Senate OKs Iraq Pullout bill by 51-46

[Stranger in a strange land]

The veto from Bush will be an important step in showing the American people that Bush is unwilling to change course without "extreme" actions from Congress.

Um...one second, friend. Bush is the President of the United States...it's his job to decide when we change course. Again...why does this congress think they are Commander in Chief?

Congress does approve the funding for such an effort - Bush needs to justify "the mission" to Congress to get the funding. That is the way our government works. Bush is a President, not a king. He certainly has the right to veto a bill Congress sends - just as Congress has a right not to send a bill funding the war at all. It's as simple as that. Checks and balances at work. It isn't a matter of Congress thinking they are Commander and Chief, it's a matter of Congress thinking it is their constitutional duty to to approve or disapprove of the use of tax dollars. At the end of the day - if Bush wants the money, Congress is going to have to approve of that use of the money. Does that make to sense to you?

Young folks that post here - that didn't follow politics before Bush took office - don't have a really clear picture of how checks and balances work or what our government is like when it is divided (which is normally the case) - you guys are currently getting a clearer picture painted for you.

Do you want to lose in Iraq?

Go back and read everthing I posted in this thread. I've explained in some detail what the shift is that we need to make in order not to lose and why staying on the current course Bush has laid out leads no where except failure. So to answer your question - no. But it sure seems to me that folks that support the Bush pipe dream of establishing a democracy in Iraq do want to lose. Do you want to lose?

No, but we start leaving...we aren't winning...we are losing. So, if we lose...who wins? When democrats cut off funding, who are they helping? Not the U.S. or the military. The terrorists are probably hoping for a democrat win in 2008 because it may be the final destruction of the United States.

the final destruction of the United States will come about if our glorious leader succeeds in getting us stuck in another useless unwinnable war.

[Reaganfan]

Mike, you need to start by reading what I've already said in this thread. I don't support us leaving, just a shift in our goal away from establishing a democracy. Just because I understand the base line of the strategy the Democrats are using doesn't mean I support it - again, I've laid out in some detail what I support in this thread if you want to talk about it (but I'm not going to retype pages or quote myself endlessly). I think the base line Democrat position and the Bush position both lead to failure, and support for either of those positions equates to supporting failure. And Mike - if you want to talk to me, please leave out the "what the terrorists want" stuff. I'll grow bored with you very quickly if you do that - and it will not be much of a discussion at that point.

I was talking with a democrat friend of mine last night about Iraq, and the conclusion we both came to is that it's a complicated ing thing. If we pull out, we lose and Iraq goes into chaos even worse than now. If we don't change strategy, things will remain status quo. If we add troops...as we are in the process of doing...violence could go down. Infact, it has since January...albeit things are still dangerous. The bottom line is, this is a long term thing. We still have troops in Korea, but nobody cares because there is no violence. If we can get violence down, it's irrelevent how long we stay to help them build a government.

[nlm]

Mike, you need to start by reading what I've already said in this thread. I don't support us leaving, just a shift in our goal away from establishing a democracy. Just because I understand the base line of the strategy the Democrats are using doesn't mean I support it - again, I've laid out in some detail what I support in this thread if you want to talk about it (but I'm not going to retype pages or quote myself endlessly). I think the base line Democrat position and the Bush position both lead to failure, and support for either of those positions equates to supporting failure. And Mike - if you want to talk to me, please leave out the "what the terrorists want" stuff. I'll grow bored with you very quickly if you do that - and it will not be much of a discussion at that point.

I was talking with a democrat friend of mine last night about Iraq, and the conclusion we both came to is that it's a complicated ing thing. If we pull out, we lose and Iraq goes into chaos even worse than now. If we don't change strategy, things will remain status quo. If we add troops...as we are in the process of doing...violence could go down. Infact, it has since January...albeit things are still dangerous. The bottom line is, this is a long term thing. We still have troops in Korea, but nobody cares because there is no violence. If we can get violence down, it's irrelevent how long we stay to help them build a government.

You are correct sir. It is complex and the American people will not care if our troops are there if the violence is low (and the dollars spent are faily low as well). The question is - how do we get there before the American people run out of patience? Democracy is too messing a thing to install in the near term in a country that is split the way Iraq is. The choices being made (and that will be made in the near term) by the Iraqi government are not about Iraq - they are about the various factions. The only way that is going to change is to minimze the importance of the various factions and maximize the decision making power of a centralized entity that is free to worry about Iraq as a whole. It also makes the job of the US forces somewhat easier and more focused and allows for the central government to deal with issues like the various militias head on - as opposed to having a parliament that wants to dance around the issue. It also leaves the US commanders on the ground dealing with a single point of responsibility, simplifies our dealing with their government and allows us to only have to appease a single centralized entity as opposed to the various members of parliament scattered around the region representing different interests.

If we give up on the "democracy in Iraq pipe dream" the entire equation of what we are doing and how we go about doing it will shift. It also would shift what the goals of the various miltia would be once their poltical power had been removed and how they operate and who they attack.

Granted - if the American people are willing to suck it up for a few decades (or how ever long it takes for the various factions to come together and stop killing each other - certainly not anytime in the near future) and pump tens of trillions of dollars into it - we can create a democracy in Iraq. I think it is more than a little unrealistic to believe that they will suck it up for that long, and plans that don't account for that are not going to work - and are thus a waste. I also don't think a democracy in Iraq serves our purposes as well as some other forms of government do - so why go through all that pain and loss for something that doesn't work as well for us? that answer seems obvious to me. Time to dump the idea of a democracy in Iraq - at least for now.

That doesn't mean that I think going a different route than Bush will make it easy - what I'm talking about will still be very hard. But it will be achievable and has a far greater chance of showing results in the near term. The problem being that at the very beginning it would exceptionally bloody - so if we wait to long - it will not really matter.

[Tender Branson]

An update on how well the "Global War on Terrorism" is going:

* Terrorist Attacks Increased, Became More Lethal Last Year

"WASHINGTON -- Terrorist attacks world-wide shot up by 25% between 2005 and last year, killing 40% more people as extremists used increasingly lethal means to carry out high casualty hits, the State Department says.

In its annual global survey of terrorism to be released later Monday, the department says about 14,000 attacks took place in 2006, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming more than 20,000 lives. That is 3,000 more attacks than in 2005 and 5,800 more deaths, it says.

In addition, the number of injuries from terrorist attacks rose by 54% between 2005 and 2006 with a doubling in the number wounded in Iraq over the period, according to the department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2006."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117794900004087100.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

* Nearly 100 killed or found dead in Iraq today

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Dozens of civilians have been killed in attacks throughout Iraq today.

The deadliest was a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral in Diyala , a volatile Shiite area north of Baghdad. The bomber detonated the explosives inside a tent filled with mourners. At least 32 were killed and about 60 wounded.

http://www.wlos.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/3327c0ac-www.wlos.com.shtml

* April deadliest month for US troops

The death toll for US forces continues to climb in Iraq. A series of deadly attacks pushed the number of troops killed to a new high for 2007.

It comes as Congress and President Bush try to find a way to break their political stalemate over the future of the war effort.

Four soldiers and a marine died in Baghdad over the weekend. Three of them killed in a single roadside bombing. 104 US troops have died in Iraq since April 1st.

http://www.wcsc.com/news/state/7255856.html

[London Man]

Your attitude's changed, which is a good thing.

Wouldn't a form of consociational democracy work in Iraq? It's worked elsewhere.

[nlm]

Your attitude's changed, which is a good thing.

Wouldn't a form of consociational democracy work in Iraq? It's worked elsewhere.

You are mistaking a different voice used to address young people with an attitude change. My patience for people that should know better is still very limited. (my apologies to you if you are a young person - I assumed you were not, which can easily be a mistake - plus I had already locked horns with MODU, who is not a young person, when you stepped in).

Any form of democracy could work in the long term.

The problem with a consociational democracy is the near term and the fact that time is running out on the American peoples patience for a war that has been botched since before day one. A consociational democracy is one of the more decentralized and federal forms of democracy - in the long term it would be great for Iraq. But given the reality on the ground there, any decentralized form of government isn't going to be able to provide the basic services and security required to stabalize the country and reduce the violence in the next few years.

You can argue that it will be worth it to set up a consociational democracy in Iraq over the course of the long term - I'm sure a great case can be made for it. But that doesn't matter. Years more of sustained violence are not going to be sucked up by the American people. We pulled the trigger on setting up a democracy in Iraq too quickly. But we can take a step back away from it without blocking the return to that path.

[London Man]

I am in fact a young person. I won't say how old I am, but I'm younger than 30. I accept your apology.

You make a valid point. But I can't support establishing an authoritarian state or undoing the will of the Iraqi people.

I admit the war was botched.

[nlm]

I am in fact a young person. I won't say how old I am, but I'm younger than 30. I accept your apology.

You make a valid point. But I can't support establishing an authoritarian state or undoing the will of the Iraqi people.

I admit the war was botched.

Then I regret treating you harshly.

But, my point still stands. If you don't support a change in course, while understanding that not changing the course will result in a complete loss of backing from the American people and thus the present course - then you are really just supporting failure in the entire region and doing so for purely ideological reasons. We need to get practical. The President coming on TV, like he did last night, and saying we are making progress - which he has been saying every couple of months for the last four years - isn't working any more in terms of getting him backing from the people. Most folks are clued in to the fact that case made for the war was quite a bit less than accurate - quite a few feel betrayed. The words of quite a few people in the administration are coming home to rooste - and words alone are not going to extend the Americans peoples patience any longer. There has to be actual results.

You may not like the idea of giving up on a democracy in Iraq - that's OK. In a perfect world I'd support democracy in Iraq as well. It's time to get practical - pretending the world is a perfect place is the same as sticking your head in the sand. For the Bush administration, sticking their heads in the sand is getting our young people killed for nothing and our tax dollars spent on nothing. What's coming down the pike if some results are not achieved in Iraq is pretty obvious, it pains me to watch people ignore that - because that means our troops are being sent to die with no justification what so ever.