'by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death."
Between John "We're all Georgians, now" McCain and Sarah "Mission from God" Palin, I'm terrified.Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.
"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."
The coordinated blasts—coming 20 minutes apart in different parts of the city—appeared to reinforce U.S. claims al-Qaida in Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men willing or available for such missions.
The generals in the military have always been political and require hearings/confirmation process. W...Political struggles are nothing new.. just ask Gen Grant or Gen MacArthur....
The trouble is, as Bryan noted the other day, the Uniform Code of Military Justice makes it a court-martial offense for any military officer to use "...contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present."
When we confirm a senior officer to a position in the military, there's always a standard question that is asked, and that they always say Yes to, and that is "When asked, will you give your candid and personal opinion in answer to a question by a member of the committee?" They always say Yes.
The progress he reports on isn't the stuff that will make you sit back and say, whoa, Iraq is working. But, coming on heels of news that civilian and military deaths are down, it's encouraging.I'm sick of hearing about all the horrible things that happen in Iraq without ever hearing about any of the good ones. That's not because horrible things don't occur here every day; they do. I've witnessed far more death and sadness than I wish anyone ever had to see. And it's not because I believe in some left-wing media conspiracy. If I'm affiliated with a political party at all, I honestly can't remember which one it is.
Rather, I'm sick of hearing about all the horrible things that happen in Iraq because I've been deployed here for more than 24 months since this war began, and I think I have a story to tell that's heroic, maybe even noble. It's not my story. In fact, I'm quite average, and I'm certainly not noble. But I've been blessed to serve with some amazing officers, noncommissioned officers and soldiers who have sacrificed another 15 months away from their families -- and, for once, produced something that I don't think looks all that bad, even in this desolate country.
The Middle East today is more vulnerable to instability and extremism than at any time since Iran's Islamic revolution swept a U.S. ally of the throne of that country and brought Shia radicals to power there. America's call for democracy in the region has rattled its friends [Sunnis] while failing to placate its enemies [Shias].
The Iraqis in the district [Baghdad] have welcomed the patrols and the security. They say there has been a marked improvement in security in the past few months.Let's hope so. Al Jazeera goes on to say many have Iraqi families have given up and already left. but this is still good news.
Obama signaled Sunday he would only support a future Iraq funding measure if it included a deadline.
“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.
When House Democratic leaders convened in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) at 5:30 p.m. Monday, strategists concluded they were already getting credit for what was happening but that voters wanted much more. So Pelosi, according to aides at the meeting, insisted that Democrats coordinate their message and dictated what that message would be: The general's plan meant 10 more years of war, or even "endless war."
Now that the president has endorsed the Petraeus-Crocker plan for Iraq, it is worth noting one exchange from their Senate hearings.
Some senators, such as Barbara Boxer of California, were so self-absorbed they could not manage to ask a single question in their allotted time, even when they had Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker ready to provide answers.
"I come from an environment where people talk nine to 10 months," she said, referring to the time frame for withdrawal that many Democrats are advocating. "And there he was, talking nine to 10 years."
"You're assuming it's a zero-sum game, which is what I don't understand," Townsend said. "The fact is, we were harassing them in Afghanistan, we're harassing them in Iraq, we're harassing them in other ways, non-militarily, around the world. And the answer is, every time you poke the hornet's nest, they are bound to come back and push back on you. That doesn't suggest to me that we shouldn't be doing it."
"I would steer you away from that number of troops being immediately along the border," McCormack said.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the political debate over Iraq is that many of Bush's critics, who accused his administration of going blindly to war without considering what would happen once Hussein's regime was toppled, now blindly support a policy of withdrawing from Iraq without considering what might follow.
Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed
Senate Panel Releases Assessments From 2003
So, after several rum and cokes, I'll tell you what's going on in Iraq. Al Qaeda is doing most of the slaughtering. They may not have been there at the beginning of the conflict, but they're there now. They've made it their business to make sure that country devolved into civil war. If your attitude is "The U.S. must leave now, because civil war will happen no matter what," you're conceding a victory to America's greatest enemy and surrending a genocide. You will no longer have the moral authority to lecture anyone on Darfur. However, if you're a Republican and you think any battle plan that orginates from this administration will work, you're conceding that your partisan interest is greater than your desire to win a war. (emphasis added)
In reassessing the war, in other words, the moral cost to America must come into the equation. The Iraq war has removed for a generation the concept of the U.S. military being an unimpeachable source of national honor. It has infringed civil liberties. It has legalized and institutionalized torture as a government tool - and helped abuse and brutality metastasize throughout the field of conflict. To be sure, abuse of captives always happens in wartime. What's different now is that the commander-in-chief has authorized and legitimized it, and so the contagion has spread like wildfire. The tragedy is that none of this will help us actually win this war. By alienating so many Iraqis, the occupation has badly damaged American soft-power in the world. It has alienated many allies. It has exhausted the military itself. It has failed to quell an insurgency. History also teaches us that success against such an insurgency in such a country would require over a decade of a brutal war of attrition.
The question we have to ask is: if this is the way we achieve victory, what kind of country would America be at the end of it? To paraphrase Robert Bolt, it profit a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose his soul. But for Iraq?
The question I'd like to see presidential candidates address is how we move back from this precipice that Bush has led us to? Is it possible to go back?
