We are sensible. We support escalation. That is why we have to be dishonest, and sneaky, and lie...to convince all the other dopes that do not have sense. Dishonesty is a Republican virtue.

It's a Vietnam do-over. Except this time the game will just go on until . . . forever.

McCain is right that, "the consequences of failure in Iraq are grave and threatening for the region, and to the security of the United States."

The problem is that we have already lost the war. I saw a very interesting interview on "Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria" with Nir Rosen, author of "In the Belly of the Green Bird." He is very pessimistic. He said that much of Bagdad has already been ethnically cleansed. Essentially his point is that the "civil war" is being won by the Shia with the support of the US. The Shia militias are just biding their time waiting for the US to leave and then they will return to finish the job.

The incoherence of Bush admin foriegn policy is staggering. On one hand we have spent $2 trillion handing Iraq over to the Kurds and the Shia, the natural allies of Iran. On the other, we are ratcheting up pressure on Iran. It is a complete fiasco, and we have only begun to see the long-term consequences.

I am not enough of a foriegn policy wiz to fully understand how the US can best disengage and recover from this mess. In general, I think we should redeploy the troops; concentrate on trying to salvage the situation in Afganistan; and start using "soft power" and diplomacy to reduce tension and resentment.

What I do understand is that this FIASCO has enormous long term domestic political ramifications. My PRIMARY concern is that responibility and accountability for this disaster be laid at the feet of the Bushies, in particular, and the Repubs, in general.

This is why I support Obama. I think he is the one in the best position to hold the Repubs accountable for the war, because he has no complicity in authorizing it in the first place. I believe in the "KISS" priciple: "Keep It Simple Stupid." Obama can tell a simple story about how he had the judgemnt to oppose the war and the courage to stand up and say so. The story gets muddied and confused if either HRC or Edwards tries to tell the story.

I know my next comment is going to be very contoversial: I also think Dems need to be careful about forcing the issue too much on funding. If they succeed in cutting the funding, Repubs will lay blame for failure at the Dems door. It won't be true of course, but it will be believed by tens of millions. I know Obama took a lot of sh*t for his comment the other day about Bush's veto threat, but I think he was being realistic. I hope we can have a contructive discussion about this issue.

Every last congressperson, including McCain, knew the Iraq mess was a set-up from the start. To say different is for them to lie.

But they too, thought it would be a "slam dunk", we would get easy control of Iraq's oil, most Americans wouldn't care and the corrupt business on the capital hill would go on as usual without any political fall-out.

But the politicians were wrong. A lot of non-gullible Americans cared and the political fall-out and the exposure of so much political corruption via congresspersons has awakened Americans.

Whether those in political power are ethical enough to stand up and be counted to improve the situation is another question.

But, I wouldn't count on it.

Throw the bums out! ALL OF THEM!

You don't have to be a blind conservatiave not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it

Dar you say, "But the politicians were wrong."

Not all politicians had the same view. Failing to differentiate between those who were "gung ho," those who were cowardly and calculating, and those who stood up to be counted, is simplistic thinking. Worse yet, it results in a failure to hold the right people accountable for this mess.

I observed that our delegation "stopped at a local market, where we spent well over an hour, shopping and talking with the local people, getting their views and ideas about different issues of the day." Markets in Baghdad have faced devastating terrorist attacks. A car bombing at Shorja in February, for example, killed 137 people. Today the market still faces occasional sniper attacks, but it is safer than it used to be.

This would be the market that 21 people were killed at later in the week?

I disagree profoundly, however, with your statement, "I don't give a damn who gets blamed." You should, and every person who cares about the future of our country should.

There, see I knew you were a lazy, no good, chicken thief.

What would this country have been like, you think, if Eugene McCarthy had been the nominee of the Democrats instead of Hubert Humphrey?

There was a time when the Democrats had become so dominant that there was talk of needing a new party because the Republicans were never likely to be able to win again.

Hubert Humphrey threw everything away by doing the wrong thing. When JFK beat Humphrey for the nomination, the die was cast. Vietnam was going to be the monster I had forecast it would be because I had been there. Humphrey turned around and became a puppy dog for LBJ, peddling the war in every corner of the land. His compromise on principal got him...?

Oddly enough it is often best to do the right thing instead of the popular thing.

Take care.

Best, Terry

When my son deployed to Iraq in Nov. '04 with the Marine Corps to fight in the battle to clear insurgents out of Fallujah, we were all told that "the next six months" were going to be crucial, because the Iraqis were going to vote.

When he deployed in Jan. '06, we were all told that "the next six months" were crucial because a government was being established.

The first thing my son talked about when he called on sat phones from rooftops watching for snipers or huddled around a campfire, he said that the most discouraging thing about the deployment was that it seemed "Fallujah is as bad as it was before we went in," because all the insurgents who'd fled to outlying areas had only crept back into the beleagured city.

Three weeks into his deployment, the mosque at Samarra was bombed, and he and the Marines in the Anbar fought for their lives for seven miserable months, and my son came home angry because he felt as if their fight and their losses "has all been a waste." All they were doing was "going out every day and waiting to get blown up."

My nephew had similar observations in HIS three deployments to Iraq with the Marines. And "the next six months" were always crucial.

Now, another beloved nephew has just deployed to Baghdad with the army, and hey! Guess what!

THE NEXT SIX MONTHS ARE CRUCIAL.

I don't give a damn what John McCain says anymore because he flat-out lied when he pretended that things were better because he could stroll through a marketplace.

I don't know a single Marine who has had the luxury of STROLLING anywhere in that godforsaken country.

And now, thanks to this miserable escalation, my son's unit orders have been changed, to go back a FOURTH time (thankfully, he'll be out by then, if they let him)--and he's calling me in despair, wanting to know what the Democrats are doing to end this bloodbath and get his buddies out of that meatgrinder.

I cannot describe the rage I feel whenever I see Bush and anyone backing him using troops as some kind of stage-prop, talking about how the next six months are crucial and we should "support the troops."

The threatened chaos IS ALREADY HAPPENING, and our men and women are just caught in the crossfire. I don't mind a phased redeployment and benchmarks for the Iraqi govt., but the truth is that the military CAN'T stay much longer because they're stretched to the breaking point.

We can support them all by getting them the hell out of there and rewarding the politicians who pray to the god of patriotism by throwing them out of office or not electing them in the first place.

Very moving post. I have a nephew deployed right now. I hope we can bring them back soon.

Your point about the military being near the breaking point is very important.

Thanks for your post.

I think you're both wrong (man, triangulation is fun).

Vietnam analogies aside, we, of course, have to care about the blame game on Iraq. There is always another election coming up.

But our primary concern should be to mitigate the damage to our country and world. If we start down the calculation route the Bushies will be able to back us into a corner, to them victory is always a Friedman away. Luckily the activists are going to keep all of the Democratic candidates honest on this one.

We can't do the right thing. We have to build support.

By doing a bad thing?

Well I guess you do have a point that people admire those doing wrong.

I belong to a quirky religion that thinks it's good to do good. All other religions believe it is good to do bad. They have all the fun, money, members. I am all alone in my church. As JFK said, "Life isn't fair."

PS. First time I have been called a 'chicken thief'.

We got to be called baby killers. That is even badder. Which is why people became jealous and hated us so. Ask John Kerry. John McCain still hasn't figured it out. Man, that's some slow.

Best, Terry

You know what I meant.

Sure.

I know what you meant.

Not good to be on the losing side.

As Rep. Obey might have said if he was given to cliches, "Go along to get along."

Screw those idiot liberals. They are always wanting to do things that can't be done.

"Winning isn't everything, it's all there is," said a revered coach who won two Super Bowls. Nobody much can remember who he was or why he was so important.

As we used to say back in my community organizing days, "Don't Mourn Organize."

Tell you, friend, I just don't see what good it does to be on the winning side when the winning side is killing people and making people hate this country. In what way does that help?

Maybe you can explain how that can be. I am kinda dumb about these things as you can tell.

How can you lead when all you do is follow the bad guys?

My wife is always asking why we can't ever vote for anybody that wins. I ask her if she wants to be responsible for all the bad in the world. Then we both vote for the losers again. [sigh]

Best, Terry

"Tell you, friend, I just don't see what good it does to be on the winning side when the winning side is killing people and making people hate this country. In what way does that help?"

I must say I disagree with your premise. You seem to suggest that the Dems bear equal responsibility for the killing because they have been unable to stop it since they took control in January.

I think the issue is the difference between "nominal control" and "effective control." With their 50-49 majority in the Senate they have nominal control, but they do not have effective control. They would not have even been able to pass what they have without votes from a couple of the Repub defectors.

It is easy to fault their timidity, but Congress is almost always timid. I believe the Dems even with large majorities were not able to start challenging Nixon on appropriations until '72 or '73 (I was just a kid at the time).

As I said a couple of posts ago, the Repubs have been beating the face off the Dems on national security issues for a generation. Karl Rove is a "fearmonger extrordinaire." After what they did to Max Cleland and a few others, it is not surprising that the Dems are timid.

I think it gets down to a choice; we can blame the Dems for not speaking out more and not doing more, or we can put the blame on the Repubs and try to elect more good Dems so we can gain effective control. I obviously support the latter coarse.

I was a flaming radical in the late seventies early eighties. After spending a year in Peru, seeing thousands of kids die of diarrhea and malnourishment because of IMF stabilization policies, I came beck ready to lead the revolution. Sometimes it shocks me how pragmatic I am getting in my middle years. Don't know if I am getting wise or just getting tired. I have had enough of lost causes and good causes and just want to be effective.

Shorter McCain: If you don't agree with me, you're not a sensible person.

The sad thing is shorter Saint John McCain stole that theme from shorter Dave *the Dean* Broder.

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Yet that's exactly what McCain, Bush, and everyone who supports the "surge" are doing."

Actually, they have no plans of asking anyone to be the last man to die for their mistake - any particular soldier will just be another in an endless line of them who'll die for this. Then Bush et al. will punt on the whole Iraq thing by Jan 2009 - it won't be his problem after that.

In McCain's case, he hopes to punt on it by Jan 2017, which is only, what, 19 F.U.'s away now? I'm sure his reasoning is that the next 5 years is critical and will determine whether or not we'll need to wait another 5 years after that before even considering leaving.

ULC if you really suspect our military presence in Iraq makes those possibilities less likely then why support anything but perpetual US occupation of Iraq? Sure everybody from George Bush to Muqtada Sadr will call it a "US defeat" but that kind of thinking is just falling for the Republican meme that "failure" in Iraq is the left's fault.

Please read this and let me know what you think. Sometimes the conventonal wisdom is garbage.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/19/133610/922