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IRAQ
Vice-President Dick Chaney On Iraq
In a private meeting in September 2002, Chaney tried to convince Dick Armey, the Republican House majority leader, who was skeptical about a war in Iraq. Here is Chaney's prediction:
"We have great information. They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American Army going through the streets of Paris. They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two."
Source: Robert Draper: Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, Free Press, 2007)
Talkback: Nothing needs to be said. Just quote the fool.

George W. Bush has promised to veto Democratic-inspired budget proposals.
Talkback: Nothing means more to Bush and his Republican enablers than cutting taxes. Hence, Bush is the only American President to urge cutting taxes while in a war.

With untold billions earmarked for Iraq and other military misadventures, look for more cuts in children's healthcare, less money for mine safety inspections, less money actually available for the Gulf Coast, and more bridge and tunnel failures The money for Iraq has to come from somewhere.

Republicans, with bizarre illogic, approve spending whatever is needed to achieve "victory" in Iraq but oppose providing government aid for needs at home.

George W. Bush believes we're "kicking ass" in Iraq. According to the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia, the president gave the following assessment of the situation in Iraq to Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile: "We're kicking ass."
Talkback: Some of Mr. Bush's observations are so patently absurd that no response is needed. September 8, 2007

George W. Bush's top advisers have told him not to change course in Iraq.
Talkback: Of course they do. At least the new ones do. Bush finds a way to get rid of advisers who disagree with him.
When the Baker-Hamilton panel, which was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, recommended changing course--scaling back military operations and using diplomacy--the White House blocked the reconvening of the panel. September 9, 2007

George W. Bush says we have an obligation to protect what he calls the fragile, new democracy in Iraq.

Talkback: It takes more than an election to be a democracy. Saddam Hussein held elections. The Iraqi government is a puppet government; its elected officials were vetted by Bush enablers before they were allowed to run. The present government is a puppet government so unpopular that it cannot be shown to the public. When it meets occasionally, it must do so in the most secure part of Baghdad. (September 8, 2007)

George W. Bush on Iraq's Militia Groups

In his speech to the American Legion on August 28, 2007, President Bush stated: "For all those who ask whether the fight in Iraq is worth it, imagine an Iraq where militia groups backed by Iran control large parts of the country."

Talkback: Militias and their political allies already control large parts of the country.
September 1, 2007

Bush on Victory in Iraq
Talkback: Bush plans to stay in Iraq until he leaves office. His successor will have to bring the troops home. When that happens, Bush will cynically state that if his successor had not quit and run, victory would have been achieved. Bush thus calculates that he has it both ways. If, by some miracle, Iraq is stabilized before he leaves office, he claims victory. If that doesn't happen, Bush blames his successor.

Bush Listens to Commanders in the Field, Not to Politicians
Talkback: Tell that to General George W. Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who opposed the "surge." Bush fired General Casey. Bush does listen to people--if they agree with him.

Bush on Training the Iraqi Security Forces To Take Over
Talkback: Who's to say that Americans are not training and equipping death squads, out-of-control religious militia, and rogue units? In fact, there's strong evidence that this is already happening. Is it too difficult to remember that a few decades ago, Americans trained and equipped Afghan tribesmen to fight the Russians? Those tribal units in Afghanistan subsequently morphed into the Taliban, which now kills Americans.

The Iraq war has made the world a safer place.
Talkback: A report from U.S. intelligence agencies in July 2007 concluded that the Iraq war had helped al-Qaeda gain recruits, raise more money, and given a new generation of terrorists valuable experience. ("National Intelligence Estimate: The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland," July 2007)

We should be patient. The American Revolution took a long time. On July 4, 2007, Bush compared the conflict in Iraq with the American Revolution.
Talkback: There's a problem with that comparison. In the American Revolution--the insurgents won.

Bush deliberately pinned his Presidency on the outcome of the Iraq War. The relatively easy initial invasion morphed into a deadly three-way civil war. Americans sided with the Shia sect, which is more radical than the Sunnis, and hated by them. Prior to the occupation, of the 50-plus Islamic nations, there was only one Shia-ruled nation--Iran. Now there are two. And Iraq has been dismembered into three weak states dominated by three ethnic/religious groups: Kurds, Shia, and Sunni.

If we don’t fight the enemy in Iraq, we will have to fight them here.
Talkback: Tell this to the British. They are fighting the enemy in Iraq but the British presence in Iraq has not prevented terrorists to attack targets in Great Britain. In fact, the British involvement in Iraq has probably heightened the risk by inflaming its Islamic population.
Talkback: If Americans were not in Iraq, the billions of dollars that have been spent there could be invested in homeland security.
Talkback: Why should the enemy risk transporting combatants to kill Americans here when the President is willing to transport American targets to them?
Talkback: Hundreds of thousands have been transported at enormous expense to the killing fields of Iraq, where they are shot at and bombed at the enemy's discretion.

"Progress" in Iraq and General Petraeus
Talkback: So far, every month of 2007 has seen more U.S. military fatalities than the same month in 2006.

General Petraeus says the number of civilian casualties has declined in Baghdad since the surge.
Talkback: The number seems to have declined in Baghdad but has increased outside Baghdad. Why? The insurgents have moved their operations to less-heavily patrolled areas. The word "seems" is used because the Pentagon has not explained how the numbers are calculated or if they have been independently verified. Also, in some Baghdad neighborhoods, sadly, ethnic cleansing has been completed and few are left to kill. Talkback based on Paul Krugman, "Snow Job in the Desert," New York Times, 7-3-07, p. A17
Talkback: Today's NY Times contains a front-page story about the decline of casualties in Baghdad, but as an almost silent rebuke is a box that contains the names of three Americans who died within the past 24 hours. Yesterday's box contained four names. If everything is going so swimmingly, why do we still see those names? November 24, 2007

Talkback: If things are going so well in Iraq, why don't we declare victory and come home? November 24, 2007

Representatives Tim Mahoney of Florida and Representative Brian Baird say that they see evidence of "progress" in Iraq. Mahoney's conclusion is based on a visit he made to Iraq in August 2007
Talkback: What visitors see is what the military wants the visitors to see. Nobody goes outside the safest areas of Iraq without military protection and guidance--not even Iraqi journalists. We are totally dependant on the military for virtually all information about how much progress the military is making. September 2, 2007

We can trust General Petraeus.
Talkback: General Petraeus is the father of the surge.   How objective can we expect him to be about his own idea?    September 3, 2007

General Petraeus is not a politician.
Talkback: Really?
He is more political than his press would have us believe. For example, just six weeks before the 2004 election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post in which he claimed that there had been "tangible progress" and that "momentum had gathered in recent months."

You can be sure that the general's piece was vetted at the highest levels, and that it certainly would not have been permitted had Petraeus been critical of the Iraq War. If the general is not political, why did he publish just before a critical election? One other question.   Does the general always see "progress" ? September 3, 2007

If we pull out now, we will give the radical Islamists a safe haven.
Talkback: If Americans pull out now, the radicals will lose their most effective recruiting tool--an occupying army.
Talkback: Somebody should have thought about the consequences of failure before trying to occupy and destroy the social infrastructure of an existing society.
Talkback: Radical Islamists already have safe havens all over the world— in Sudan, Lebanon, the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, Syria, Iran.

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

If we pull out, the extremists will take over.
Talkback: They already have. The longer Americans stay as occupiers, the more likely the radicals will gain strength. Moderates are fleeing Iraq by the tens of thousands.
Talkback: The American occupation has become a rallying cry, a stimulus to radicalize ordinary citizens. Every poll shows that Americans today are absolutely hated in that part of the world--a dangerous sea change of opinion.
Talkback: The American occupation has created an Iraqi mafia. The parallels are striking. The mafia was formed in Sicily as a secret resistance movement to protect native people from successive waves of invaders.
Talkback: "There will be no Saigon moment in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite-led government is in no danger of losing the civil war to al-Qaeda....Iraq's Shiites are three times as numerous as Iraq's Sunni Arabs...Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today--a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part." Peter Galbraith, The New York Review, August 16, 2007. p. 4

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Then the "job" morphed into eliminating a hated dictator who tortured and killed his own people, but a former ally. The dictator was killed, and American troops and mercenaries set about doing what the dictator had done—killing and torturing people.

The "job" somehow became ending terrorism. That was a problem, because in the 1700s, Americans were branded as terrorists by the British, and during the 1940s Allied Forces freely used terrorist tactics against the Germans. The Israelis used terrorist tactics to drive the British out of Palestine (For proof, Google the words “King David Hotel, Begin” and see what comes up).

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The first chance people in the Middle East got to participate in free democratic elections, they voted for radical leaders--in democratic elections. It seems the masses hate American foreign policy more than their leaders do.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.

Frighteningly, the insurgents seem to be the ones who are finishing the job, not Americans—draining the treasury dry at the rate of about $11 billion a month, destroying the army and marines, and driving out an occupier.

We are at war.
Talkback: America has been at war with somebody for over 60 years, Yet the nation got through a Cold War with a nuclear-armed, long-range-missile-equipped super-power without power-grabs by Presidents. Just because the nation is fighting a war does not mean that its people should give up long-cherished freedoms or allow the President the powers of a dictator.

Talkback: There’s a qualitative and quantitative difference between being at war and being in a war. A big difference.

If we pull out now, we will give the radical Islamists a safe haven.
Talkback: If Americans pull out now, the radicals will lose their most effective recruiting tool--an occupying army.
Talkback: Somebody should have thought about the consequences of failure before trying to occupy and destroy the social infrastructure of an existing society.
Talkback: Radical Islamists already have safe havens all over the world— in Sudan, Lebanon, the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, Syria, Iran.

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

If we pull out, the extremists will take over.
Talkback: They already have. The longer Americans stay as occupiers, the more likely the radicals will gain strength. Moderates are fleeing Iraq by the tens of thousands.
Talkback: The American occupation has become a rallying cry, a stimulus to radicalize ordinary citizens. Every poll shows that Americans today are absolutely hated in that part of the world--a dangerous sea change of opinion.
Talkback: The American occupation has created an Iraqi mafia. The parallels are striking. The mafia was formed in Sicily as a secret resistance movement to protect native people from successive waves of invaders.
Talkback: "There will be no Saigon moment in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite-led government is in no danger of losing the civil war to al-Qaeda....Iraq's Shiites are three times as numerous as Iraq's Sunni Arabs...Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today--a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part." Peter Galbraith, The New York Review, August 16, 2007. p. 4

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.

Americans have never cut and run.
Talkback: Have you never heard of Viet Nam? Have you never seen the photograph of American helicopters rescuing survivors from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon? Have you never heard of Lebanon? After 244 American military personnel were killed in Beirut in the bombing of Marine barracks in 1983, President Reagan vowed to remain in Lebanon. In 1984, he ordered the withdrawal of American forces.

George W. Bush has promised to veto Democratic-inspired budget proposals.
Talkback: Nothing means more to Bush and his Republican enablers than cutting taxes. Hence, Bush is the only American President to urge cutting taxes while in a war.

We should be patient. The American Revolution took a long time. On July 4, 2007, Bush compared the conflict in Iraq with the American Revolution.
Talkback: There's a problem with that comparison. In the American Revolution--the insurgents won.

If we don’t fight the enemy in Iraq, we will have to fight them here.
Talkback: Tell this to the British. They are fighting the enemy in Iraq but the British presence in Iraq has not prevented terrorists to attack targets in Great Britain. In fact, the British involvement in Iraq has probably heightened the risk by inflaming its Islamic population.
Talkback: If Americans were not in Iraq, the billions of dollars that have been spent there could be invested in homeland security.
Talkback: Why should the enemy risk transporting combatants to kill Americans here when the President is willing to transport American targets to them?
Talkback: Hundreds of thousands have been transported at enormous expense to the killing fields of Iraq, where they are shot at and bombed at the enemy's discretion.

"Progress" in Iraq and General Petraeus
Talkback: So far, every month of 2007 has seen more U.S. military fatalities than the same month in 2006.

General Petraeus says the number of civilian casualties has declined in Baghdad since the surge.
Talkback: The number seems to have declined in Baghdad but has increased outside Baghdad. Why? The insurgents have moved their operations to less-heavily patrolled areas. The word "seems" is used because the Pentagon has not explained how the numbers are calculated or if they have been independently verified. Also, in some Baghdad neighborhoods, sadly, ethnic cleansing has been completed and few are left to kill. Talkback based on Paul Krugman, "Snow Job in the Desert," New York Times, 7-3-07, p. A17
Talkback: Today's NY Times contains a front-page story about the decline of casualties in Baghdad, but as an almost silent rebuke is a box that contains the names of three Americans who died within the past 24 hours. Yesterday's box contained four names. If everything is going so swimmingly, why do we still see those names? November 24, 2007

Talkback: If things are going so well in Iraq, why don't we declare victory and come home? November 24, 2007

Representatives Tim Mahoney of Florida and Representative Brian Baird say that they see evidence of "progress" in Iraq. Mahoney's conclusion is based on a visit he made to Iraq in August 2007
Talkback: What visitors see is what the military wants the visitors to see. Nobody goes outside the safest areas of Iraq without military protection and guidance--not even Iraqi journalists. We are totally dependant on the military for virtually all information about how much progress the military is making. September 2, 2007

We can trust General Petraeus.
Talkback: General Petraeus is the father of the surge.   How objective can we expect him to be about his own idea?    September 3, 2007

General Petraeus is not a politician.
Talkback: Really?
He is more political than his press would have us believe. For example, just six weeks before the 2004 election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post in which he claimed that there had been "tangible progress" and that "momentum had gathered in recent months."

You can be sure that the general's piece was vetted at the highest levels, and that it certainly would not have been permitted had Petraeus been critical of the Iraq War. If the general is not political, why did he publish just before a critical election? One other question.   Does the general always see "progress" ? September 3, 2007

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.

Talkback: There’s a qualitative and quantitative difference between being at war and being in a war. A big difference.

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.

If you break it, you own it.
Talkback: This is sometimes true in very little shops, but even in a little shop, if you keep breaking things, you will be asked to leave...and never come back

We need to finish the job.
Talkback: The definition of 'the job' keeps changing.

Talkback: At first the 'job' was to destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

There were none.

Then the 'job' became destroying "evil." But social scientists have long known that this is impossible. If there is no evil, society will create evil.

Americans used terrorist tactics against Castro. So when Condi Rice said, “A terrorist is a terrorist,” what she really meant is a terrorist is bad only if that terrorist is not our terrorist

The war against terrorism has now morphed into a war against radical Islam.

One important "job" that seems to have faded is to establish democracy all over the Middle East. Iraq was to become a model of what could be done all over that part of the world. Let us hope not.

The 'job de jur' now seems to be to enable the puppet government of Iraq to survive.

Who knows how the "job" will be defined tomorrow.