Posts filed under 'War in Iraq'
August 25th, 2008
There was a time when President Bush and his ilk considered it almost treasonous for those lily-livered Democrats to push for any “fixed date” for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
But that was then. This is now.
Oh, sure, Bush and Co. are pretending that their new withdrawal agreement with the Iraqi government is some kind of “aspirational” something or other. Yeah, right.
Aspirational, my aspirational! It’s a fixed date, as we see HERE.
Sounds pretty treasonous to me. Sounds like cut and run. Sounds like surrender.
August 8th, 2008
Paul Krugman scores a two-fer HERE — one on energy policy and one on the war in Iraq.
July 31st, 2008
Steve Schmidt (above), a protege of the infamous Karl Rove, is NOW IN CHARGE of the garbage-slinging detail at John McCain’s campaign. Consequently, we’ve begun to see such irrelevancies as comparisons of Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
I doubt, however, that Schmidt & Co. are going to have as much success this time around as they previously did selling George W. Bush and his ill-advised war to an unsuspecting nation.
Americans aren’t that stupid. They’re not likely to buy more stuff from an outfit that already has peddled them shoddy goods under false pretenses.
UPDATE: According to THIS PIECE: “For McCain, the new and sharply negative tone toward Obama could damage the Republican’s image as a maverick who rejects the attack-dog politics of traditional Washington.”
UPDATE II: McCain’s handlers have trouble keeping him “on message,” as he sometimes WANDERS OFF into contradictory ramblings.
July 29th, 2008
Juan Cole SUGGESTS that people who deem the surge in Iraq to have been successful might have fallen for a logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc: If event X comes after event Y, it is natural to suspect that Y caused X.
It’s like saying that once the baseball season starts, drownings increase. Therefore, baseball causes drownings.
July 23rd, 2008
Lots of folks in the hinterlands who don’t actually read The Washington Post think of the paper as part of the liberal conspiracy to lead America to disgrace and defeat in Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth.
No, wait! Actually, some of the Post’s hawkish editorials on Iraq have have even less kinship with the truth, as we see HERE.
UPDATE: Steve Benen ably DECONSTRUCTS today’s editorial in the Post.
July 22nd, 2008
UPDATE: In addition to the misstatements by John McCain that are the focus of the post below, he also made a first-class gaffe that is creating quite a stir tonight.
The problem is that McCain, during an interview with Katie Couric on CBS, DISPLAYED an astonishing misunderstanding of the sequence of events in Iraq with respect to the recent Surge and the so-called Anbar Awakening.
McCain says the Surge begat the Awakening. In reality, the Awakening predated the Surge.
We’re likely to hear lots more about this over the next few days.
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John McCain, having found himself boxed in by the rush of recent events and the inconsistency of his past rhetoric, is wildly flailing about, leveling scurrilous and patently false charges against Barack Obama.
Today, McCain said Obama wants America to lose the war in Iraq, which amounts to saying that the many troops and veterans who support Obama are either stupid or also want to lose the war.
Some vets are FIGHTING BACK against such slanderous crap.
McCain also said today that Obama has done ”a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed” by denying the valor and success of their efforts in the field.
That is patently false. As we see HERE, Obama has repeatedly hailed the efforts of the troops and has praised them at virtually every turn.
McCain, whose own honorable service in the military is acknowledged by virtually all Americans, is dishonoring himself by impugning the patriotism of his rival for the presidency and, by implication, the supporters of that rival.
July 21st, 2008
As the Bush administration relents on a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki expresses favor for Barack Obama’s plan for withdrawal, John McCain FINDS HIMSELF in a box.
POSTSCRIPT: Efforts to cast al-Maliki’s embrace of Obama’s plan as misunderstood or mistranslated have pretty much COME TO NAUGHT.
July 20th, 2008
George W. Bush and his good buddy John McCain have said on several occasions that American troops should remain in Iraq only so long as they are welcome by that country’s democratically elected government.
Hewing to that promise, at least in outward appearances, hasn’t been easy of late. Any conspicuous signs from the Iraqis that they want the Americans out have had to be tamped down.
Take, for example, the little drama that played out yesterday:
The German magazine Der Spiegel published an interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in which he was said to have endorsed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from his country within 16 months.
The magazine also quoted al-Maliki as saying that keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for any prolonged period, as McCain has suggested, “would cause problems.”
The prime minister added this: “So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn’t the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory.”
All of this created quite a stir in American political circles. As soon as Reuters moved the story on its wire, the White House apparently went into panic mode and accidentally dispatched it to all the reporters on its distribution list.
And before long, al-Maliki seemed to have found a horse’s head in his bed, courtesy of the folks who want to keep American troops in his country as long they would like, no matter what he or the Iraqi people would prefer. The offer of these troops apparently is one that the prime minister, as Vito Corleone might say, can’t refuse.
Accordingly, a spokesman for al-Maliki wasted no time in telling the world that the prime minister somehow was misunderstood by the German magazine. His words somehow were mistranslated.
Yeah, sure they were.
A pretty good account of this episode can be found on THIS Fox News blog, of all places.
UPDATE: HERE’s another interesting take.
UPDATE II: And ANOTHER (this one disputes the claim that al-Maliki was misquoted).
July 19th, 2008
(NOTE: Don’t miss the updates at the bottom of this brilliant satire.)
Only our Dear Leader could show us the rhetorical error of Barack Obama’s ways.
Obama, a man of dubious loyalties, has long favored a “timeline” for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But that would be folly, Dear Leader has warned. That would send a signal to the terrorists that we’re leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. That would be bad.
Instead, Dear Leader has come up with the IDEA of a “general time horizon” for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Those words, of course, will cleverly confuse the terrorists, who are not familiar with Dear Leader’s mysterious linguisticismizings.
So brilliant is Dear Leader’s plan for a general time horizon that even the ordinarily intransigent Obama has conceded that it’s “a step in the right direction.”
But, you ask, what is the reaction of John McCain, the would-be successor to Dear Leader? Well, McCain, the poor sap, characteristically has come up with a pathetic ALTERNATIVE name for the plan. He calls it a “conditions-based withdrawal.” Lord, help us! Even the terrorists likely will cringe at the lack of poetry in that phrase.
General time horizon! It’s a term that will take its place in history alongside the other great generals — Washington, Grant, Eisenhower, Motors, Mills, Electric.
All hail Dear Leader!
UPDATE: Uh-oh! The prime minister of Iraq SAYS he prefers Obama’s plan for withdrawal of troops, and he adds that McCain’s plan for “prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems.”
UPDATE II: Send in the clowns! It says HERE that “The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined ‘Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine.’”
UPDATE III: Ezra Klein SAYS Obama would lose the election if the Iraqi PM had dissed Obama’s plan and endorsed McCain.
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