Letters to the Editor
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Kitt -- quite simply -- attack the data, not the man
No, Kitt, I'm not "afraid" of what they will do ... I know what they and MSM will -- the predictability of it is simply mind-numbingly boring ...
The facts could have better stood on their own ...
Attacking Petraeus was dumb... he's military ... he's doing his job ... he's a well-respected, loyal "company man" -- like Colin Powell ...
Attack the data ... not the man.
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Bravo General Petraeus!
A truly bravura performance. It completely takes the winds out of the sails of the antiwar crowd. He showed that contrary to all the shrill posturings of the past week, the surge is working and that we can and will responsibly start reducing our forces, beginning this month! Moreover he proffered a damning indictment of Iran, pointing out that we are already very much at war with them and their proxies in Iraq. I am very encouraged and I expect some effective military countermeasures in the near future.
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We need some perpsective
I hate to disagree with you Glenn, but I am pretty sure this is not the biggest stratigic disaster Americ has ever made. After all, no one had burned down the white house.
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Susan
Kitt -- quite simply -- attack the data, not the man
No, Kitt, I'm not "afraid" of what they will do ... I know what they and MSM will -- the predictability of it is simply mind-numbingly boring ...
The facts could have better stood on their own ...
Attacking Petraeus was dumb... he's military ... he's doing his job ... he's a well-respected, loyal "company man" -- like Colin Powell ...
Attack the data ... not the man.
-- susan sunflower
They did attack the data and they also attacked the man who made up the fucking bullshit. I say...Bravo! Why the hell should we let "the man" off the hook? The man is a proven propagandist. People are dying partly because of this "man".
Attacking the specific propagandist wasn't dumb. It was honest and to the point. Let's stop letting these enablers get away with anything just because they have a bunch of shiny ponies on their shirt.
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Petraeus for President
Am I the only one concerned that Gen Petraeus is looking beyond his military career? It seems very unseemly that he would write that Op-Ed before the 2004 election. He couldn't wait until mid-November to write it?
If this general is hoping to run for President one day, how might that affect the way he does his job now? Might he do things in a way to make himself look better? Might it actually be against America's interests? Or the Iraqui people's? Or his soldiers'?
Should he not be acting in a manner that is absolutely non-political? So that there would be no doubts whatsoever?
Should not Caesar's wife be totally above suspicion?
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Petraeus...
shut you down Glenn. He was thoughtful, respectful and measured in his assessment of Iraq.
Unlike you, he brought a first hand, real world view of Iraq to the American public and their representatives.
Troops will come home and we won't run from our responsibilities.
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@Kitt @Diana Powe
So, what do we do? We can't do anything until some kind of honesty prevails about our culpability. Then, we can talk about the specifics.
Diana Powe
Everyone doesn't agree that Iraq will be a disaster if we leave. Certainly not necessarily any more so than it currently is. Some of us are honest enough to say that we just don't know.
Kitt
Sorry, Kitt, the choice for those who want to end this thing isn't between leaving and staying, it's between leaving and leaving with honesty, like Diana Powe says.
Even in the most rapid scenario, it would take months for us to leave Iraq, just as it took months to put the troops in. A real plan to leave involves doing our best to minimize the violence that follows, to maximize security (as susan sunflower says, the unglorious stuff like hospital supplies, malnutrition, local staffing). It involves the talking to the surrounding powers and enlisting their help, like is semi-secretly going on right now. Interestingly, in the security talks going on in Baghdad, when the U.S., Britain, and Iran come to a consensus on anything, all the Sunni regional powers (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain...) try to torpedo it. Did you know we came to consenses with Iran, while we're threatening to shoot each other?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html
The Democrats should shift as quickly as possible to fighting over the goal: Stable Iraq vs. Permanent Bases. The military, the local powers including Iran, and most pro-war, but not loyal Bushie, Americans can get behind the first one, only the loyal Bushies, the Saudis, what someone referred to as the Likud wing of AIPAC, and the psychotic manliness crowd can get behind the latter. The difference between the two is that we can leave AND do a stable Iraq, we can't have either a stable Iraq or leave if we do the bases thing.
How do we leave and have a stable Iraq? We do the honest thing. We admit our culpability, we sue for peace, and we work with those who will effect the stability.
So it's a simple choice for the Dems: Lock the Bush crowd to the permanent bases they are after, and the Dems win. Let the Bush crowd lock the Dems to weak foreign policy that says leave and we don't care what happens, and the Bush crowd wins. The Dems should shift the debate to one between leaving and leaving, and leave the Bushites chained to their cement monuments to empire in Iraq.
BTW, they arrested Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan. Guess we could talk to the neighborhood about what to do if we could only get our heads out of the talk to people we like quicksand and start talking to people we need. The Republicans go on and on with their comparisons to WWII, but if they'd been running things then, they'd have been so worried about borrowing the money to fight with, making a profit, building permanent bases in Germany, and provoking a war with the hated U.S.S.R. that they'd have lost the European theater. Maybe that's why Newt writes so many stories about the Nazi's winning.