Why not vote for McCain since there's light at the end of the tunnel?

(and of course the last of the surge troops will be leaving -- I forget -- but won't we then have a moritorium on troop return while the big guys, the generals Petraeus reevaluates the situation on the ground and maybe redeploys folks to Afghanistan? no "home for the holidays" for anyone else.)

Thank you for stimulating the idea to run ads. I am very anxious to see them. And Glenn, I'm glad that the Salon PR troops are working hard to maximize the effectiveness of the ads and get you more visibility.

Excellent point. Americans, partly due to our sports culture, and mostly due to capitalism, are plagued with the concept of having to have a winner and a loser. Are there ever any real winners in a war? When wars end or are stalemated, the question really becomes, “who lost the least?” I would argue that most wars result in both sides losing far more than they win. That certainly is the case for both sides in the Iraq War, when we started a totally unnecessary and misguided military preventative intervention for very selfish reasons.

What ever the outcome, the Iraqi Shiites will end up with more power and ability to continue to seek revenge against the Sunni. Tell the five million displaced and hundreds of thousands dead and injured, that there are Iraqi winners.

Obama has said over and over, “We must be as careful getting out as we were careless going in.” Yet, here we Americans are, arguing over how we can get out with the least amount of American casualties and not leave a big civil war. I wonder how much the Repugs (my definition of Repugs is right wing supporters who believe or profess to believe that they are always right when their real position is to benefit themselves and who refuse to sacrifice to help people in need or even their own nation) who supported and still support this tragic war, really care about the Iraqis. If they do, why are they ignoring the fact that the Bush Administration is only admitting a paltry 12,000 Iraqis into the US as legal immigrants? Why don’t they care about the 35,000 detainees being held at Gitmo, in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, most of whom are innocent and should have been released a long time ago? Why don’t they care about the illegal torture that has been used in our name? Why do they minimize and justify it?

What they care about is political posturing and how they can win political power. What they care about is owning the Iraqi oil fields. They constantly show they will take any position on the war that benefits their political cause. If they cared about leaving a civil war, why didn’t that concern them when they fully supported the invasion?

Obama is afraid to tell the truth and call them out for their constant hypocrisy because he believes it could cost him the election because he would lose the “center.” Barrack, the majority of Americans see most of the hypocrisy. Almost all know things are going very wrong. You would get more support, not less, by explaining to them how much damage is done by hypocrites as Glenn has done so well in his latest book. You want us to turn the page and you apparently, don’t want to help us do that through your current campaign tactics, words and Senate votes.

Glenn - we are long past the time when Liasson and her ilk should know the basic polling data on this and other major issues of the day. One could perhaps excuse her statements as an error made in the course of a live debate, but what she said is demonstrably false and absent an immediate correction from her, a false statement of this nature is a lie in my book.

for "all hell breaking loose" .. my cynical interpretation of Maliki's statement (which is similar to some intentions made in the past -- remember when the Iraqi army was going to clean out Basra?? clear out Sadr City??) is "okay" ... because it's not going to happen.

Events will intervene.

I have tried to deal evenly with Foodle throughout this entire thread until it became obvious to me that she is sliding on her own slippery version of the truth just like Liasson did.

"He," thank you.

Glenn:

How much clearer could that be? The truth is exactly the opposite of what Liasson said. Americans want to withdraw from Iraq in accordance with Obama's timetable (if not faster) regardless of circumstances "on the ground" -- not conditioned on those circumstances.

You:

I don't think anyone here is trying to say that all Americans want us out of Iraq damn the consequences.

I also don't think anyone is trying to say that all Americans want us out of Iraq damn the consequences, but if you think Glenn is not trying to assert that most Americans indisputably and unequivocally want us out of Iraq damn the consequences, then you would be the one sliding on your own slippery version of the truth. Glenn's claim is false. The polls do not unambiguously indicate that Americans want to withdraw from Iraq regardless of circumstances on the ground; the polling responses equivocate between seeming contradictions, leaving open the possibility that what most Americans really want is a withdrawal within 16 months based on the facts on the ground -- they want to get out confident that doing so is the right thing, and with no hints of remorse or regret. It is unclear how they will react if it becomes clear that such an outcome is impossible and what the nature of the regrets and remorse is likely to be.

Glenn,

Thanks for working on the ads all weekend! Looking forward to seeing them. Sorry for the cross-post from the previous story, but I wanted to make sure you saw what I wrote on running the ad in The Hill. Perhaps you're already doing it though.

To sum up: About $8,000 for full page black and white with artwork done. More expensive for them to help with artwork. Could probably still get it to them in time to run tomorrow.