't turn against the Vietnam war until Nixon won.
Kerry anyone?

"..but decades from now, legitiment historians will catagorize Bush as one of the great presidents."

It won't take that long. 10 years from now, he will ge considered 'good'. But not great. He was not as great as Reagan, but he WAS the second-best President of the last 45 years.

I suspect that Confederate Yankee is being unreasonable:

If Obama screws up the follow-up, you'll blame him.

If Obama doesn't screw up the follow-up, you'll say he doesn't deserve any credit.

Do I guess correctly, CY?

I don't believe you can have it both ways: If he can't earn any credit, in your eyes, for good follow-through, then he can't accrue any blame for bad follow-through.

So does that you're prepared to accept any negative consequences as being due solely to GWB's "excellent planning"?

Somehow, I doubt it.

You are incorrect Neal. The only way Obummer can get any credit is if he doesn't screw it up. And then he only gets credit for not screwing it up. If the deal goes south, he gets all the credit for that, since that is what he wanted and campaigned for all along anyway. So you see Obummer doesn't get to have it both ways.

Neal, what, specifically, does Obama deserve any credit for?

He's fought tooth and nail against the very victory we have successfully brought to Iraq, so why does that entitle him to even the smallest sliver of credit?

Please seek professional help for your Obama Worship Syndrome immediately, before you put up an altar to The One in your living room.

Revisionism will be the easy part. After all, they control a vast majority of the media and education systems. Within a generation, young adults will be lauding Barack Obama for his gallant victory in Iraq. The rest of us will be saying, "wait a second..." and will then be branded as a bunch of racist good 'ole boys.

He's already being written into history books and that's just the first step.

Neil J. King you are correct: if Obama screws up the path laid out for him, he will deserve every bit of scorn that historians will pile upon him for incompetence, and every bit of fire in Hell for American and Iraqi lives unnecessarily lost because of his ineptitude. Likewise, Obama will deserve no credit if he managed not to screw up the hard gains won despite his fevered opposition.

Barack Obama deserves no credit for any success in Iraq and can never claim victory, as he was a strident enemy of success. That is what happens when you choose to back your foreign enemies against your allies and your own nation. Even though his has yet to be sworn in, he is a failed President by virtue of his opposition to the success of the United States.

As for Bush, yes; he bought and paid for the success or failure of the war when he decided to engage in an invasion, and like in every war this nation has ever fought, the political and military leadership had made some horrible decisions along the way.

The fact remains that after a modern blitzkrieg that overthrew one of the world's largest militaries in weeks, a vicious insurgency, rampant terrorism in a conflict that al Qaeda declared their central front, a near civil war, and years of occupation before a made-from-scratch military and police took over security for the bulk of the country and the first Arab democracy in history, and we still have suffered fewer casualties in this war, insurgency, occupation, and nation-building than we suffered in individual battles in past wars.

Tell me, Mr. King: Are you ready to give our political and military leadership credit for that stunning bit of success? Somehow, I think not.

Actually, Mike, revisionism might not be that easy. The MoveOnMedia are smack dab in the middle of shredding what was left of their credibility by coming out with their "oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you this about Obama during the election" stories.

Even the average voter--excepting the brainless dolts who really drunk the kool-aid--can figure out that the media was completely in the tank for Obama from that coverage. What the MoveOnMedia are probably trying to do now is prove that they're no longer in the tank, but what they're really doing is highlighting how far they'd been in before.

Therefore, any credit coming from the MoveOnMedia for Obama's "victory" in a war he really wanted us to lose is gonna be seen by your average voter as one more attempt to glorify The One--which it is--and thus won't really be believed. The MoveOnMedia will have completed their transformation into Baghdad Bob. "I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad." They've already got the "Bush is a war criminal" part of the Baghdad Bob spiel down pat, after all.

GK, as you say it was in 1975 when the North Vietnamese Army won the war. However, the U.S. democratic congress, cutting off their supplies, forced the South Vietnamese to fail. They were doing very well indeed until then.

Obama is like the guy who puts up a layup after someone else brings the ball downcourt, then passes off to him under the basket. Obama gets the credit but Bush did most of the work. And it will be played that way - i.e., that Bush managed to keep from losing the ball but Obama put the points up & deserves the credit. Which is nonsense, of course, but there it is.

There's no way that Bush is a great or even very good president. He's pretty average, but got the one big decision he had to make right. He's like Truman dropping the bomb. Years from now, a lot of people will believe that invading Iraq was the wrong decision, more will believe otherwise, but there will always be an argument about it.

Since someone up-thread mentioned the withdrawal agreement, let me point out one important part...

The deal could still be rejected by the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for July 30, a key Sunni demand to get their agreement, but by then U.S. troops will no longer be a visible presence in urban areas.

Query for lefties (like, I suspect, Mr. King): if the Iraqi people do indeed request that US troops remain, will you lefties continue to demand their withdrawal, thus advocating that we break our agreement with the sovereign government and people of Iraq?

The accelerating irrelevance of the NYT makes this a moot point; as they say, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound? God bless our troops, and the citizens of this nation that had the backbone to stand up and support them and their mission!

So the NYSlimes tries to play the CYA game as the doors close. If not for the Slimes and the worse Slimes in the democrat party the war would not have been a war. It would have been over when Hussein was killed and the troops would have been home long ago. The TS data leaked to the slimes from congress and other assistance the democrats provided to the terrorists are responsible for 90%+ of the American deaths in Iraq. Even the terrorists will admit they kept hanging on in hope the democrats could force the American military to abandon the fight. It didn't happen so I classify the entire democrat party right up there with the worst traitors in American history. Maybe a few attacks like the one in India will wake up the American citizens to the lies of the democrats, and how they set the U.S. up for destruction. All to satisfy their ego and gain 'political' power which will disappear with the likes of Hussein O in power. He's not going to trust the traitors long.

well, look at the bright side. If the Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) really believe that the credit will go to Bush and Republicans for winning the wars (2 or three, depending on how you count) of Iraq, then they will sabotage Iraq. That way, the ultimate failure can be blamed on Republicans. It worked in Vietnam.

Never misunderstand that, to a Democrat, a Republican is more of an enemy than any communist/dictator/jihadi. The spiritual descendants of Tories and Copperheads, Democrats actively work against our country for political power and personal gain.

It was worked in VietNam.

Iraq != Vietnam.

Media circa 1973 != media circa 2009. The public today perceives Iraq as having turned. The media in 1973 never acknowledged the win in Vietnam, nor did the public perceive one which paved the way for congressional betrayal of South Vietnam a couple of years later.

These situations are completely different. The attitude of the veterans involved is different.

Like Richard Nixon declaring "Peace with Honor" in Viet Nam, and Bush's first declaration of "Mission Accomplished" all one needs do is declare a victory in Iraq and poof, its true. Right?
You guys are so unable to see your own self-delusion. You Tinkerbells don't have the guts to face the truth- the President is a fool, and using warfare to create a stable democracy in Iraq is a fool's mission. But no, be brave, act like anyone who disagrees is a coward, and keep blowing hot air.
Here's a point of view you never consider: Why not ask the Iraqi people what they want, since you are all fired up about democracy. No? Could that be because polls show they want us out, soon?
You do realize that don't you?
Not the kind of democracy you had in mind, is it?
Let the backpedaling on democracy begin....

i am malaysian.
and i knew and have many american friends in our town church;-christian young missionaries and ouples missionaries.

When asked about 2nd world war,vietnam war, korean war, irag, balkan war; some shows indeference, but oldr couples always has something to say and seems to know something.
or maybe, they just pretending and do not want to talk about it.
we, especially the malaysian or asian christian for that matter, felt very indebted and grateful for the thousands upon thousands of american who die for us and around the world for the defence of freedom and human dignity.american govment actions for theri involvement migth be political reciprocation, thats theri buisness, but for us, american who die figthing in all this war were angels and our saviors. tell me if any asian countries who are willing to sent her people to die defending good values? Surprisingly, most american are blind to this fact; instead they condemn the deed of their leaders and soldiers who suffered and die for others. all they know is their own selfish personal greeds and views. today, american fell victim to their enemies who wants america to stand idle and save its own skin;- good for certain reasons, but definitely not for america's global prestige and iglobal influence and respect as a world power. it will be a weak world power.
Obama can talk well but american will be disappointed for hoping too much. Clinton's global influence and respect is the weakest american admnistrtion.-of course the enemies lauded this peaceful administration and clinton fell for it, and american too. look, what happen after that, now. this is when all the muslim terrorist sees and percieve america to be weak and they became very bold and planning. maybe clinton knew something but do not act on it - to save himself? now Obama is revsiting it?

american administration hypocrisy is ith saudi arabia. Obama or whoever can never defaet muslim terrorist if the do not have the guts to deal with the main global sponsor or maybe america is oil addict. their economic machinaries are oil addict.

Any american president should ask himself what good he want from the world and what good can america give to the world and humanity and then stay the course, at all cost.
In God we trust. america is God,s intsrument for his purposes, porvided the american people are aware of thier chosen nation and people; a great nations among all nations; and its people act accordingly. sound prophetic? watch carefully waht unfold to america nad the world.

The article by the so called confederate yankee is biased.He failed to mention the Anbar Awakening,or that many of the fighter were paid off to stop the insurgency.What will happen when we stop giving them money?Or they are force to share the oil revenue?The surge was only temporary.Only a removal of our troops will bring stability to Iraq.

The Iraq war has been a failure since it's beginning. There is NO WAY to EVER win that war. The sooner US troops are home, the better.

Okay, I'm going to try my best to be impartial here. I do not claim any party. But let's be serious here. How can you legitimately feel that Bush has won in Iraq? You shouldn't get any credit for fixing a situation when you are the one who precipitated into a mess. Saddam was a very bad person, did lots of evil things and needed to be removed but that was not the motivation that Bush used to enter Iraq. He sold it to the American public as a way of countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction from reaching us here and reverted to Saddam was evil when the weapons didn't materialize. If he said it was about regime change from the start, majority of the American public would never stand for it. Even then it was improperly planned, the surge that is now moderately successful was what should have been done when the Iraq War started. At this point, failure in Iraq is not an option but it will never be any sort of victory for Bush/Republicans, basically it will be cleaning the mess that was made on the way to Iraq. All the Democrats/Obama need to do is not to mess up any gains that have been made in the last couple of years in Iraq.

Well, there was a recent post from a GI (Big Country) about how American forces nowadays hardly even hear shots fired in Iraq nowadays - let alone suffer casualties. So that works for me. Of course, smellthecoffee knows better than someone who's actually IN theatre - right?
I love how smellthecoffee and his/her/its friends keep hoping against hope that their heroes can pull off a fourth-quarter upset. Such a shame that smellthecoffee's buddy in the striped pants - and his fellow "minutemen" - failed. Although with 0bama at the helm, maybe there is still "hope" for him.

I stumbled across this site while reading the news. Wow, what a nice feeling to be in the presence of such a group of intellectual giants!

As for future historians regarding Bush as America's greatest president, now that will take some REAL revisionism to pull off.

Get over it folks. We'll have a new president on January 20th. I thank God that he's a Democrat! Anyone with a lick of common sense should be able to discern that another 4 years of Republican leadership ain't what our great nation needs. Fortunately, 52% of us refused to be scared into voting for politics as usual. God Bless America!

Best Wishes to All,

A southern white liberal

"I do not claim any party."

Uh-huh. Please note the lie about Bush not citing Saddam's inhumanity as a reason to remove him from power. This is a common tactic amongst Left Wing activists:

1) Claim (falsely) that only one reason was be cited for going to war - generally WMD's.

2) Claim that because that reason was "invalid", the war lacks justification.

Straight from the hard-left handbook.
But of course, this character has no partisan allegiances. Riiight.

"Best Wishes to All,

A southern white liberal"

Y'all needs to get over your obsession with race, my friend. So you're a blanco nino who was guilt-tripped into voting for Teleprompter Negro-Jesus. Big whoop. Congratulations, assuming your white-ness and southern-ness are genuine - want a cookie?

What does victory in Iraq look like again? Even I, a heretofore steadfast supporter of our military effort to bring peace and democracy to Iraq, am beginning to feel like setting a date to get out of there isn’t such a bad idea. While we argue stateside over the possibility of giving another $25-50 billion in bailout money to GM, the Iraqi government is throwing away $13 billion of our money through “fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste by Iraqi government officials.” And that’s just the money that they have LOST.
The Dems have been indefensibly weak on this issue throughout our entire tenure in Iraq. There's no question about that. But the definition of victory in this war is becoming less and less clear to me, and it may be possible for the Libs to steal credit for it from us in the court of public opinion because none of us knows what it looks like in a war like this.

"Y'all needs to get over your obsession with race, my friend. So you're a blanco nino who was guilt-tripped into voting for Teleprompter Negro-Jesus. Big whoop. Congratulations, assuming your white-ness and southern-ness are genuine - want a cookie?"

Actually, neither race nor guilt had anything to do with my decision to vote for President Elect Barack Obama. Rather, I used my brain, common sense and reasoning. However, I don't expect you to understand that. That's OK, I understand.

Thanks for the Congratulations and the offer for a cookie. I think I'll pass on the cookie. I'm afraid that your baking skills might be on the same level as your reasoning skills. If that's the case, I have a feeling it wouldn't be a very tasty cookie. Thanks anyway!

Nine of Diamonds,even if I was a "left wing activist" refute my claim with evidence instead of name-calling. I was right there paying attention to it on television as well as print media when within a couple of months of the Iraq War, the focus became not on WMDS but instead that Saddam needed to be removed. As for justification, Saddam has always been a prick so if the reason is not WMDs, then why go to war now? The reason does need to be valid my dear bloodthirsty warmonger who cares nothing about the thousands of innocents that have died because we are supposedly helping them gain a better country because otherwise we run into a situation where you start a war and justify it later. Really ass backwards under most people with sense. Hell what's preventing any country from doing that to us except for our military might? As for regime change being a proper justification, did the thousands of dead Iraqis ask you or I for this regime change? They suffered under Saddam but a lot of them will probably be ungrateful for this "free of charge regime change"
that we gave them because of the massive loss of lives, injuries and the uncertainty of life that has come with this Iraq War. Yes my dear warmonger, the reason needs to be valid.

Hey "smellthecoffee" what else have you been drinking (or smoking besides coffee, read the latest news, they want us to stay another 3 years.

Hey GK, I know you weren't even born yet when the Viet Nam War occurred, so you can be excused for not experiencing it, but your research is breathtakingly wrong.
Look up the Pentagon Papers- the Defense Department's own documents leaked to the public in which our government acknowledged that the war was being lost at the same time that it was claiming success publicly. Johnson didn't run for a second term because of Viet Nam. In 1974 Congress cut off funding to the South Vietnamese government to fight the North, and you blame the South Vietnamese government.
And most astonishingly, Viet Nam is not now a capitalist country, it is communist, and its economy has grown rapidly. They have had some free market reforms, but not capitalism.

What$the$hell ........The name calling is a classic technique used by the right wing wackozoids. It's called "The Straw Man Argument". When they are unable to engage in reasoned discourse, they simply call you names. Or, rather than responding in a logical manner, they might just say.....oh, that's stupid! It's much easier on them and doesn't make their heads hurt so much.

Well Dude,their heads are probably safe because there has not been a lot of logic been used in regards to the Iraq War

I see the lefty trolls have invaded again.

People like them are why I use all he anti-troll features on my own blog. :)

Military victory in Iraq clearly implies it's potential opposite, defeat. If one believes that victory is obtainable then one must also acknowledge the possibility of defeat. Further, given the latter, one must also admit that defeat necessitates or is defined by surrender. who would our military surrender to?

From another perspective, can anyone name a military leader who says a military victory is a possibility?

Hey Newman, are you reading the same news I am? Wasn't it Bush who said he would not name any timetables, and now he has agreed to have no troops in their cities by next summer, and out by 2011? Do you not recognize a complete capitulation by Bush when you see one? Oh I forgot, Bush has declared a victory, so its a victory....He says it, Fox News repeats it, you believe it. We won. Now lets go home.....
Withdrawal means leaving. Victory means winning.
We were told to leave. Officially. In writing.
And even the agreement could be cancelled by the Iraqis, by democratic vote.
You believe in democracy so you support their right to kick us out, right?
You do recall that it was George Bush who said prior to the invasion "the single question is, will Saddam disarm...". It had absolutely nothing to do with bringing democracy there. And you do recall that democracy did not become the mission until after the WMD were shown by Bush's own guy David Kaye to not exist.
How can you be such suckers for a liar?
Oh, and by the way, polls have consistently shown that the Iraqi people want us out much faster than 3 years. I guess 3 years was just the quickest withdrawal they could get us to agree to.
Wake up to reality.

Hey, Nine-of-diamonds, read this:
"The world needs him to answer a single question: Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by Resolution 1441, or has it not? "
George W. Bush
March 6, 2003 press conference

The country is dumbed down enough to vote for a chicago thug politics politician who has done NOTHING! So why would they be smart enough to figure out that jesus himself had no hand in helping to defeat Hitler Hussein. jesus would not even visit our wounded soldiers.

obama has given NOTHING to this Country except to cut it down.

Hey Erik,

Well said.

Heh. Kinda fun to poke them Magic Negro-worshippers with a stick. See the spittle fly.

Anyway, I'm not as optimistic as you are, Jim. It does not look like the economy will right itself the way it has in the past. Word has it that that there may be a crisis with consumer credit card debt next - not good news. I also have a sneaking suspicion that more industries are going to demand bailouts as the economic slowdown gathers steam. There is going to be no way for 0bama to implement his grandiose schemes AND bail out everyone who comes begging to Uncle Sam AND finance it all with a shrinking tax base. Unless he's fixing to run up the printing presses, and thanks to his inexperience he may just be stupid enough to do that. It's going to be pretty amusing when the 0bama-drones find out that inflation has wiped out the value of the "tax credits" Bracky's supposed to give them - assuming that the lying jackass even follows through on his promise.

Take note of how the price of oil has been spiking every time a short-lived market rally takes place. We can assume that even if there is a slight recovery then increased prices for fuel will be back. This means less discretionary spending for consumers, more trouble for the (dying) car industry, higher transportation costs for shippers, and increased prices for finished products. Don't worry, though - Teleprompter Jesus will sprinkle his fairy dust and make it all better.

Also take note of the kinds of stories the media has been running in the wake of 0bama's victory. Sentimental garbage about 0bama's new puppy. More fixation on Sarah Palin. Panic over "white supremacist plots" to kill their idol. They realize that there's no way he can solve the problems he's faced with, so they are running interference with insubstantial trash that nevertheless benefits him politically. If there was a real prospect he'd bring about economic recovery, then that's what they'd be focused on. Instead of a comprehensive economic vision, we are witnessing an effort to perpetuate the pre-election 0bama personality cult.

Even in the best of times we can't afford to appoint an Affirmative-Action nonentity as president. Having someone like 0bama in the office at this point in time is a recipe for disaster.

I think what most of you are forgetting is that the Iraq invasion was pretty unneccessary. Saddam was a bad man, but he was our bad man. We put him there to begin with to take care of the Iran AKA Muslim problem, then when he did that we called him a war criminal and harbinger of nuclear holocaust.
There were no weapons, there was no mushroom cloud, and any half-bright "republican" or whatever you people call yoursleves could see that from the get go. There was an Iraq agenda in place before Bush was elected (see PNAC), period. Don't ask me why... Daddy Drama.
What I can't wrap my head around is that people are perfectly willing to be lied to about these things and send their kids off to die, then blame the Democrats for all their troubles. Explain this to me.
In the end we are no closer to defeating anything in the mideast, not terror, not anything. We have become them. We torture, we kill children, we hold people without trial and spy on one another. We have sunk too many recources into other countries while ours crumbles, and for what?
Give different leadership a fighting chance, and if it fails then you have some licence to gab.
And for those of you who say Bush will be remebered as one of the best presidents of the last 50 yrs, remember, Iraq wasn't his only fuck up. Katrina, the economy, the justice dept, 911, Valerie Plame, etc etc. I could go on forever. Bad, Bad President.

"government by and for the people"?

Dream on you "useful idiots".

You turd liberals have done nothing but destroy this Country.
Loser Erik showed his true colors." tens of thousands of civilians"

You moron . The death toll in Chicago is higher than Iraq.

Instead of repeating what some lib turd website tells you to say why don't you read something of truth and merit.

Try National Review. But bring a dictionary. You probably won't understand most of the words.They have more than four letters.

Tell sonny boy what the articles are about because I know he won't understand.

There's a policy against swearing here - ramble all you want but watch your mouth. And spare us the sobbing about free speech - instead, start your own blog where you can be as profane as you want.

Another thing - I hope Bob is monitoring IP's to make sure the lefties aren't using multiple handles (as usual). I've seen Lefties so desperate to comment that they've used six of them to try & evade bans.

Mary...

Do we really need a dictionary to define turd?

Maybe you need a thesaurus. It's not a dinosaur.

"Even in the best of times we can't afford to appoint an Affirmative-Action nonentity as president."

Thinking back to the election of 2000, your statement is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black! In this recent election, however, the president wasn't appointed. He was elected. No question about it.

If you were the chief potentate in charge, what would be YOUR "comprehensive economic vision" to get our country out of the current mess that we're in? I can hardly wait to hear about your plan. I'll tune back in tomorrow morning.

Mary...

Also, we have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, but Fox won't tell you that. Neither will the National Review. You people need to get a handle on your ideology and learn the facts. They are there for you. They will set you free. They will keep you warm at night.

Regarding death tolls i think that the Chicago soundbite originated during the campaign from one of those Republican shills posing as journalists or pundits. To repeat such a statement as some sort of refutation/justification or accusation is strange. The invasion of Iraq based on false pretense has resulted in the deaths of innocents and American soldiers but that is somehow OK bc in one recent month there were more killing in Chicago than Iraq and obama is from Chicago therefore Bush was right and Iraq is OK so shut up??

Why would anyone be so flippant about murder anywhere, no less using it to justify same?

Keil is correct in broad terms. Since we invaded Iraq the estimates of non-combatant deaths run from over 100,000 to over 1,000,000. Hardly something to be swept under the rug.

Jeff...

I think they all stopped listening.

Jeff...

I think they stopped listening. And I have been spammed.

"The name calling is a classic technique used by the right wing wackozoids. It's called "The Straw Man Argument". When they are unable to engage in reasoned discourse, they simply call you names."

I think you are confusing us with one of your Kollege Leftist pals: those whose political ideology is gleaned from a bumper sticker, and whose substance is limited to trite phrases: "Bush Lied..." "No Blood for Oil" "Change that we can...". Etc.

Hey little college boy, run along back to class now . When you have some life experience under your belt, when you actually stop referring to yourself as "dude" and no longer use the phrase "peace out") and have something substantive and factual to contribute, feel free to return. Until then, aren't you late for a bong hit, or a kegger or something?

Wow Keith...

Pretty substantive.

Ya know Mary or Kell, or Mary-Kell Hope and Change,

Just because you repeat a figure like a mantra (e.g., Hope and Change, Change we can believe in, etc) doesn't make it fact. What is the source of these "hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties" that WE WE caused? Moveon? DU? Kos?

Fact: The cause of the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties are bombs set off by insurgents.

Pesky things, facts.

As for the NYT, every morning I awake in the hopes to read that its HQ has vanished in a small mushroom cloud...

"Thinking back to the election of 2000, your statement is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black! In this recent election, however, the president wasn't appointed"

Hey Dude, I hate to tell ya, but Bush won the 2000 election. I'm sure you don't remember it--you were what---10? After all the recounts, including those by the seditious NYT---hardly conservative hacks, it was shown BY ALL that Bush won Florida. Sorry.

Pesky things, facts.

"Straw Man Argument" LOLOL. I just re-read your post. You don't even know what the term means, LOL

Just came back ( I do have a life and work to do ) to remind you that you are not smarter than National Review or Fox and as usual you morons are clueless.

Sorry "dudes" but your facts on how many civilians killed are as ridiculous as the rest of your statements.

Run along to your communist websites and tell them all with pride how you "told" us conservatives.

You sad pathetic bunch of pussies.

Keith...

You mean a mantra like: smoke 'em out, stay the course, country first, ongoing investigation? Mantra's of that nature? The ironies of your argument kid of back mine.
The insurgents were an entity of our own making. Can you honestly argue that we have made Iraq a better place than we found it?
Do you think NY deserves another mushroom cloud? You should explain yourself.

Hey Mary...

What are the civilian casulaty figures then???

Hip us commy pussies to your breadth of knowledge.

PS: I am smarter than Fox. I don't read the Review. Then again I don't read Guns and Ammo either.

Keith...

In 2000 the Fla recount was inconclusive. The Supreme Court decided the presidency (see Bush V. Gore). I don't want to tell you guys anything, and there is nothing wrong with an honest dialogue.

It's pretty sad about the kind of public discourse we have on these sites. I liken it to driving a car. You would flip me off in traffic as long as there's some space between us, but if we were in line somewhere together that wouldn't be the case.
We all live in this country together, and while we all want what's best we resort to pettiness. Why is that? I may be your next-door neighbor, how do you know?
My point is that we need to stop all the name calling and have an honest argument about the truths and what we face now and in the future, lest we be deemed to repeat our bloody history.

I will tell you one thing: You and I will not live long enough to see a president of this country launch a pre-emptive war again! They will continue to strike hostiles, but you will not see an Iraq again!

Posted by Ernest Salomon at November 30, 2008 02:56 PM

Odd are we'll see it in the next four years. Eight years, max.

I think that the more accurate statement about Fox news and it's related politainment is not that one is smarter than Fox but that one is smarter than those who watch Fox believing that it is a credible source of objective journalism and presents things in a fair and balanced manner. the very fact that the phrase is used at all by anyone claiming to be a journalist raises questions. Why should any serious journalist or journalistic enterprise be at all concerned with being fair and balanced? They are supposed to be objective and dispassionate, which is very often unfair and unbalanced.

Kell,

I DO agree with your last post.

If ya'll on The Left would only examine other news outlets with the same level of body-cavity-search and mountain-top standards to which you hold Fox News, alas....

The reason you hate it is because it DARE challenge the paradigm, the stranglehold that The Left has on most of the media. It's the same reason ya'll hate talk radio.

Further, if Fox News and talk radio were ineffective, you would be ignoring it...

"Many countries have done just fine without our military intervention, including most of the entire former Soviet eastern block!"

Wow. Just WOW. Soviet pols, generals, admirals and others all have come out and trumpeted in the 90s how our military spent theirs into the ground. They willingly point out that their military was a hollow shell of what they were presenting to the world, and our guys knew it, and their guys knew that our guys knew it. It's been gone over with a fine-toothed comb already by historians.

The threat of our military, and the perceived willingness to use it by Reagan and then Bush, simply took down the Soviet Empire, including allowing its east-European satellites to go their way. Period.

Ask someone from eastern Europe. I don't know that many such people...a grand total of three. One Romanian and two Poles. All three, when speaking of politics and history, take for granted that the US military took down the Soviets AND that this was a wonderful thing that should be celebrated by the entire world.

I don't know if it should be celebrated by the entire world, but I certainly celebrate it, and apparently so do a lot of people in eastern Europe.

And if you look in places other than the alphabet networks, you see story after story of Iraqis who are close to worshipful of American soldiers and culture.

All that said, I think maybe it's time for the US to retire the world stage a bit and work on our own problems for a bit. Not isolationism really, but just a recognition that our efforts aren't appreciated much by a lot of people, including some incredibly ungrateful Americans. It won't take long before someone starts begging us to help them again.

And then, if it's anybody but France, maybe we could consider helping. But I think we should get the request in writing and have it triple-notarized before consideration.

IraqBodyCount,Org places the number of documented civilian death due to violence since the 2003 invasion at less than 100,000. In fact, they cite a range of 89,544-97,762.

These estimates, based upon media accounts, are probably high.

We have good reason to suspect this this because sources sympathetic to the insurgency have been documented inflating body counts, and in several documented cases, completely falsified the existence of massacres that never took place. A dozen faked deaths in a massacre here, 20 there, 40 dug up bodies counting as a new massacre there, and we're talking real numbers.

Jeff, do you really want to talk about numbers outside liberal talking points? Here's one for you: 1,000,000. That's the number of estimated Iranian casualties caused by Saddam's invasion and war from 1980-88. Add another 350,000 for Iraqi casualties in that conflict. Several years later, he got another 35,000 Iraqis killed invading Kuwait. But of course, you don't want to discuss that more than 1.3 million dead as the result of his military aggression, so let's look at the numbers you'd rather discuss, of "civilian" deaths.

Saddam was killing 15,000-20,000 Iraqis a year during "peacetime" over the course of his regime. For those of you that are a bit slow on the uptake, that means the number of Iraqi civilians killed by Saddam's regime and our invasion and occupation until this point are a wash, BUT, Saddam is rotting in a grave, as are his sons, and they will never kill any of their fellow citizens again. As conditions continue to normalize and terror attacks and criminal activity continues to decrease, there will be a net gain every year of thousands of people that will remain alive because the bloody regime of Saddam Hussein and his even more sadistic sons are no more.

You want numbers, Jeff, so there they are. Try not to flippantly dismiss the civilian lives saved by invading Iraq.

Do you think NY deserves another mushroom cloud? You should explain yourself.

You have to love the appeasers, hiding away hoping and praying that their submission will preserve their miserable little lives.

Maybe you should explain how our conversion of Iraq into a early democracy threatens NY. Will Iraq attack us? No? Then who will attack us for displacing Saddam and, through many years of struggle, instituting a reasonable republic in Iraq. Who would that enrage?

Yeah, I know. Better to shake in fear than actually do something.

"Can you honestly argue that we have made Iraq a better place than we found it?"
>>>In the long-term? Yes
Read my palm, then. The fact is that there is still more death in that country than there was before we occupied it.

"Do you think NY deserves another mushroom cloud? You should explain yourself."
>>I didn't know it had a first one. And yes, given the lengths to which the NYT undermines this country, I WOULD like to see it vanish in a puff of smoke & flame.
A bomb is a bomb regardless of the shape of cloud it makes. I guess nuance is lost on you.

"What are the civilian casulaty figures then???"
>>>Dunno, what does Daily Kos/DU/Moveon say? That's scripture, after all, right?
Most reputable news orgs. say that the civilian casualty count exceeds 100,000. AP, Reuters, BBC. Sorry, I don't read Kos.

"Hip us commy pussies to your breadth of knowledge."
>>>You said it not me.
Response to another poster. Apparently you feel the same.

"PS: I am smarter than Fox.."
>>>Ah yes, the unbridled arrogance: a signature trait of The Left (aka The Enlightened Ones)
I am above the BS Fox spouts. Also above the BS MSNBC spouts, but I prefer it.

"In 2000 the Fla recount was inconclusive."
>>>B.S. You apparently don't remember your history either. Innumerable recounts were conducted by many entities, including many "news" entities (all desperately hoping to find an Algore victory), and ALL concluded the same thing: Bush Won. Sorry.
Innumerable recounts were stopped by Supreme Court, heavy with conservative loyalists.

" The Supreme Court decided the presidency (see Bush V. Gore)."
>>>B.S. It stopped a SELECTIVE recount of democrat-rich counties.
Stopped LEGAL recount efforts at the behest of Katherine Harris and Tom DeLay.

"A lie told often enough becomes truth” ---Vladimir Lenin
Nice Lennin Quote. Are you trying to use communism against me???

In the end it's all sour grapes. Enjoy your servitude to the prolatariate.

Keil

Posted by: keith at December 1, 2008 12:18 AM

Wow, you people are truly frightening!
First of all, Obama can’t be blamed for ANYTHING that happens in Iraq because it is not his mess. Bush got us here, and he’ll get all the blame, and deservedly so. There will be no praise for victory, because this is not the kind of battle that can actually be “won.” But just for the fun of it, let’s look at the reasons for the war and see if Bush has “won” any of them.
1) WMDs: This was reason number one for the invasion, but there weren’t any. We’ve been there over 5 years and haven’t found ANYTHING. Reason number one: LOST.
2) Ties to 9/11: How much money or support has been proven to have come from Iraq for the 9/11 hijackings? How much support has ever been proven for Hussein even supporting bin Laden? The real evidence has always suggested Hussein to have NO affiliation with al-Qaeda. How many hijackers came from Iraq? 0. How many came from Saudi Arabia, and yet they’ve never been the enemy. How much sense does that make? Reason number two: LOST.
3) To secure freedom for the Iraqi people: Well, they are calling it Operation: Iraqi Freedom now, but only after reasons number one and two were declared busts. The people certainly had a lot to fear in Iraq under Hussein, but the number of people who have died as a result of the war is astronomical compared to the number killed by Hussein. And how are the living conditions there now? We had the oil infrastructure back up and running within DAYS of the initial invasion, but there are still many parts of Iraq that are still without electricity or water as a result of the war and now every citizen has to fear for their lives just going to the grocery store. Reason number three: LOST.
4) The war on terror: Let’s face it people, there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war. NONE WHAT-SO-EVER! But somehow now this is the central front on the war on terror? Only because we invited them in! So where reasons one through three were just crap lies, number four has actually backfired. It has caused the very thing it was supposedly meant to stop. Reason number four: LOST.

In explaining my "mushroom cloud" comment: given the lengths to which the seditious, traitorous NYT will go to undermine the security and people of this country, why yes, I DO believe that I would like to see it go up in a puff of smoke & flame.

Iconoclast...

Iraq never threatened us. Saddam was a US tool. F--- appeasment. I want those 911 folks to pay too. The truth is that 19 of those 20+ highjackers were Saudi. Why don't we go after Saudi Arabia? Maybe it's because of the political and financial ties that the Bush's have to those people. Use your brain, man.

Sheesh, another one...

Great job of regurgitating the talking points comrade. Did you copy & paste them straight from Kos? I like all the

I am not going to dignify responding to the others, but incase you had not heard, here is some Iraqi yellowcake:

Google: "Iraqi yellowcake and Canada"

As for the rest, it is suggested by many that some of it escaped to Iran & Syria.

Let's assume for a minute, however, that there wasn't any. Well, 1) The UN, the UK, Israel, the IAEA and everyone else believed he had it too. So it ain't just Bush, and he didn't lie. If you wish to state that we were all misled, you MAY have a point.

2) If Saddam didn't have any WMDs, why did he keep acting like he did? Hmmm??? He was acting guilty. Hence #1 above.

But you know these things already, you just deny them because it doesn't fit the template.

Confederate:

You scare me.

So you're saying that because Saddam Hussein was a murderous dictator, the United States was justified in invading his country on false pretenses, killing thousands and indirectly leading to the deaths of many more thousands by unleashing sectarian violence (which had been suppressed under Saddam)?

Then explain to me why the United States, under Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, supported Saddam for decades? I guess they didn't know he was killing thousands of his countrymen each year. More likely they didn't care.

If the standard for invasion is going to be that we will dispatch our military to take out any brutal dictator, then we can pretty much brace ourselves for constant wars of aggression across the globe for the next half-century. There's your solution, if you want it.

What you war lovers fail to grasp is that there's more than one way to deal with a suspected criminal than lynching. In our country we call it justice, due process. If the United States were to back the International Criminal Court, we could move toward a global society that solves problems -- especially military aggression -- through cooperative legal means instead of weapons. I'll take the force of law over the law of force anytime.

Ask anyone who's fought in one -- war is a bad thing. If we had a general military draft, by which a much wider slice of society was put at risk of fighting in numbskull adventures like this one -- then more people would complain.

Mod,

Can we toss this russia bum? Another Kos infiltrator.

Keith: I made a yellow cake the other day and covered it with chocolate frosting. It was quite delicious. But while we’re googling stuff, try “Downing Street Memo.”

Hey "Dude" where do you get 52%? There are over 350 million of "us" the last time I checked. I realize you weren't scared into voting for politics as usual. You were celebrating it with gusto! With those gilded hog rings in your noses, you proudly walked up the shoot to the feeding floor. And like all other domesticated animals, you will enjoy the fattening process "provided" by your "benefactors" oblivious to your upcoming demise. It's to bad that the rest of us have to pay for your feeding frenzy and be slaughtered along with you. Your ignorance is bliss - bless your willfully ignorant hearts!

Keith, can you argue any of my points? I know your type's reaction to a valid argument is to kill the messenger. BTW, never been over to Kos, but thanks for that assumption

Keith...

My favorite of yours is the talking points, over and over again, while you directly spout talking points. Yellow cake???

Even folks in the Bush admin vehemently deny any Iraq/yellowcake connection. You live in the past, hoss.

You do, however, have a point with intelligence. I mean, you would if it weren't a lock that intelligence was fixed around an agenda. Condi Rice knows this, so does Colin Powell. Ask them for Christ's sake. What about the Downing Street Memo? Oh yeah, ongoing investigation.

Talking Point: Saddam sent his WMD's to Syria. Ha HA HA HA. Are you Sean Hannity?

There were only about a billion people around the world who opposed the Iraq invasion. Probably only a few hundred million didn't find the WMD evidence compelling. We call these people "rational."

There's a very good reason Saddam occasionally acted like he had WMDs: to frighten his enemies! He might have been a brutal dictator, but he wasn't an idiot. What's better than having a nuclear arsenal? Pretending you have one and having your enemies believe it! Much cheaper.

The IAEA did not believe Saddam had WMDs. They were part of the inspections. The sensible policy espoused by MoveOn before the invasion was "Let the inspections work." If that had been allowed to happen, none of this would have been necessary. As I said at the time, if you think the inspectors are being fooled, demand that 10,000 more be added. It would be a lot cheaper than a war and occupation. I was right. Millions of us were. Bush was wrong. As the Downing Street memo confirmed, the intelligence was was being fixed to the pre-determined conclusion Bush wanted to justify his cowboy diplomacy.

"As for the rest, it is suggested by many that some of it escaped to Iran & Syria."

I love this one. Suggested by whom? And where is it? How many more years should we wait for you to find it? In the meantime, you'll simply choose to believe it's there somewhere, right?

Oh and Keith, you all WERE mislead. But I'll forgive that as America was still angry/confused/bitter because of 9/11. I saw right through the crap but some good people fell for it.

To Confederate Yankee,
Sir/Madam,
Are you claiming that Iraq was and is about body count? Did we invade Iraq to save Iraqis from their murderous dictator? He killed more than we might have killed so it is all good?
i should not have let myself get engaged in such a frivolous debate about numbers but the comments on the subject were so sophomoric and inflammatory that i couldn't help but speak up.

that being said, the fact of the matter is this, we invaded Iraq on false pretense. call it lies, manipulation, withholding key intelligence or whatever, but it is incontrovertible that bush and his team manipulated congress and the public into invading. The cost in life and money and respect cannot be justified in anyway, no less saying we are responsible for fewer deaths than Saddam.

"From another perspective, can anyone name a military leader who says a military victory is a possibility?"

General Petraeus. In fact, as he notes in his letter to the troops this past September, he was saying that way back in February 2007. Shocking, right?
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/15/world/20080915petraeus-letter.pdf

I don't know whether what he's talking about fits your definition of "military victory", but I'll take it.

Keil:
Are you seriously equating "an insurgency in a country the US invaded kills 100,000" with "the US kills 100,000 in the country it invaded"? And you're using this as a reason to, what, get out of Iraq? But of course, for someone willing to blame Bush for "Katrina, the economy, the justice dept, 911, Valerie Plame, etc etc. I could go on forever," I can see why it makes sense to you that America should bear the brunt of the blame for deaths caused by insurgents.

Al Qaeda and the insurgents aren't going to magically decide to give up on Iraq if we leave. Iraq is not going to magically accelerate its progression towards stability if we tell its government we're getting out.

You also bring up the question of whether or not Iraq is a better place now than it was before the war. I see that as a diversionary question. With perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by insurgents, Iraq is not better off than it was before. But what country is better off during, or after, a war than before it? Maybe relatively minor police actions like the intervention in Bosnia in the '90s resulted in an improved situation, but that simply doesn't hold up for anything bigger, and it has no bearing on whether or not a war should have been fought, or should continue to be fought. Why even ask the question?

"You scare me."

>>I don't doubt he does, girly man.

"...violence (which had been suppressed under Saddam)?"
>>But which was replaced with another kind of violence. Don't make him out to be Gandhi, ok?

"Then explain to me why the United States, under Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, supported Saddam for decades?"

>>Funny, you forgot one in there. His was the embarassment of 1992 to 2000

"What you war lovers fail to grasp is that there's more than one way to deal with a suspected criminal than lynching. In our country we call it justice, due process. If the United States were to back the International Criminal Court, we could move toward a global society that solves problems -- especially military aggression -- through cooperative legal means instead of weapons. I'll take the force of law over the law of force anytime."

1) having the historical perspective, grasp of human nature and testicular fortitude to recognize that not everyone wants to "play nice", and that some require a good a**-kicking does not make one a war-lover, you peacenik.

2) As for the rest of your drivel, exactly WHO is going to enforce that international law, hmm? Sans enforcement it is a paper tigers. Grow up, will ya?! A justice system without the method to ENFORCE the laws results in....well, the UN.

"Ask anyone who's fought in one -- war is a bad thing."

>>Who argues that? BUt sometimes bad things are necessary. That's life.

"If we had a general military draft, by which a much wider slice of society was put at risk of fighting in numbskull adventures like this one -- then more people would complain."

>>>That is perhaps the most ignorant statement I've ever read. Congratulations. You are obviously ignorant and oblivious to who exactly constitutes our military. LIke Kerry, Obama, and the other elites, you view the military servicefolks as uneducated chattle. Having taught science on military bases for years, I can state with absolute certainty that that is an inconvenient lie.

Thank you for revealing your ignorance to all. You represent your cause well.

Yet another college kid?

"Oh and Keith, you all WERE mislead. But I'll forgive that as America was still angry/confused/bitter because of 9/11. I saw right through the crap but some good people fell for it."

Oh wow! I didn't realize we were in the midst of such a towering intellect!!

"Oh and Keith, you all WERE mislead. But I'll forgive that as America was still angry/confused/bitter because of 9/11. I saw right through the crap but some good people fell for it."

Oh wow! I didn't realize we were in the midst of such a towering intellect!!

I'm going to turn it back on you, Comrade Russia. Instead of refuting your points, I'm going to ask you to provide references. Give me proof of your talking points, please.

eg, as for your "billion people around the globe" quote, are you serious? Since when does a poll equte to fact or truth? Maria Carey sells millions of CDs, but that doesn't make her talented.

reading all of ur notes, did u know that the v
Vietnam war was started on a lie as was the Iraq war. are both of those presidential policies or us policies. dont take my word for it read.if ur old enough to understand the Iraq war .u will know it was illegal... Russia attacked Georgia... why would a country attack another country without cause...without their leader threatening them ?? i cant understand that , can you? folks .. any irony in that,,,, ??
elections are over , support our president instead of calling him names.. let him get into office and see what he does then vote him out if u don't like him. get over the election. get out of grade school stop calling names.

Math...

I tell Ya what (Palin Lovers)

There is no insurgency without an Occupation. When you argue that the insurgency killed people and not the US invasion, as much as you want to call it a "coalition" invation you are absolutely off your nut. Maybe Bush wanted to create a vacuum into which extremists were drawn, but that was not the argument put forth by Bush.
The fact that al Qaeda is in Iraq is a testament to the bungling nature of Bush.
We were LIED into that war. It was a war of choice. Iraq had NOTHING to do with 911. There was no Yellow cake. There were no WMD. When you say that there were you are worse than liars, you are ignorant, and that is why Obama won.
Obama is a great speaker, but he won not only because of what he had to say, but because of the utter and incontrivertable failures of George W. Bush's foriegn policy and Reagan's economic policy. Tell me where it is that I am mistaken.

It may surprise many of you, but in retrospect I am not the biggest fan of the Iraq invasion. I am of Afghanistan, however.

Whether or not it was well-founded or not, the reasons for the Iraq invasion are "in the past". Since ya'll on The Left love to dismiss anything that occurred more than 10 minutes ago as "the past" with statements such as "how can we move forward?" and "let's not dwell..." etc, then you should appreciate that.

So, whether you like it or not, we're there. How do we make the best of a hairy situation? Or aren't you interested in that? Do you just wish to dwell on "the past"? If you on The Left weren't so hell-bend on us LOSING the Iraq conflict, you could just offer a few constructive solutions.

So the answer is, "War, war and more war! War when a country attacks us (which has never happened on actual U.S. soil; Hawaii wasn't a state at the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks, and 9/11 was not an attack by a country)! War when a country might possibly attack us! Support our troops, no matter what they're sent to do!" Hey, no one wants a war, but bad things are necessary.

The problem with that non-reasoning is this war (an unprovoked invasion and occupation in this case) was, by no means, by no one's account and in no conceivable way necessary. It was popular among people with short attention spans and a tendency to think there's an easy answer to solve a problem of violence, and that is, "Apply more violence!"

Calling me names is not exactly refuting my points, good sir. Sleep well.

Keith...

"Say it ain';t so Joe! There ya go again talkin about the past. John McCain and I want to take us into the future..."
-Sarah Palin

You want a solution? When Bush raises the victory banner on the deck of that aircraft carier, we withdraw troops and get the blank out of there. Declare victory. The media wouldv'e bought it, no?

While hearing more from the Saddam wasn't so bad/Bush lied, people died/war for oil/Downing Street Memo/fire can't melt steel crowd is always entertaining, I'm off to bed, and closing comments as a result.

And in closing: Keil, only complete fools buy the historical revisionism of the meaning of the "mission accomplished" banner. It didn't celebrate the end of the war, but the accomplishments of the crew of the carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which was a completing a 10-month deployment, the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam era.

I guess that is what we should expect from the "community-based reality."