Peggy Noonan blasts today’s pathetic Republican Party. She’s not saying anything new. She just has a way with words, and her essay sums up the problems nicely.
These problems, however, have been apparent for years, and even Peggy has been late to the party. In Kansas in 2006, old Republicans bolted from the party and won seats as Democrats.
The Republicans deserve to get crushed in the fall. If that happens, it will be the best possible result for the party (and the country).
Over the past several days, John McCain has twice repeated a ridiculous statement about al Qaeda in Iraq, saying that Iran (a Shiite nation) was training al Qaeda terrorists (who are Sunnis). This is almost as ridiculous as his recent statements that al Qaeda would take over Iraq if we left, as if the majority Shiites would ever let that happen.
Now we know what we’ll hear from those like John McCain who support open-ended war. They will argue that leaving Iraq is surrender. That we are emboldening the enemy. These are the mistaken and misleading arguments we hear from those who have failed to demonstrate how the war in Iraq has made us safer. Just yesterday, we heard Senator McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda. Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.
Murtha’s endorsement is a huge win for Hillary in Pennsylvania. She already has a big lead in the state, and this will help even more. He also helps her with the Iraq War issue as well.
On the other hand, Murtha is known as one of the biggest earmark spenders in Congress. He knows how to play by the old rules and he’s cozy with the lobbyists. I’m sure Obama’s reform agenda does not sit too well with him.
“And my friends, if we left, they (al-Qaida) wouldn’t be establishing a base,” McCain said Wednesday. “They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaida.”
They’d be taking a country? Last time I checked, Iraq has a Shi’ite majority. McCain thinks the Shi’ites–the Mahdi Army, the Badr Corps (and yes, the Iranians)–would allow a small group of Sunni extremists to take over? In fact, as noted above, the vast majority of indigenous Iraqi Sunnis aren’t too thrilled about the AQI presence in their country, either. (The usual caveats apply: AQI is barbaric, dastardly and intent on violating the Qu’ran by engaging in the annihilation of innocents. We can’t get rid of them fast enough.)
Joe Klein deserves credit for addressing this point, and hopefully the Obama campaign is paying attention. Bush and McCain have been justifying the continued presence in Iraq by playing the Al Qaida card, but Klein points out the obvious. They will never “take over” Iraq.
Jim Webb is exploring all options to prevent the Bush administration from making any long-term military arrangements with Iraq without congressional approval.
This is the “government” we are protecting in Iraq. It’s simplistic and misleading to argue that just because violence between the different ethnic and religious groups has declined we are somehow improving the situation in Iraq.
The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion — some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.
Police chief Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf holds a book cataloging the dead.
1 of 3 The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other “rules” that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
“Fear, fear is always there,” says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. “We don’t know who to be afraid of. Maybe it’s a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don’t know who to be afraid of.”
Her fear is justified. Iraq’s second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year — 79 for violation of “Islamic teachings” and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
We have created a situation where religious extremists on both sides, Shia and Sunni, can impose their brutal rule over women and other Iraqis. It’s a disgrace.
As America marks the first anniversary of the troop escalation in Iraq, at least one thing has become clear. Although the “surge” is failing as policy, it seems to be succeeding as propaganda. Even as George W. Bush continues to bump and scrape along the bottom of public approval, significantly more people now believe we are “winning” the war.
We have helped the Sunnis go after Al Qaida, and that’s a good thing, but what happens to the armed Sunni militias? The Iraqi government wants them to eventually disarm, but we know that will not happen.
The religious and tribal conflicts in Iraq will take years, if not decades, to resolve. It’s a fantasy to think we can keep thousands and thousands of soldiers in Iraq until they work this out. Even if they manage to negotiate an agreement, it’s a fantasy to think it could hold without the presence of our Army.
The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.
When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn’t, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you’re playing the game in Washington and another way when you’re running for president, there’s some of that going on.
In an incredible appearance on Meet the Press, Hillary Clinton argued that she was not voting for war in 2002 when she voted for the Iraq War resolution but was instead a vote to put inspectors back in so Saddam would not remain unchecked.
This effort to spin her vote for the war is pathetic. Everyone in the country knew George W. Bush was determined to go to war. She was either terribly naive or she’s now being dishonest.
Barack Obama responded quickly today to Clinton’s absurd arguments, saying “[Hillary Clinton] suggested that I didn’t clearly and unambiguously oppose the war in Iraq when it is absolutely clear. And anyone who has followed this knows that I did. I stood up against the war when she was voting for it, at a time when she didn’t read the intelligence reports or give diplomacy a chance.”
The Obama campaign also put out a detailed memo demonstrating that his position was not identical to Hillary’s position after he joined the Senate as Mrs. Clinton claimed. He was arguing for withdrawel and a timetable and Clinton continuously expressed her opposition to setting a timetable for withdrawel.
Bill Clinton tried to clarify his “fairy tale” comment about Barack Obama’s presidential campaign by calling in to Al Sharpton’s radio program. Clinton explained that he wasn’t calling Obama’s campaign a fairy tail, but rather was referring to Obama’s claim that he was always against the war, calling that story a fairy tail.
Does this help? Frankly, it makes Bill Clinton look pathetic in my opinion. Only recently the former President claimed he was against the Iraq War from the beginning. Of course we all know that is not true.
In contrast to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama was clearly against the Iraq War from the beginning. Those of us who opposed the war in 2002 and 2003 remember what is was like. It was an extremely unpopular decision, and any politician who opposed the war risked paying a very high political price.
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.
The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.
I don’t oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
Bill Clinton is trying to obscure the truth about Obama’s position by focusing on an interview in 2004 where he was asked about Democratic Presidential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards who had supported the war. Obama was running for the U.S. Senate, and he clearly did not want to say anything that would embarass the Democratic ticket, so he downplyed his own opposition and explained that he was not at the Senate at the time and would not criticize their vote.
The Clintons are desperate, and in their desperation they are becoming an embarassment.
Chris Matthews must have been starstruck when had John McCain on “Hardball” tonight. Twice McCain claimed that the current “strategy” in Iraq was “working,” and both times Matthews failed to challenge McCain on that dubious assertion. With other war supporters Matthews loves to make the case that the war is a mess and that choosing to go in was a terrible and tragic mistake. Yet he gets one of the biggest war cheerleaders on his program and he let’s him off the hook. Pretty lame.
In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability.
Sanchez in not without blame, and he admits he made mistakes as well. Anyone who read “Fiasco” knows that Sanchez was part of the problem.
That said, the Administration and most Republicans are unwilling to end this mess. They need to be held accountable, and hopefully these remarks will increase the pressure on Senate Republicans to vote with the Democrats to end this war.
U.S. officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad, and commanders have warned they expected Sunni insurgents to step up attacks in a bid to upstage the report.
Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said last month that he proposed reducing American troop levels in Ninevah and predicted the province would shift to Iraqi government control as early as this month. It was unclear whether that projection would hold after Tuesday’s staggering death tolls.
A fifth-grader could have predicted this. We’ve been doing the same thing in Iraq for years. Sure, the tactics have improved dramatically where we have our soldiers, but we have never had enough troops, and we will never have enough troops. We work on an area, and then the insurgents move to another area. Nothing has changed.
Early in the war, hawks like McCain argued that we needed more troops. Bush ignored them and the commanders on the ground (ho only listened to the ones that told him what he wanted to hear). Despite Bush’s incompetence and a flawed strategy, McCain and others stuck with Bush. Then they supported this foolish surge.
This situtation will not be resolved militarily. How many times do we need to be reminded about this?
I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Edwards, but her latest shots at Obama are a little silly.
Mrs. Edwards added that any divide in the Democratic party this year among the candidates is the difference between “actual Democrats and rhetorical Democrats.”
“Sometimes it seems we have these beliefs but it turns out it’s like a Hollywood set: It’s a facade and there’s no guts behind it,” Mrs. Edwards asserts in the interview, “You listen to the language of what people say, particularly Obama, who seems to be using a lot of John’s 2004 language, which is maybe not surprisingly since one of his speechwriters was one of our speechwriters, his media guy was our media guy. These people know John’s mantra as well as anybody could know it.”
“They’ve moved from ‘hope is on the way’,” the potential first lady concluded, “to the ‘audacity of hope’. I’m constantly hearing things in a familiar tone.”
So Edwards was the first politician to use the word “hope” in his stump speech? Give me a break.
Here’s another lame shot:
And while Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill., was in the Illinois state legislature and not the Senate in 2003, Mrs. Edwards equally questioned his motives.
“Obama gives a speech that’s likely to be extraordinarily popular in his home district,” Edwards said, “and then comes to the Senate and votes for funding… so you are going to get people behaving in a holier-than-thou way.”
Obama was right on the war, and he was planning a run for the Senate. His opposition to the war was not popular, and to suggest he did it for political motives is absurd.
I applaud John Edwards for apologizing for his vote, but frankly we all deserved that apology. Edwards was a complete robot during that process. He didn’t question anything. He didn’t read the full National Intelligence Estimate. He was also planning a run for the Presidency. And yet Elizabeth Edwards has the gall to challenge Obama on this? It’s ridiculous.
Newsweek’s Christpher Dickey has been one of the nest reporters covering the Iraq War from the beginning. If you read his columns, you knew that the chest-thumping and rosy scenarios coming from the Bush administration were not to be believed.
As we look for an exit strategy from this mess, Dickey explains how our withdrawel is playing around the world. The facts are grim - the terrorists will be emboldened.
Terrorists will indeed believe that all this is a triumph for their God, their vision, His design. But the United States and its friends would be repeating one of the egregious mistakes that got us into this sorry mess if we allowed the bad-guys’ opinions to dictate our strategy and tactics.
The signal error of the Bush administration was to embrace the terrorist rhetoric of war, and then to militarize a conflict that should have been handled all along as a matter for the police, the intelligence services and public diplomacy. The struggle ought to have been focused as a fight against malicious individuals, not their aberrant ideologies, against small criminal groups, not the vast civilizations they claim to represent. (A report from the James A. Baker III Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations in 2002 tried to make this point before we went into Iraq, but alas …)
Dickey again presents a powerful argument. We have to be smart about our counter-terrorism techniques.
Every once in a while, and election comes along that restores my faith in Democracy. Not simply because my candidate won, but because the more qualified and honorable candidate won.
Jim Webb’s victory over George Allen is one of those elections.
We’re starting to hear the pundits explain why the Democrats shouldn’t start holding hearings and issuing subpoenas. Idiots like Lanny Davis are making this case, arguing that the Democrats shouldn’t make the same mistake that the GOP made in the 90’s when they mercilessly investigated Bill Clinton.
Certainly, there is potential for abuse of this power, but the differences between now and 1998 are very stark. We are three years into a disastrous war, and the GOP has done little oversight over the past six years. The investigations of Bill Clinton seem trivial compared to the isues facing us today.
The leadup to the Iraq War and the prosecution of the war were marred by deception and incompetence by the Bush administration, not to mention tremendous waste and likely war profiteering. It is the duty of the Congress, regardless of party affiliation, to investigate these matters. The public will accept it, and embrace it, if it is done in a fair manner. Republicans like John McCain, John Warner and Lindsay Graham will support responsible inquiries as well.
The Democrats have no choice - they ran on the need for oversight; now they must deliver.
Update: Former CIA director Robert Gates will take over as the new Defense Secretary. This might signal a willingness by Bush to listen to his father’s old advisors. Bush also cited the highly anticipated report from the Iraq Study Group chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.
