Regressive Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, offered a textbook example of this classic form of faulty reasoning today. According to the NYT, Bohner urged Congress members to sustain the president’s veto of the Democrats war funding bill with the following argument: “Why is winning in Iraq so important?” Mr. Boehner asked. “In my view and others, al Qaeda has made Iraq the central front in their war with us.”
“After this, therefore because of this.” With this kind of ridiculous excuse for reasoning in a person of national importance, is it any wonder that the “Mission Accomplished” Republican Party has led us into an expensive war without end.
The need for a reality-based government grows ever greater.
Please share widely!
1) Has Al Qaeda not chosen to fight us there?
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2) Has there focus of resources there caused them not to fight us here?
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My answer to those two questions is yes. And even if that was the only reason to attack Iraq, that the terrorists would choose to fight us there, it was enough for me.
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I was never one that thought WMD was the only reason to go into Iraq, and I have been consistent from the beginning. Fighting terrorists with a foothold in the Muslim world was always more important in my opinion.
…in the USofA, Christianists have chosen to do so. I’ll merely mention Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh and partners.
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You aren’t safe from the Christianists, Mr (or Ms) EaBo. Not even in the USofA.
There will always be nuts inside this country. But both of those men you mention were individuals not part of a movement hell bent on the destruction of western civilization. You also have no proof that either of them were “Christianists” and not merely nut jobs.
Just to bring up a conspiracy theory that has yet to be disproved(as far as I am aware), Tim McVeigh and partners may have had a connection to al Qaeda.
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There have been stranger bedfellows in the wild and crazy world.
First of all, what proof do you have that al Qaeda is not fighting us here because of our presence in Iraq? Do you have documents of attacks that were cancelled on the US when we invaded in a more convenient location? You are presuming that the only reason al Qaeda hasn’t attack us in the American mainland since 2001 is because we offer softer targets, aka our men and women in uniform, in Iraq.
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We had footholds in the Muslim world…they were called Turkey, Bahrain, and (to some extent) Morocco. The terrorist footholds were Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. We have ceded the first, and never seriously threatened terrorists in the other two. All because we are in a country neither in which neither we nor the terrorists had any strategic interests, Iraq. Iraq of course is only offering up the aforementioned soft targets to glory-seeking terrorist wannabes while the money and idea men remain out of reach because we’re tied down in Baghdad and al-Anbar.
Yes we had a foothold in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia was too strong militarily to attack. Iraq was the weak target and was a perfect place to gain a strong foothold. It also allowed us to have three fronts to attack Iran from if the need arose: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf.
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Attacking Iraq was strategically a good move. Not letting the military conduct the war the way they wanted to was not a good move. That has been corrected with General Petraeus. It is not so much the surge that is working but the change in tactics.
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Before Petraeus US soldiers would venture out of the green zone in Baghdad and knock a few heads around then go back to the green zone at night. Petraeus has them keeping territory. This is working.
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I still believe that when history looks back at this war, it will be viewed in a better light than it is right now. We as a nation have lost our will to fight wars. I believe that will be the end of our civilization. We’ll kumbaya our way into oblivion.
Saudi Arabia was stronger militarily than Iraq? Wha’? The Saudi Arabian military was the American military — to attack them would have required turning our guns around and saying “hands up”. No, EaBo, Saudi Arabia has this country by the cojones thanks to our love affair with foreign oil. Something merely promoted by the Bush clan.
Allows you to have the computer you are typing on, which is encased in petroleum plastic, unless you’ve got some new soya plastic computer that I’m unaware of.
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It allows you to get to and from work (I’m assuming) even if you take public transportation you are using foreign oil.
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It allows you to have fresh milk, unless you get your milk from a local dairy where they use glass milk bottles, but they are run on foreign oil. Or you may be a vegetarian.
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The “environmentalists” of the 1970’s with their shortsighted public smear campaign against nuclear energy which has continued our dependence on foreign oil.
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Yes we are dependent on foreign oil, and yes we should try and wean ourselves off of it. But George Bush and his family are not responsible for our consumption of it, we are: you me and everybody reading this blog.
reminds me of my cat – when he does a dork fall off the couch, he immediately sets to taking a serious bath, as if to say “bathe! bathe! look at me bathe! no, don’t look at the couch! i’m bathing, look!”
and I’m pretty sure that qualifies as an attack.
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No, 9/11 did not justify the invasion. But the invasion happened, and can’t be undone.
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The invasion– or more properly, the incompetent execution of the invasion– has now had the effect of (i) invigorating al Qaueda; (ii) diluting our efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan; (iii) dramatically weakening us militarily; (iii) vastly strengthening Iran; and (iv) sown the seeds for a potential conflagration in the region that ould truly threaten the vital interests of the US in a way that they have not been threatened since the founding of the republic.
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It is a fiasco. Republicans should be forced to lose their long-held credibility on national security matters as a result of their unconditional support for the manifest failure to implement a discernable policy. For supporting nation building, of all things.
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In spite of all this, it is now the central front in the struggle with al Quaida, so what Boehner says is essentially true.
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The Democratic position on what happens after they get their withdrawal is __________________. The Democratic position on how to continue the struggle with al Quaeda is ______________. Maybe they hope everyone will give us a hug if we apologize and pay reparations, and, if we follw the advice of some “progressives,” kick Isreal to the curb.
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The “movement” internet rootsy types argue that the new Congress doesn’t need its own policy; it need only oppose. Opposing in this context really amounts to hoping things get ever worse. To the extent adopted by the actual Congress, this argument demonstrates that Democrats will use our lives and treasure to score cheap political points just as easily as did the Republicans 2001-2006. And these poeple want my support?
Don’t try to turn this into a “Democrats don’t have a policy!” thing. You are also attacking strawmen with your “it need only oppose” comment.
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Anyway, there is certainly an argument to be made that phased withdrawal is not just some pacifistic/moralistic argument, but rather is actually in the best interest of the US. Right now, not only have we lost credibility in much of the world, but it makes our bark much worse than our potential bite. Because we have all of our resources (both physically and politically) tied up in Iraq, we have little we can do to back up threats to other dangerous regimes. Phased withdrawal can, at least over time, help repair the damage in that area by refocusing our resourses to use in a much more sensible manner.
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I have little, if anything, in common with people who oppose war simply for the sake of opposing war. I also have a problem with people suggesting that we have to stay in Iraq simply for the sake of staying in Iraq. Apparently, this is the Republican strategy at this time. Is there another strategy that I am missing?
Yes, the Republican Party has a “plan” for staying in Iraq. It is the plan designed by General Petraeus, who was unanimously confirmed by the Democratic Senate. His plan is to eliminate the enemy from Iraq, hold the positions we occupy, guarantee security for the people of Iraq, boost the training of the Iraqi army and police force, and continue to kill our enemy by the bushel. It is a plan for WINNING, which is a damn lot more than the Defeatocrats can say right now…
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Well, if that’s the plan, it’s failing miserably.
His plan is to eliminate the enemy from Iraq, hold the positions we occupy, guarantee security for the people of Iraq, boost the training of the Iraqi army and police force, and continue to kill our enemy by the bushel.
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How does this plan differ from what we’ve been doing so far (to little avail)?
Actually, it is dramatically different. Under Rumsfeld’s vision for Iraq, we would move into an area, blow up some bad guys, and leave (witness the occupation then evacuation of Fallujah). Although we killed a lot of bad guys, more kept coming, and more importantly, the people in Iraq viewed us as feckless and feared that we wouldn’t hang around. Now, under Petreus’ plan, we are clearning neighborhoods and staying behind. That is why there is the need for the surge, we have always been able to go anywhere and fight anyone in Iraq, but the added troops will help us HOLD more territory.
The benefits from the plan will come when we are able to suffocate the area that AQI and insurgent groups are able to occupy, as well as in the increased flow of intelligence we will see from Iraqi civilians who begin to trust that the US will stay this time, when the bad guys get sent out. It is only a seemingly subtle difference, a change to step one out of a ten-step plan, but every other benchmark in the plan depends on genuine security, and the only way to provide that is to keep us troops in the neighborhood and the US army in Iraq.
That is why the “phased redeployment” plan, or whatever euphamism you wish to use is inherently untenable. If US soldiers are not capable of sweeping neighborhoods and rapidly responding to enemy aggressions, the people will not put their necks on the line to help us out. We can pretend we can redirect our mission to attacking only al-Qaeda operatives, but the reality on the ground is that we would never be able to make that distinction, and would gradually re-cede all the hard won territory back to our enemies. The surge is only a refocusing of our methods, not a wide-spread restructuring of our mission.
If I can think of an analogy, and I apologize for its vulgarity in comparison, but imagine a football team. If your coach wants to run an offensive system relying on nothing but deep passes, and plays a QB with a linguini arm, the system will not succeed. But if they can only make one switch (getting that strong armed quarterback), there is a chance that the offense could work. You only need to change one area of your plan, if that area is the entire foundation for your plan.
Is to make all bad guns in Iraq go away, triple the amount of oil, and give everyone a shiny new car, all by doing the hokey pokey while wearing a funny hat!!!
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True, my “plan” won’t work either…
Is to negotiate an end of the war by enacting an egg and sperm law and protecting marriage, and thereby proving to them that we aren’t the Great Satan, we won’t force them and the rest of the world to get rid of natural conception and marriage and replace them with genetic engineering and individualism. I seriously don’t see how they are ever going to stop fighting us if we keep developing genetic engineering and pursuing eugenics. If they got the news that we stopped gay marriage and cloning and committed to natural conception, they might feel we weren’t so threatening to them, they might feel we’ve cast out Satan and aren’t so bad after all.
First, for shits and giggles, let’s presume what you say is true. Thus we have two alternatives in your world:
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An unspecified policy, or wasting American lives in the crossfire of an Iraqi civil war. Also, an unspecified policy, or aiding al-Qaeda recruitment by playing along with bin Laden’s propoganda of the West as shooting enemies of Islam.
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Which do you prefer? Do you think it possible that the Democrats would perform worse than Bush? Is it even physically possible?
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Second, let’s embrace reality. The Democrats have provided a range of plans for phased redeployment, whether it be John Murtha’s, or the plans of the several Democratic candidates. We cannot stop an Iraqi civil war by brute force, and Bush’s refusal to recognize that fact is a major factor in the failures of the war. What we’re doing now is similar to taking someone to a house, giving him a hammer, telling him to watch us work on the house while holding the hammer, and then wondering why they’re having trouble doing drywall. The civil war is an Iraqi problem that can only be solved by Iraqi dedication, not American blood. If that’s scoring “cheap political points”, then I’m all for running up the score.
You can not say Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, when one of the sides draws so much of its support from foreign elements. A classic civil war pits the ruling government against a rebel government, which is not the case in Iraq. You have a ruling goverment engaged in a struggle with proxy groups that are indiscriminately murdering civilians of every relgious sect and ethnic group. And yes, the Democrats could do FAR worse than the President, they could lose it right when it seems like we have turned the corner…
By the way, it’s April 2007. Check back when you have the updated state-issued talking points.
and guns just lying around when we invaded with too few troops.
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Who needs support?
Let me know when we’ve turned the corner. This time for real, not all the times the President said we did when we didn’t. Any day now I swear — we just need to spill a little more American blood!
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A civil war is a civil war, and very often at least one side has foreign support (Afghanistan, US revolution, DRofCongo to name three).
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And calling the coterie of President Maliki who sits petrified in the green zone behind a screen of bodyguards a “ruling government” makes no sense. They have about as much control of Iraq as the Prime Minister of Taiwan has control of mainland China.
I am not saying that no civil war exists if there is ANY foreign support, only that you have a situation in Iraq where the MAJORITY of the support for one side comes from external forces, thus making it a regional conflict, rather than a domestic civil one. And I do think, sir, that we have turned a corner of sorts, with the beginning stages of the “surge” beginning to reap some increased dividends for US and Iraqi forces. Intelligence collection is up, the enemy is moving out of Baghdad, more and more territory is being taken and held every day, Iraqi’s are slowly but surely turning on the foreign elements in their midst. Look I’m not going to pretend that tomorrow is going to be all sunshine and parades, it isn’t. We are fighting an enemy that will stop at nothing to defeat us, and no matter how many troops we put in, there will continue to be some level of violence, and chaos. The lengths that our enemies are willing to go to in order to foment chaos should illustrate the importance that our enemies place on this battle. I just think it’s foolish to pronounce the surge a failure before the full surge is even finished, let alone before we have a few months, at least, of recollection.
And to belittle the control of the Maliki government sounds petty. Large areas of Iraq are running smoothly with limited interference and respect for a governing authority. Yes, there are some areas that are dangerous, and will continue to be, but the Maliki government deserves respect for their courage and determination, not belittlement and foolish comparisons…
The Democratic position on what happens after they get their withdrawal is __________________. The Democratic position on how to continue the struggle with al Quaeda is ______________.
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Regarding Iraq, I guess the Iraqis will decide “what happens after they (the Democrats) get their withdrawal.” They are doing it anyway, despite the US military’s presence there. Regarding Baghdad, some have noted that recent incidents around the Green Zone have pretty much been for the purpose of isolating the Green Zone from the rest of Baghdad. Isolating the American military from easy access to the rest of the city.
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Regarding the second, there is no evidence that the current Republican US government has any interest in pursuing al Qaida, so why would anyone expect the Democrats to even raise the issue. The sad fact that you have is that terrorist organizations allegedly loosely affiliated with al Qaida (whatever it was to begin with) have metastasized into a number of terrorist cells around the world. Bombings in Spain–alleged to have been carried out by operations affiliated with al Qaida– have been organized out of Morocco. And the Basque region–and the Basque terrorist far predate al Qaida.
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It is a fiasco. Republicans should be forced to lose their long-held credibility on national security matters…
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The Republican “long-held credibility on national security matters” rests on more than a few lies. It began in 1948, when, to counter their irresponsible actions in countering US involvement in WWII, they siezed upon the theme that FDR at Malta gave Stalin the green light to take over Eastern Europe (which it had already done) by the shenanigans of a low-level Dem operative, Alger Hiss. Ridiculous.
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The next year (1949), there was the issue “who lost China”? Well, the Kuomintang (Chiang’s ruling party in China) lost China, not the Dems, because the Kuomintang were incredibly corrupt, and Mao presented virtually the only alternative. Not a particularly nice alternative, but an alternative. But the Reps were quick on the issue of “who lost China,” just as they were on the issue of “who lost Eastern Europe.” Stupid but effective, I guess. If the Reps had not been such obstacles to the US getting into WWII in the 1930s in the first place, maybe things would have been different.
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I could go on through the litany of Vietnam, which Eisenhower got the US involved with following the defeat of the French in its desire to regain its Indochinese colonies after the end of WWII (disastrous effort, no?), but I’ll go up to 1982 (or so) when the Reagan administration, in its infinite lack of wisdom, decided to insert US Marines in the middle of the Lebanese civil war. With the resultant loss of some 281 Marines when one side determined that the US was supporting the other, and blew up their barracks. I don’t know how many other US Marines were injured in the explosion. The Lebanese civil war (Lebanon was a construct artificially created by the French in their mandate–Assyria–following the end of WWI to benefit a Christian minority, by the way) lasted from 1975 to (by some estimates) 1989, or (by other estimates) 1999. I believe it was rather stupid of the Reagan administration to deploy US military in the middle of a civil war in which there was no US national interest involved, and with no clear strategy, for the purpose of–what? Being sitting ducks? Unfortunately, more than a few of the sitting ducks died.
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Of course, shortly after the Beirut explosion Reagan invaded–Grenada. Wow.
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I’ll cut this short. The Republicans have no credibility on national security matters. And they have discovered that the way to maintain power is what Eisenhower warned against–corporate welfare. In his case, the “military-industrial-(congressional*) complex. Republicans learned the art of corporate welfare via the military-industrial complex. And have pounded on that for decades.
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*It has been reported that, that was Eisenhower’s initial formulation, but, for a reason that is unknown, he removed the “congressional” part of it.
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As far as I can tell, Shrub’s interest in getting rid of Saddam is based on the allegations (let’s presume them to be facts) that Saddam tried to kill his daddy in 1993. Shrub complained about that at least twice in public, and he reportedly complained about that more than a few times in private. In other words, his support for his disastrous adventure into Iraq is a private Hatfield/McCoy feud carried out using other people. We know that Shrub is a petulant child–he has shown himself to be that many times–and I have no reason to disbelieve that theory.
Raj,
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How can you say that we should have gotten involved in WWII? Hitler was not an imminent threat, and he didn’t support al-Qaeda, so according to the logic on this site, we never should have gone after him. Why I can just imagine how much happier Europe would be if that evil warmonger FDR (the president, not the guy on this site), allowed the poor German people to experience Hitler’s enlightened rule…
It would have been inevitable that the US would become involved in WWII, not because of Hitler and the European theater, but because of the Pacific theater. The expansionism of the Japanese empire threatened US economic interests. (Hitler, not so much. Read Black’s book about IBM’s business with Nazi Germany.)
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WWII, in the Pacific, began in about 1933, when the Japanese attacked China*. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 in part because of FDR’s “below the radar” attempts to stymie Japanese expansion. FDR was correct to do so, of course, but that’s the reason that Japan attacked PH.
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*It is probably not widely known in the US, but the Japanse “rape of Nanking, China”, the forgotten Holocaust of WWII, happened in Jan-Mar 1938, long before the “official” beginning of WWII in Sept 1939.
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Regarding Europe, the US did not “officially” enter the war in that theater until after Hitler stupidly declared war on the US. He did that, of course, because the US had declared war on his nominal ally Japan several days previously. But, of course, the US had been engaged in an “under the radar” naval war with Germany for several years before that.
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Regarding
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…allowed the poor German people to experience Hitler’s enlightened rule…
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Um, you might be surprised. Except for Jews, homos and other minorities, before Hitler began his disastrously stupid war on Poland in 1939*, apparently more than a few Germans were content (I put it that way intentionally) with the Nazi government. There is an interesting book by a (Jewish!) historian They Thought They Were Free on the subject. The book dates from the mid 1950s, and it is based on interviews with a number of people who were alive in the 1930s. After Hitler invaded Poland, more than a few things changed.
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*Of course, the war in the European theater actually began several years before that. The Nazi war in Europe can be dated from 1936. Not their re-militarization of the Rheinland, but their support for Francisco Franco. The papers here in Germany have all abuzz about the fact that the German Luftwaffe bombed Guernica 70 years ago (the anniversary was a couple of days ago). Horrific pictures.
…How can you say that we should have gotten involved in WWII? Hitler was not an imminent threat…
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Irrespective of my comment above, apparently, you are unaware of the fact that the German Navy long prior to the offician entry of the US into WWII was a “serious impediment” to US shipping on the open seas. That has long been known as a reason to go to war. Succinctly put, there was a naval battle going on, long before the “official entry” of the US into WWII in the European theater. The US could have gone to war against Nazi Germany for that reason alone.
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As an aside, presumably you are not aware of the fact that one reason that Israel went to war against Egypt in 1956 was because Egypt (stupidly) closed off the straits of Hormuz to Israeli shipping. And Israel was perfectly within their rights to do so.
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Causus belli (sp?)–cause of war.
Casus belli, I think but the point stands. Look, I agree with you, WWII was the right fight, we should have got in sooner, and that’s the analogy I make to Iraq. People can say now, with hindsight, that Japan and Germany would not be stopped in their expansionist aims, and I contend that Saddam eventually would have taken the same path, particularly once he acquired a larger arsenal of NBC weapons. And it’s interesting that you brought up casus belli. The cease-fire that ended Gulf War I was predicated on a certain bullet point list of conditions that Saddam would adhere to, and if at any point he violated them, it would serve as a resumption of hostilities. The firing at US planes, the assault on the Marsh Arabs, the development of illicit weapons, the possession of scuds, were all on the list, and any one of them on their own would serve as a casus belli. Saddam was not as big a threat as Hitler and Tojo, I wouldn’t seriously claim that, but he was a threat, and we can pretend all we want that he was really a well-meaning chap, but it just isn’t true!
It will be the Iraqis that decide… (I don’t know how to do the little gray boxes, sorry)
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Seems to me that it will likely be the Iranians and the Saudis that decide the future of Iraq. If we are lucky, that decision will not entail religious and ethnic cleansing on a large scale. If we are really lucky, that decision will not greatly disrupt the global oil market, which could cause serious economic hardship both in the US and elsewhere.
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And, reviewing your response, it seems that your proposal for the aftermath is to hope there isn’t one, which is’nt a measurable improvement over the administration’s policy, which is to hope that things just happen to improve.
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As far as Vietnam, Eisenhower sent advisors, but Kennedy made the call to invest US cold-war credibility, and LBJ that made the call to reinforce failure. The Democrats learned the lesson from this that the military is, at best, a necessary evil, populated by brutes and murderers, which we would do best to shrink and marginalize as much as possible. It was this learning of the wrong lessons from Vietnam, along with getting into Vietnam fiasco as deeply as we did in the first place, that cost the Democrats this issue.
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Your psychoanalysis of why Republicans seized the issue is partisan noise; the issue swung both ways (Kennedy beat up Ike on the “missile gap”) until the Democrats retired from the field. Any party that could tolerate people advocating for unilateral disarmament in the midst of the cold war does not deserve credibility on security issues.
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It seems like it could be 1972 again, with the shoe on the other foot. This time, it is the Republicans that stand to lose their credibility on national security issues, but only if it can be seized by Democrats. It remains to be seen if the party has sufficiently shed its issues with the military and the use thereof (even in circumstances that might make Germany or France mad) for the Democrats to seize it.
…the least you could do is to respond to the comment, or acknowledge that you are making “a few observations.” Little in your comment actually is a response to mine.
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A few observations
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And, reviewing your response, it seems that your proposal for the aftermath is to hope there isn’t one
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Um, of course there will be an aftermath. But it will be up to the various factions in Iraq to determine what the aftermath is. We’ve seen a similar thing happen in another made-up country–Lebanon. That’s why I cite that example. We’re also seeing a similar thing happen in Afghanistan, another country made-up by the Europeans.
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As far as Vietnam, Eisenhower sent advisors…
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Oh, please, give me a break. The “advisors” that Eisenhower sent were combat troops. There were other issues, though, regarding VietNam. They had been promised an election after the French retreat at Dien Ben Phu and the Eisenhower administration (realizing that Ho would win) refused to allow the election to take place.
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One more tid bit. The Americans essentially inherited the Vietnam war in 1963 after they approved the coup against Diem. Bad move.
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Aside from the above,
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Your psychoanalysis of why Republicans seized the issue is partisan noise; the issue swung both ways (Kennedy beat up Ike on the “missile gap”)…
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One of the reasons that I have not pounded on the Democrats here is that nobody has raised the issue of the Democrats and the military here. I have pounded on the issue elsewhere, and am perfectly willing to do so here. You are quite correct that JFK’s “missile gap” was a lie. You would also be correct to acknowledge that Carter got the US involved in Afghanistan in 1978-79, and that Clinton (oh, I hated this) turned Nato from a defensive alliance into an offensive alliance in the Balkans, without Congressional approval. Would you like me to rail more? Democrats are just as stupid about foreign policy as Republicans, but the issue of Republican stupidity was the one that I was responding to because that was the issue that was raised.
…are in Afganistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. Al-Qeada fights the US in Iraq because we convieniently parked 150,000 targets in their back yard with deficient armor and equipment. Not to mention, with the brutality inflicted on the Iraqi people and consider most Iraqis imprisoned by the US are falsely imprisoned (and this isn’t the nice type of Billerica HOC type jails), the negative psychic impact is going to resonate in Iraq’s mind for years.
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The war in Iraq has only made matters worse at a cost of 3,300 needless deaths. Let’s see what the Council on Foreign Affairs says:
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You can’t back up your “we haven’t been attacked since 9/11 because of our occupation of Iraq” correlation. This is pure wishful thinking.
…I’ve heard of the Council on Foreign Relations, but not a Council on Foreign Affairs. (Lhe latter sounds like an international sex-trafficking operation).
Perhaps a freudian slip.
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In my sloppy haste, I meant to point to an article from Foreign Affairs, the Journal of The Council on Foreign Relations.
I will rebuke you here.
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There is no evidence that anything that has happened in Iraq has anything to do with the lack of attacks here since 2002.
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I’m inlcined to believe (i) that on 9/11 al Quaida essentially threw and landed their best punch; and (ii) we have been hugely lucky since then.
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I am not inclined to believe that the Keystone Kops presently running things in Washington could prevent a concerted terrorist attack. They can’t even fire a bunch of lawyers– or send wtare ice and blankets to New Orleans– without stomping all over their own pudenda.
FEMA is not equipped to be a primary response agency. That responsibility lies with State and Local governments. It has been extensively documented that Governor Blanco repeatedly refused national help, not wanting to “lose control” of the operations.
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FEMA’s responsibility is to go in after and provide support.
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The blame lies first with the City of New Orleans and the Government of Louisiana. Then you can attack the feds.
It’s tacked up on the fridge, if you don’t believe me.
“The best Democratic Party activist in 2007 is a committed George W. Bush Republican.” The handwritten post-it stuck to the side says: “Stay strong! Stay in character! Dem victory in 2008!”
Here
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and here
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Oh and here
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And dozens of others. Is that extensive enough. Or would you like me to give you more????
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Oh and who could forget about Ray Nagin’s lack of using the school buses to get folks out of NOLA?
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But all of this was George Bush’s fault right.
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It is not the responsibility of the federal government to protect people from a historical natural disaster, it is the responsibility of the local and state governments to do so and for the federal government to assist. The blame for Katrina lies with Blanco and Nagin, the demonization of Bush notwithstanding.
just because you want something to be one way does not make it so.
here.
I can only assume that you are kidding. By all accounts civilian casualties are up, and anti-American sentiment in Iraq is getting worse among the populace, which is understandable (even if sometimes mis-directed) given the massive stability problems in the country. The “surge” has done nothing so far — nothing — to indicate that it is working to get things better in Iraq.
Not to mention, I can’t find any credible journalist working in Baghdad today that shares your opinions. The only peole who say the surge is orking are administration officials (whose credibilities are suspect, at best) and the right wing water carriers.
Could you respond to EaBo’s post on New Orleans now please?
Those articles come to ambiguous, ‘plenty of blame to around’ conclusions at best.
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Listen, I am in no way trying to exculpate Nagin and Bianco, but let’s be clear: Bush was warned of the posibility of the levees topping (then lied claiming “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees – see the AP link below) stating on on August 28th, the day before landfall to FEMA and local officials:
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Why would he say this if the government was preparing to help?
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FEMA Chief Michael Chertoff assumed control of federal, state, and local operations on August 30, the day after Katrina’s land fall. The federal govenment had ownership of the problem from that day. Who besides the federal government could tackle such a disaster like Katrina? You expect LA, MS, etc to go it alone?
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The people were told day after day after day the Federal Government was coming to help. But they didn’t. FEMA was managed in a disgustingly negligent manner. Bush appointed the hacks Brown and Chertoff. Bush should have been a leader and cut through all the crap. You say, “It is not the responsibility of the federal government to protect people from a historical natural disaster”. Sorry, but it is. FEMA’s own website says:
Wikipedia puts it another way when it says, “FEMA’s purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster which has occurred in the United States and which overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities.”
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AP Video and MSNBC report.
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Watch HBO’s critically aclaimed When the Levees Broke. You’ll see stories like this that are the norm, not the exception:
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Yes, Lee makes the point that Nagin and Bianco deserve some blame, but the failures and missed oppurtunities by the federal government is sickening. We can get the millitary to drop water into tsunami ravaged Asia quicker than NOLA? That should be criminal.
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The ultimate blame lies on the Bush administration because American citizens were in need and the administration had the resources and authority to amiliorate the situation in a manner far more sweeping than was executed. If helping the people brutalized by Katrina isn’t “homeland security”, then homeland security does not and will not ever exist.
You can’t be. Some of your opinions are out there and only make sense on the AM dial, but are you kidding?
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The idea that the Iraqi people would choose a US style democratic government and they ally themselves with the United States who’s aligned with Israel is not going to happen. Nor was it ever going to happen no matter the circumstances. The premise is just stupid to begin with. Are you saying that was your original thought? We were there for one reason and one reason only, WMDs, the rest is BS. When that didn’t pan out the “we were there to free the Iraqi people” crap was being spewed. But what was very clear soon after the actual war ended that they were not interested in being their foothold in the middle east nor did they want the government that we had in mind. Why didn’t we leave then? None of this is new, this have been going on for years now. The fact of the matter is that we are there because Dubya and his crew were either too stupid to understand what was going on or didn’t care. They were in some kind of twisted denial of the facts and couldn’t just walk away.
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So what is it, we’re fighting al Qaeda now? I thought it was the Sunni insurgents, or was it the Shi’a. I get confused since every week I get a different story. You know that the Sunnis are now ready to leave al-Maliki’s cabinet and that might be enough to collapse the government? That the improvement? We’re enabling al-Maliki by being there and backing him up, if he knew that there wasn’t going to be a safety net he would be getting his arse in gear to negotiate with the Sunni’s. You understand that Sunni’s and Shiites are fighting each other, right? Our brave troops are in the middle getting killed by both. But none of that matters to our Commander and Chief.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc unfortunatley is exactly right.
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I think a lot of people let their correctly placed contempt for the Bush administration blind them to the current issue at hand. A withdrawal will likely result in a full scale genocide and a failed government whose vacuum may lead to future national security problems.
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After 9/11 Marty went to Afghanistan in 2002. What did our friend Marty learn? That we were party to blame for 9/11 because we didn’t help Afghanistan enough after the soviets left and allowed the Taliban to take power, giving OBL a training base.
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So which way does Marty want it? He had the opportunity to be consistent but chose not to be with his vote for withdrawal. Man am I glad he’s leaving congress.
I was dead set against the invasion. I view(ed) it as tragic diversion from “the war on terror”.
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…the fact is that Meehan made a point that I’ve been making for years. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan (after the Russians withdrew) left a power vacuum that allowed the Taliban to take over. That is clear.
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Whether or not that would have inexorably allowed ObL to establish a base there is another question. So, give the fact that you have failed, yet again, to cite to sources (i.e., his exact quote), I’ll just leave it be.
I don’t have a way back machine, and or access to lexis nexis.
The was in Iraq may be the biggest mistake ever made in US post WWII foreign policy.
The run up to war by the Bush Administration was bogus at best, a lie at worst. I remmber listening intensely to Colin Powell at the UN justifying the reasons to go to war. I figured he was the “adult” in the Bush Administration. If he believed war was justified it must be.
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Even Colin Powell admits now that he was duped.
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All we had to do was to continue to apply the “no fly zone” over Iraq. Airpower woud contain Iraq while we dealt with the terroists in Afganistan. Saddam had no desire to work with Osama bin Laden, and as it turns out had neither the chemical or nuclear weapons we had feared. Saddam was a paper tiger whom could of been easily contained.
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Then the execution of the war was the second mistake of the Bush Administration. While no one doubted a quick military victory, we were completely unprepared for the war’s aftermath. If we were serious about waging war we should have: 1. had 500,000 troops on the ground in Iraq 2. Re-instituted the draft 3. Shared sacrifice – raise taxes to pay for the war 4. Cut oil dependency
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None of this happened. Bush has tried to fight this war on a credit card.
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What now???? Staying in Iraq is not the answer. Bob is right if we stay Democrats will increase their majorities and win the presidency. We must engage Iran, Saudis’, Syria, Israel in diplomacy to try to get everyone on the same page that terroism is in no one’s interest and work to breaking up these terroist groups. Naive, maybe but this war on the cheap sure has not worked like Bush, Cheney Rumsfeld, et al wanted it to. The World is more dangerous because of their actions.
FDR,
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If only you had the belief in human freedom and the necessity of sacrifice that your handle implies…
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If you believe that Colin Powell was duped, what does that say for the rest of the world, since the Security Council voted 15-0 that Saddam has to disarm himself immediately or face grave consequences. It wasn’t that the rest of the world thought that Saddam was clean, it was that only the US and our noble allies had the stones to act on the information that was available.
To say that “all we had to do was continue to apply the no fly zone” is digusting ignorance of the facts on the ground. The fact was that the no-fly zone only covered approximately half of Iraq’s land area, and left Saddam’s ground forces to run completely rough-shod over the entirety of the country, or have you forgotten the discovery of rape rooms and human shredding machines? Between Saddam’s murderous troops and the living necessities he was diverting from his population, thousands of people were dying every year under his reign, I pray that you don’t think that was a status quo that we could tolerate.
Saddam was not a paper tiger, as you stated. He had already attacked several of his neighbor states, started a war with Iran that resulted in almost a million casulaties, occupied Kuwait, burned oil fields, used chemical weapons against his own people, sanctioned ethnic cleansing against the marsh Arabs, launched missles at an ally of the US, and daily fired missles at our planes patrolling the no-fly zone. This is hardly the actions of a paper-tiger. It is also ironic that you use the same expression as bin Laden uses in referring to the US, an expression that can be proved true if we withdraw from Iraq as you wish.
As for the aftermath of the war, certainly mistakes were made. The great FDR himself made mistakes during World War II that resulted in thousands of Allied casualties. The only difference is that he didn’t face a domestic opposition that provided aid and comfort to his enemies. There were innumerable “experts” on your side of the aisle saying that America must be careful to carry too large a footprint in Iraq, or we would embolden our enemies, who would view our forces as occupiers. Calling for a re-institution of the draft is a similar canard. Perhaps if Clinton did not greatly reduce the military’s budget and shrink the active duty army, we would have had those troop numbers you called for in step 1 of your bold vision. “Shared sacrifice”? To say that we should have raised taxes to pay for the war is ridiculous. You wage war to protect your national security and interests, and do so regardless of your budget. War is NOT a line-item that you budget like Social Security and farm-aid. It is insulting to push your class-warfare rhetoric on a military conflict. And for the last step, cutting oil dependency, it is something we can all agree on, but than again, of course, the Democrats will not allow us to fully explore our domestic oil resources, so this argument too is an empty canard.
“We must engage Iran…Syria…Isreal…in diplomacy”. Are you for real? You seriously think that Admadinejad, who calls for Isreal to be pushed into the sea and openly arms our enemies in Iraq can ever be a good faith negotiating partner? Please god man, don’t be so naive. The regime in Iran wants America to be humiliated and defeated, and every action they take is to further those ends, do not forget that.
“But thanks largely to Washington’s eagerness to go into Iraq rather than concentrate on hunting down al Qaeda’s leaders, the organization now has a solid base of operations in the badlands of Pakistan and an effective franchise in western Iraq.” [source]
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http://www.youtube.c…
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Remember, it was Bush who ignored the advice of his own generals to go into Iraq with a force of +300,000.
I thought libs were saying al-Qaeda isn’t in Iraq, now we find that they have “an effective franchise in western Iraq”. We better withdraw immediately to really show them we mean business.
Also, how were we going to go into Pakistan? Should we have invaded? And don’t you think that if we invaded Pakistan instead, they might have moved to Iraq, or Iran, or back into Afghanistan? We are fighting an intercontinental game of whack-a-mole, and we need to keep whacking until they stop coming back up for more, as well as sealing up as many holes as possible.
…at home is not in Iraq.
Really, you think that the type of people that will get into shooting fights with the US army in the middle of downtown Baghdad are just going to go home if we leave? They are going to watch the last US plane fly over the horizon, turn to each other, and say “Boyo, that was fun, let’s go grab a coffee and go back to Pakistan to live a peaceful life”? Please, the same people that are cutting off the heads of US reporters over there would give anything to have the chance to do it to you and I. By fighting them in Iraq we are both keeping them out of the US, and fighting them in open combat, where we can use our overwhelming military advantage. And I didn’t realize that al-Qaeda had seperate groups, and that the branch that was in Iraq was al-Qaeda local 101, the “Only want to cut off American heads and slaughter innocent civilians in Iraq, but not America, we swear” union. Don’t be so delusional!
is they are all interconnected cells of a network. Think of it as the Amway or Avon of terrorism. All of Al-Qaeda is the one that wants to kill us here. I can’t believe that statement.
Doesn’t mean I can.
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The al-Qeada that poses a threat to the security of the United States homeland is in Pakistan and Afganistan. The al-Qeada in Iraq doesn’t have the means or the organization to strike the US, that is why they kill soldiers. If they could get to America, they’d be here.
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Al-Qeada is flourishing in Iraq because the US destablized the country and Osama wants to keep us in draining war so we don’t pay attention to the real operation. There was no al-Qeada in Iraq until the US decided to go in.
has chosen to fight us there as a part of the same organization. The distinction you claim does not exist. If they weren’t fighting us there, they’d be in afghanistan, the horn of africa, the phillipines, south asia or in the United States. Al Qaeda in Iraq is made up of primarily non-Iraqi fighters.
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Your logic is very, very suspect.
And it is not my logic. I am not saying anything that hasn’t been said by people smarter and more in touch than me; I and other people have backed our argument up with extensive links.
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BTW, al-Qeada is in Afghanistan and those other places. And the idea that Iraq is made up of foreign fighters? Whoever told you that was lying.
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http://www.csmonitor…
http://www.telegraph…
http://www.chicagore…
You are correct in saying most Al-Qaeda members are foreign.
I agree with you on the oil resources. Democrats are wrong to restrict exploration of domestic resources. That is a National Security issue.
FDR,
Thank you for the agreement. I think domestic energy exploration is one area that the two parties can contribute greatly by working in a bipartisan manner. I have said for a while that if we could get drilling in Alaska and increased exploration in the Gulf, and possibly increased nuclear energy capacity, I absolutely think that we should “give” higher CAFE standards, alernative energy research, increased hybridization of vehicles and any other of a reasonable laundry list of “liberal” wants. I think this is a matter of national security, and the debate is too often controlled by the hard-liners in both parties. It won’t happen on this issue, but this is one area where both parties could form an enormous bipartisan consensus, and should do so, for the good of the country…
You may be interested in reading this article, but I get the impression that it will not change anything…
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http://www.guardian….
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If you read down the article, you find that al-Masri entered Iraq in 2002 to establish Al-Qaeda cells.
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As an aside, I think it is ruinous to only focus on al-Qaeda in this struggle. Liberals want to discredit the war effort without appearing to do so by saying we need to focus on the “real enemy” al-Qaeda. The fact is, AQ is one of MANY terror networks that want to kill as many of us Americans (and Europeans, Jews, Buddhists, left-handed people, Yankees fans, Sox Fans…) as possible, and to pretend that they are the only “real enemy” is hopelessly naive. Islamic Jihad was murdering Americans before al-Qaeda was a twinkle in bin Laden’s eyes. In order to effectively prosecute this war, we have to dismantle and demolish as many Islamic Jihadist groups as possible, not just al-Qaeda. They launched the most “successful” attack on America yet, but that does not mean that they are the only ones capable of launching attacks on the magnitude of 9/11. The terror groups (other than al-Qaeda) that Saddam Hussein supported are responsible for the murder of many Americans, as well as countless Isrealis, and regional enemies who would now be allies in the war on Islamic Fundamentalism. To pretend that Saddam was ok, since he didn’t host al-Qaeda at private cocktail parties is wrong-headed, and smacks of a juvenile understanding of the enemy we face.
So al-Masri entered Iraq after the US after the Iraq war rhetoric was in full swing – what does that prove? I’m no expert, but I would guess he was in town to organize anti-American insurgencies after the invasion.
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There have been no evidence linking saddam Hussein to terror and even if there was a justified case to invade Iraq, the Administration has not met it’s burden justifying the invasion. Not once. The lies, the fraudulent NIE, the everchanging mission. It’s like the boy who cried wolf – if the neo-cons ever end up getting one right, thier credibility is shot. They blew it in April 2003.
To say that there is no evidence tying Saddam to terror is IGNORANT of the facts.
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1) From the Clinton’s 1998 indictment of UBL: “Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.” (Page 114.)
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2) According to former high-level CIA counterterrorist Stanley Bedlington, Hussein paired Iraqi intelligence operatives with members of the Arab Liberation Front to execute attacks. “The Iraqis had given them all passports,” he said, “but they were all in numerical sequence.” These tell-tale passport numbers helped friendly governments nab these terror teams. (Page 41.)
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3) In 1992, elements of al Qaeda came to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein,” Abu Aman Amaleeki, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence, said on ABC’s Nightline on September 26, 2002
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4) Former Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) Deputy Director Faruq Hijazi, reports a reliable foreign spy agency, supplied blank Yemeni passports to al Qaeda in 1992.
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5) In an October 27, 2003 memo, Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith explained Hussein’s bonus pay for terrorists: “Iraq increased support to Palestinian groups after major terrorist attacks and…the change in Iraqi relations with al Qaeda after the [1998 east African] embassy bombings followed this pattern.” A top Philippine terrorist also said Iraq’s payments to the al Qaeda-tied Abu Sayyaf grew after successful assaults. (Page 120.)
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6) According to a March 23 ABC News analysis of several records, “an official representative of Saddam Hussein’s government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein.
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7) Follow this link for information pertaining to Iraqi training of the al-Quds terror network; http://www.hartford-…
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To say that there was no ties between Iraq and terror networks is a bald-faced lie. You could argue that those ties were not important or those groups aren’t the real enemy, or whatever straw-man argument you want to use to poke George Bush in the eye, but don’t sit on a burning roof and pretend you can’t smell the smoke…
Do you have any news sources that are from the last 2-3 years and haven’t been debunked?
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http://www.washingto…
http://www.taipeitim…
http://www.npr.org/d…
http://en.wikipedia….
http://en.wikipedia….
http://en.wikipedia….
Interesting in that saying I should use more current information, you reference an article from summer of 04, an article that references that article, a press release from a Democratic Senator’s investigation, and three wikipedia links. I stand by my original contention that Saddam Hussein was providing support for terror networks, ABOVE AND BEYOND al-Qaeda. All of your supporting articles say something to the effect of “claims were exaggerated”, not claims were entirely without basis, which is splitting hairs, but is still an important distinction.
And furthermore, I’m not here as a troll, I’m here because no one at RedMassGroup wants to debate anything…
Again, what the 9/11 Commission said was something to the effect that Saddam and AQ did not have an “operational” relationship, but AL-QAEDA IS ONLY ONE TERROR NETWORK. I am not pretending that Saddam and bin Laden were one and the same, they had their disagreements, but there were signs pointing towards the beginnings of a working relationship. And more importantly, Saddam had innumerable ties to other terror networks, such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbolla, al-Quds and others. All you keep harping on is the Iraqi-AQ relationship, which is not as extensive as once thought, but you completely ignore his undeniable ties to other terror networks with American and allied blood on their hands…
http://thinkprogress…
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The republicans and Mr. Boehner voted to de-fund the troops and order a pull out of Somalia when Clinton was in office. Their first President Bush had put us there.
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Factual debate instead of name calling and talking points would be helpful.
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He was wrong to vote to cut off funding then, but a man can learn from his mistake. It was a terrible tragedy to pull out with our tails between our legs back then, and it would be an even worse tragedy to do so now in Iraq…
If you are going to fight a war you must fight it with adequate resources. I would submit that if you believe the war in Iraq is the proper fight, you must commit adequate resources. The Bush administration has never done this. They want to fight the war on the cheap.
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In WWII we did sacrifice and pay for the war thru bond drives and higher taxes. By not committing the wealth of the nation to the fight you jepordize all other domestic programs long term by starving them. I guess many conservatives would like to see this, we can’t shore up Social Security and Medicare because we have spent a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq.
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But what is the answer? Staying in Iraq with inadequate troops does not appear to be the answer, and I bet more civilians have died since the war began that in the last 5 years of Saddam’s reign. Look, I did enjoy seeing Saddam hang. At least we knew where he was and got him. Can we say the same for bin Laden?
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And what about Iran? Are we better off in attempting to engage in diplomacy? or are we ready to send the National Guard to Tehran?
Again, FDR, bin Laden is one man. Catching him will not end terrorism, or disable al-Qaeda. And additionally, you said we went to war without enough troops to do the job, and now that the President is sending enough troops to finish the job, you want to pull the rug from under his feet and prevent him from doing exactly what you said his should do!!!
And to lump together every civilian killed in Iraq and blame it on America is disgusting. AQI and insurgent groups are responsible for the overwhelming majority of those deaths, and insinuating that America bears responsibility is a disgusting example of moral equivalency.
Al Capone was one man.
Adolf Hitler was one man.
John Dillinger was one man.
Pol Pot was one man.
Josef Stalin was one man.
Slobodan Milsovech was one man.
Sirhan Sirhan was one man.
Nathuram Godse was one man.
Tamerlane was one man.
not a pyramid organization. If you take out one part there are redundancies. Killing Bin-Laden will not stop al-Qaeda.