How is it, exactly, that we're supposed to prevail over a five year timeline if the Reserve and Guard components of the Army "melt-down" over the next 36 months?
I think Ambien came around at just the right time. It's the only explanation for how these people sleep it night. Or, maybe associative breeding among Republicans and the pundit class has given rise to a subspecies of human which lacks empathy.
They had some agenda for reviving this, and they figured they could do so by screaming ATTA! ATTA! despite the fact that they'd never bothered to tell anyone they'd identified him before. Now, it looks like they didn't.
As Yglesias points out, conventional wisdom of "liberal hawks" and "liberal not hawks" regarding Iraq is basically about the same. We need to get out. The latter emphasize the importance of "getting out now" while the former epmhasize "getting out as soon as we can subject to things being better in some undefined way," but the positions aren't really so different. The "hawks" are just more wedded to the idea that we have to be able to "declare victory" while the "not hawks" think that little chest beating is not actually all that important.
But, none of these people are George W. Bush. As we know, but no one talks about, we have no intention of getting out now or ever. If the "liberal hawks" or the "maverick conservatives" or whoever actually wanted to have a bigger impact on actual Iraq policies, they'd spend more time focusing on pressure points that could actually achieve some change - you know, the Republicans and George Bush - rather than certain overweight filmmakers and cootie-infested liberal groups and the horrible evil party "base" and "grass roots" who should just STFU.
It's time for the Biden Democrats, in one of the infinite Sunday show appearances, to raise the issue of the administration's long term intentions in Iraq. If the stubborn George W. Bush intends to leave troops in that country forever, then no talk of getting out, either on a rigid or flexible timetable, is any relevant.
Sadly, it's only the ones who advocated this clusterfuck who are given any credibility by our media. It'd be nice if they used that credibility and the platform it offers to actually try to achieve something instead of just using it to position themselves as the guys with the biggest balls on the block.
I have continued the column's focus on this unnecessary and calamitous war and will be doing so as the column appears elsewhere. My principal regret in leaving this space in The Sun is that my readers in Baltimore will no longer read my views on what I consider the most critical crisis facing this country for the foreseeable future.
This is certainly true. We're all guilty of seeing this too much through the lense of politics. Certainly politics matters, it's how things actually get done. But sometimes it means losing sight of the reality - that Iraq is indeed "the most critical crisis facing this country for the forseeable future." We need competent people to figure out how to extract ourselves from that mess. If we don't have them, we're fucked.
Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, acknowledged the U.S. military presence was becoming harder and harder to justify. He believes Iraq faces a serious danger of civil war that would threaten Middle East stability, and said there is little Washington can do to avert this.
"We are seen as occupiers, we are targets. We have got to get out. I don't think we can sustain our current policy, nor do I think we should," he said at one stop.
Though, as is general the case when the moderates and mavericks stick their heads up for a bit he'll probably not take any constructive steps.
Such is the hatred of the far right at the dawn of the 21st Century. And my how the optical worm has turned. Today it is the left invoking faith, flag and family, while the right destroys crosses. Today it is the left that honors the war dead, raises up a Gold Star Mother and publicly prays for our troops, while the right viciously attacks a woman who gave her country everything. Today it is the left that patiently and peacefully respects the Office of the Presidency, while the right diminishes the office by claiming it's more important for the President to go bike-riding with a sports hero than comfort the mother of a war hero.
For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate's deceitful draft-dodging.
On Thursday, Dick Cheney, who said he had "other priorities" in the Vietnam era, and so helped himself to five draft deferments, will address the 73rd Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. I do not think he will express remorse for the callousness with which he explained his cowardice. Nor do I expect him to apologize for the shocking, mocking Republicans who, at their New York Convention a year ago, sported Band-Aids with tiny purple hearts to mock the blood shed by John Kerry and so many other heroes in that misbegotten war.
No, Mr. Cheney, surrounded by body guards who would gladly give their life for him, will no doubt wrap himself in the flag. A flag Larry Chad Northern wrapped around his axle on Prairie Chapel Road.
Former Marine Carl Basham remembers his two tours in Iraq like yesterday.
"Three mortars every single night that were landing within a couple feet of your living area. Pretty scary," he said.
Basham, now home with his parents, wants to start a new life with a quality education.
When he enrolled at Austin's Community College to become a paramedic, they told him he'd have to pay out-of-state tuition, because of his time in the military.
MATTHEWS: Let me go, Paul, before you start. What I keep doing here is asking people on and off camera who come on this program, high-ranking officers, enlisted, former officers. I get sometimes, not all the time, two different versions, the version they give me on the air and the version they give me the minute when we‘re off the air.
The version they give me when we‘re on the air is gung-ho, we‘re doing the right thing, everything is moving along. The version they give me off the air is, Rumsfeld is crazy. There aren‘t enough troops over there. We‘re not taking this seriously enough, or, we shouldn‘t be there, sometimes.
Clearly, we need a conference on blogger ethics to sort this out.
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