Which is the one that was found numerous months ago, the one I referenced originally.

I will rephrase the subject then, into whether Tequila has read the original Zarqawi letter, and what he thought then upon it. Rather than the comments concerning how he didn’t read it, that assumption may or may not be correct in this instance.

You’re a bit incoherent in your Vietnam and FDR comments. Try again. Or not.

The only incoherence lies in your delusionary comments that pulling out of Iraq would not produce a massacre. I predict that when the massacre comes, you’ll claim that it was “destined to happen”, just like what people said about the boat people in Vietnam.

How about instead of repeating myself to a brick wall, I just quote the question again and have you answer it?

Why does this sound like Extreme Right Wing dudes like Pat Buchanan and the Republican isolationists during WWII?

Feel free to evade the question again, as you did before.

and I’ll have to read some more and think about that.

Go ahead, we’ll still be here after you’ve rationalized some facts into your world view that Iraq can be abandoned and everyone will be sappy happy in their relief.

Let me remind you that ZERO and 100 are the same number in the spectrum of left and right. The more left you go, the more rightist isolationist you become.

“Have you read Zawahiri’s recent letter?” Well, I read what little there is on VOA, as I said. I’ve now discovered it’s a 6000-word harangue that’s more significant than I thought, and I’ll have to read some more and think about that. If the terrorists start to organize politically, that’s a whole new ballgame. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

tequilamockingbird

tequilamockingbird

Since you agree that the status quo is unacceptable, would you not agree that the U.S. should change its policy? The problem isn’t military; it’s political. U.S. military leaders have acknowledged that they cannot defeat the insurgents militarily, and the insurgents, of course, cannot possibly defeat the U.S. militarily. (How do you define “quagmire”?)

The only hope for success is for the political process to succeed, and I think the U.S. presence is hurting rather than helping. I’ve read opinions from several prominent Arabs that the U.S., driven by the 2006/2008 election imperative, is pushing the process along too fast. And of course, as I maintained earlier, the presence of 150,000 occupying troops is fuelling the recruitment of homegrown Iraqi jihadists.

“Have you read Zawahiri’s recent letter?” I hadn’t until I read your post; now I have, and I’m not quivering in my boots. He’s howling at the moon. Yes, he “urges insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be ready to establish Islamic rule in Iraq once the Americans leave”. (That’s from Voice of America News). That’s a long way from a clear and present threat that a couple of thousand disunited terrorists can take over a country.

“They have no intention of withdrawing from the fight if we do and I’m not as sanguine as you are in thinking that they’ll just evaporate as a threat if we leave”.

You go on to compare the Iraq situation with that in Vietnam. Although I think there are some valid comparisons with Vietnam, I don’t believe the prospect of an Islamofascist holocaust is one of them. There aren’t that many of them, and they are not a unified body with common political goals; they’re terrorists attacking what they hate. Ho Chi Minh was a genuine political leader, on the global scene since the Versailles peace talks after WW I, with millions of committed followers.

No, you’re right, I don’t support Al Qaeda’s goals and desires. One of their goals and desires, however, is that the U.S. occupy the Middle East, giving them a target for their hatred and rage, and helping their recruitment. Do you not think that Osama bin Laden was one of the happiest men on earth the night of “shock and awe”?

U.S. withdrawal doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning innocent Iraquis to their doom. It’s possible (and would be more so under a different U.S. Administration) that with U.S. cooperation, Europe, NATO, and the U.N. could step into the breach. Surely you realize that there are millions around the globe who, though they condemn the U.S. invasion, sympathize with innocent Iraqis.

Here are two excerpts from an article entitled “Looking for the Exit” by Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large at the Washington Times (no, not the Post!).

No. 1:

“The first prominent retired general to break ranks with President Bush’s Iraq war policy was a Republican who once headed the National Security Agency and also served as a deputy national security adviser. Gen. William E. Odom, a fluent Russian speaker who teaches at Georgetown and Yale universities, told the Wall Street Journal’s John Harwood staying the course in Iraq is untenable.

“It was hard to disagree with Gen. Odom’s description of Mr. Bush’s vision of reordering the Middle East by building a democracy in Iraq as a pipedream. His prescription: Remove U.S. forces “from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.”

“Gen. Odom says bluntly, “we have failed,” and “the issue is how high a price we’re going to pay — less by getting out sooner, or more by getting out later.”

“At best, Iraq will emerge from the current geopolitical earthquake as “a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing to fund terrorist organizations,” Gen. Odom explained. If that wasn’t enough to erode support for the war, he added, “The ability of Islamist militants to use Iraq as a beachhead for attacks against American interests elsewhere may increase.”

“Gen. Odom, head of the pro-Republican Hudson Institute, also calls the sum achievement of U.S. occupation of Iraq “the radicalization of Saudi Arabia and probably Egypt, too. And the longer we stay in Iraq, the more isolated America will become.”

“The retired four-star’s proposed solution is for the U.N. and the European allies to take charge of political and security arrangements. This formal request from the U.S., says Gen. Odom, should be accompanied by a unilateral declaration that U.S. forces are leaving even if no one else agrees to come in”.

No. 2:

“Arab opinion has been inflamed to the point where Palestine and Iraq are now two fronts in the war against what Charles de Gaulle used to call “the Anglo-Saxons.” Osama bin Laden is probably thinking he’s some kind of strategic genius.

“In Iraq, quite apart from Fallujah and Najaf, the U.S. occupation, according to the latest Gallup polls, has turned most of the population against America. In Baghdad, only 13 percent now believe the invasion and regime change it accomplished were morally justifiable. Only one-third of Iraqis believe the occupation is doing more good than harm and a majority favor an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal while conceding this could put them in greater danger. Gen. Odom presumably has his finger on the same pulse.”

The article was dated last May. I don’t think things have improved since then.

Okay, I take your point about the invasion in 2003. I ranted a bit, so did you. Now I’ll try to leave behind my arguments against starting the war in the first place and discuss the situation on the ground today, or as you put it, “Argue about the policy, and the wisdom or the lack thereof of the policy”.

Thank you for your suggestions about widening my horizons — always a good idea. You might be surprised, though, at the amount of time I spend at the Drudge Report reading conservative columnists — serious writers as well as amusing wackos like Ann Coulter and the Limbaugh twins. The Neo-neocon site isn’t a hotbed of pinko lefty faggots, either. And the farthest left I get in my reading is CNN and the WP and the NYT. No wingnut leftist sites.

I hope that you’ll accept that I, too, hope for the best for the Iraqi people now that they’re out from under Saddam’s tyranny.

tequilamockingbird

You’re right about that. It is unacceptable. But the solution is not to make it incomparably worse, it’s to make it incomparably better (or at least significantly better). You don’t win any battles by running away. And although I agree that your point that an American withdrawal would change the dynamic in significant ways, and in certain ways make things easier, on balance I see it at this point in time as a huge negative.

You can argue all you want whether there were terrorists in Iraq in March 2003 – or al-Qaedists if you prefer (sidestepping the discussion of what a terrorist is). But the fact is they are there now. They are fighting to gain control of a rich, powerful country in the heart of the Middle East. It is a reality that has to be dealt with.

A point I meant to note from your previous message was the one regarding stepping back and letting the Iraqis fight it out. I might agree with that, as harsh as it sounds, if that actually described the situation. But it doesn’t. It’s not simply a fight between Iraqis for the future of Iraq any more. There are many more players involved and many bigger, longer term issues have come into play. You close your eyes to those facts at your peril, my peril, and the peril of millions of other people. It’s not 2003 any more. Sorry.

Have you read Zawahiri’s recent letter? They have no intention of withdrawing from the fight if we do and I’m not as sanguine as you are in thinking that they’ll just evaporate as a threat if we leave. Reading Zawahiri’s letter you can see him positively drooling at the prospect that the US will pull another Vietnam and withdraw precipitously, leaving everyone who trusted us in the lurch and subject to being killed or “re-educated” ala the South Vietnamese. Isn’t the burden of having one of those incidents on your conscience enough?

“You’ve really lost it with your next offering. Would I prefer that Al Qaeda et al took over Iraq, and then the world, than that I didn’t? Take a deep breath and get a grip.”

I haven’t lost it and without having met you I have to assume you are sane and reasonable for the most part (as we all are). So I therefore assume you don’t support Al Qaeda’s goals and desires. That’s why it very much puzzles me that you would advocate any course of action that would play so obviously into their hands and give them a free pass that they otherwise would have to earn. “Here,” you’re saying, “you can’t beat us, so we’ll just give you a victory for free.” Why?

I think the answer is probably that you’ve bought into a one-dimensional view of the situation in Iraq. I’m sorry but your illegal, immoral, profit-motivated argument is just repetitive and tiresome. There’s nothing immoral about freeing people from forty years of dictatorship and trying to give them the space to develop a representative form of government. You and others have had two years to make that argument and it still hasn’t been made. Or the only way it can be made is to pretend that it was moral to look the other way when Saddam was gassing the Kurds, draining the marshes, massacring the Shiites and generally ignoring every human rights principle in the world without penalty. I think the rest of that argument is equally meaningless (and disingenuous) piffle. Argue about the policy, and the wisdom or the lack thereof of the policy, and leave the Halliburton conspiracy-theorizing to someone who truly is insane.

Iraq is a large, complex, dynamic place with many different groups and interests. One-size-fits-all analysis of what “the Iraqis” want is more or less meaningless. Getting a handle on that from the very narrow newspaper reporting that exists is next to impossible. Adding Iraqi bloggers to your reading list helps. Talking to soldiers who have been there or are there helps. Listening to the Kurdish president share his thoughts helps. Reading the Iraqi press and Iraqi polling helps. But the only thing that will tell you what the Iraqi people really want are elections, where everyone has a say. That’s what elections are for, making sure everyone is heard. Anything less, especially basing your idea on what the Iraqi people want by who makes the loudest noise, is guaranteed not to be representative.

The Iraqi people, through many sacrifices (both ours and theirs), are bravely going forward along the road to representative government and elections. There are no guarantees that it will be a sure-fire succes but as long as they are on that path, and sincerely so, I think we should support them. It’s the best hope for the future and beats any conceivable alternative, certainly the Al Qaeda one, the civil war one, the return to dictatorship one, etc. Why we would disrupt the situation and pull the rug out from under them at this crucial juncture I can’t even conceive. It would benefit no one except the forces of illiberal un-democracy. Don’t forget that for every one person setting off a bomb there are a hundred members of the silent majority (teachers, shopkeepers, architects, doctors, computer technicians, salesmen, farmers, trade unionists, Christians), who simply want a peaceful society and a say in how it’s governed. I stand with them.

(I’m not worried about hijacking the thread any more. We surely the only ones left. Assuming you make it back to read this.)

That Iraqis should work out their own political destiny, and withdrawing from a wrong-headed war is Extreme Right Wing? Should I classify myself as a 95?

You’re a bit incoherent in your Vietnam and FDR comments. Try again. Or not.

tequilamockingbird

You maintain that “if we withdraw we risk turning over the country to” the bad guys, and “Zarqawi and his ilk” have declared war on the Shiites and the Iraqui people will suffer.

I don’t think that will happen at all. The presence of occupying Western troops is hugely inflammatory, and withdrawing would probably cool things down a great deal. As others have pointed out, there doesn’t seem to be much Iraqi support for the jihadists; with Western troops and that source of hatred gone, the homegrown jihadists would be pacified and the huge majority of Iraquis could deal with Zarqawi and his few thousand foreign fighters. Since the status quo in Iraq is so obviously unacceptable, more and more Republicans, not only Democrats, are leaning toward this solution.

The nightmare situation you posit — Al Qaeda types taking over the country is, I believe, a flat-out impossibility not worth discussing, and yet you accuse me of advocating such a position and question my sanity. Anyone who did should indeed have their sanity questioned; I didn’t, and I don’t.

The lives of the servicemen: That’s a tragedy. The tragedy is that they followed Bush into this needless, immoral, illegal war being waged for personal, ideological, and financial reasons. The fewer that die, the better. (Pat Tillman, a heroic and tragic figure and a great man, enlisted to fight in Afghanistan; he was opposed to the invasion of Iraq).

You’ve really lost it with your next offering. Would I prefer that Al Qaeda et al took over Iraq, and then the world, than that I didn’t? Take a deep breath and get a grip.

Moving on: Yes, although Bush tries to draw bogus similarities between the war in Iraq and WW II, I do see some similarities between the struggle against — what? Shall we classify it as Islamofascism? — and the Cold War. And it will likely last for decades.

I think “War on Terror” is a pretty dumb phrase, and while others in the Administration have tried to change the rhetoric by characterizing it differently, Bush won’t give up his mantle as “War President.” But call it what you want, I think it has to be done.

That’s not the same as the war in Iraq! There were no terrorists in Iraq! Think Afghanistan. It was justified, it was supported by the world and the U.N., and NATO troops are still there today. No problem! Well done, guys! If only the U.S. didn’t have to spend $5 billion a month in Iraq, it could be fighting the “WOT” far more effectively worldwide.

Thanks for your comment on my referendum hopes. I do NOT hope for a bad outcome in Iraq; I just don’t see the possibility of a good one following present U.S. policy.

(I’m not that interested in the Miers nomination either, and I, too, feel strongly about our present topic. I’m more to blame than others for “hijacking” this thread. Sorry.)

tequilamockingbird

“Declare victory and withdraw” seems a bit cynical, but in withdrawing from a disastrous war that will forever poison Bush’s legacy, it’s the best option. Do no more harm.

Why does this sound like Extreme Right Wing dudes like Pat Buchanan and the Republican isolationists during WWII?

And TBird claims to be “30″ on a 1-100 scale of liberal to conservative. Funny, heh?

How about that “Declare victory and withdraw” crap, as well? Sounds a lot like what happened after Vietnam.

Everyone said “never you mind” the massacres, it was inevitable.

Self-fullfilling prophecy. Neo-Neocon has herself written the psychological aspects and causality problems of Vietnam.

Trying to espouse the same tactics for Iraq… is old as Mesopotamia itself.

Perhaps a bit of an understatement? I don’t think it’s a matter of a better sales job. Roll out a whole new product.
That’s like saying to FDR, roll out a whole new product rather than propagandizing the effects of US casualties. And I guess we did, in the form of an atomic bomb. I’m always for nuking people we don’t like, anyways.

About that commentator that said Bush is not a good salesman because the media controls the gateway of information. That’s not exactly true. Bush isn’t a Reagan Republican or an Arnold Schwarzenegger Republican, meaning he didn’t grow up in Hollywood learning how to manipulate cameras and people.

Because he didn’t grow up to be like that, he is not very charismatic on camera. Bush has charisma, but it’s the Johnson in your face charisma, not the Kennedy/Reagan/Arnold charisma on camera.

The problem is that the Army in Iraq is not using the information they acquire in an effective way. Take the Zarqawi letter. They did not allow Michael Yon to write anything about it. Instead, they released their own “press release” to CNN, and CNN broke the story… as a blip on the radar meaning nothing.

That’s being limited by the media? I don’t think so, that’s being limited by the Army’s stupidity by not releasing the information as a PRESIDENTIAL PRESS CALL.

When I heard about the letter, it was only on blogs. And when I read, I was amazed, so amazed I wondered if it was a forgery, but it wasn’t. Then I wondered why the hell wasn’t this touted by the administration 24/7.

And the answer is?

Cause they’re too incompetent at propaganda to know a victory from a defeat, that’s what.

Sad.