Arianna Huffington: The Democrats Blow It On Iraq… Again!

With Plamegate dominating the day, the table is set for the Democratic Party to seize the moment. The scandal has reignited a national debate about the White House lies and deceptions that led us to war in
Iraq, public support for the president’s handling of the war has hit an all-time low, and the 2,000th soldier killed in action has put the human cost of the war back on page one.

snip


Hillary Clinton refused to even address the question, telling reporter David Welna, “I really can’t talk about this on the fly, it’s too important”. As with everything Hillary says and does these days, you could hear her and her consultants doing the math: Expressing regret = too soft for the Oval Office. Continuing to express support of the administration’s Iraq policy = risking being overtaken by the post-Plamegate reassessment of the war. (So would offering a glowing assessment of progress in Iraq, as Clinton did during her visit there in February when she explained that suicide bombers are “an indication” of the “failure” of the insurgency, and that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well”).

snip

Have Democratic leaders completely forgotten that we are at war? A war that’s going very badly? A war Plamegate has brought to the forefront of national consciousness? A war the majority of Americans now feel was a mistake?

Sheehan and Clinton met last month to discuss the war. “She said she has to make sure our sons didn’t die in vain,” Sheehan said this week. “That is a totally Republican talking point.”
Indeed it is. During his speech at Bolling Air Force Base on Tuesday,
President Bush said, “The best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission.”

http://tinyurl.com/awd4m

Very depressing that the party is so fucking afraid of taking a stand.

Even if the war was launched for wrong reasons, we can't just pull out. Democrat party needs to be more than just party based on short term POLL/PUBLIC opinions. I believe this is why we haven't been able to win elections in the first place. Democrats need a REAL vision for the TOUGH problems facing the country and the world. And Iraq is one tough problem, as is dealing with fundamentalism over the coming years.

In Iraq I think the best case solution that democrats should go with is gradual withdrawal of US forces alongside increased participation of United Nations in developing and facilitating free elections. UN is critical for democrat vision of the world. It needs to be such that it is respected and can be called upon. Republicans want the UN to be disrespected and frowned upon, so that they can carry out actions unilaterally for their own political purposes. This should be a strategic goal for democrat party, to work with and build up the UN.

in Iraq?

Last I heard, when they had a bunch of diplomats there, the "terrorists"
or "insurgents" or whatever blew the shit out of their HQ and killed
a number of them. Plus, it's not like the UN feels some obligation to
help the US out of any jam we might find ourselves in. I know that if
I was in the UN... and remembering the whole Powell presentations and
the idiot presidents speeches and the constant blathering by the right
wing politicos from the US about how useless the UN is, not to mention
the efforts that the US has undertaken to destroy the UN... uh... tell
me again why the UN should help out?

I agree that we are there... and it won't be pretty... but we should
just pack up and leave. Not just Iraq, but the whole middle east.
We will simply have to accelerate whatever plans we have (or don't
yet have) for energy replacement for ME oil. As for Israel, I have no
solution for that either. I don't think we should continue to support
them, except that not supporting them is also unthinkable. But I sure
don't like what they have become.

:eyes:

right after the chimpster landed on the carrier for his BS photo-op, then the chimp and friends dicked around, and made a bad situation worse, so as far as the whole U.N. helping out thing, well, that boat has been missed. They tried, but were blown off. Iraq has to work out through what will hopefully be a quick and minimally bloody civil war, without U.S. forces in country.

Even if the war was launched for wrong reasons, we can't just pull out.

And don't give me that short term polls/public opinion BS. The first thing that the war hawks need to do is start taking their lessons from recent history. The parallels to Viet Nam are sitting in front of every single citizen and administration wack. We've all heard the justifications for continuing a war thousands of times. From the "cut-n-run" BS to the "we can't let them win" BS and everything betwixt.

We need to tell the arab nations and the UN that we will be withdrawing our troops on an expedited schedule, a short number of months. We then must do our best to work with the arabs and the UN to bring stability back to the region, even if that means that Iraq becomes an Islamic republic or breaks into three different states. Remember, we're the ones who invaded and brought down the unified secular government (such as it was).

Then, we must make reparations to the people of Iraq. We should pass aid bills to help build back what we have destroyed. This will help make amends for the death, torture, and chaos we have inflicted on a sovereign nation and its people. No, don't write back about Saddam, Saddam, Saddam. He was a bad cookie. But at least under Saddam they had water, electricity, infrastructure, education, and relative peace. And don't write to me that Saddam tortured and killed his own people because that's precisely what we are doing there.

Pull out of Iraq now.

our foreign policy has always been largely bipartisan.

Rather than fighting to represent the people, the democrats are hoping to be the next kept woman of corporate america.

Their silence and complicity with Bush makes perfect sense in that context.

IMO, it's unfair to characterize the "get out now / soon" position as poll-driven.

It's much more driven by pragmatism, as I see it:
1. We don't have enough troops in Iraq to establish order
2. The plan to stand up Iraqi forces in our place is over 2 years old, and is still failing
3. The administration has demonstrated without question that it is unable or unwilling to "win" in Iraq (probably both)
4. Corruption is rampant, yet *there is no auditing* of money spent on the war
5. We have thrown $200B down a rathole, with no end in sight
6. The American people are not in favor of continuing
7. Staying in Iraq is hurting our cause with Iraqis, not helping (with over 40% now in support of terrorist actions against us)

In order to "win" in Iraq, every one of these problems would have to be reversed, and soon. I can't imagine anyone, even the most die-hard Republican, believing that is possible, much less in the cards.

Right now, we are digging the hole deeper. Democrats can call for UN involvement until they're blue in the face, but there's no way the UN will agree, with Bush setting the terms and Bolton doing the negotiating. There's too much at stake for Bush - oil, permanent military bases, and the threat of rampant US corruption being exposed. Not gonna happen.

The only real choice is to turn up the heat to the point where Bush has no choice but to leave - with a big mess in tow.

Why no one want to talk to Boxer hehe.

protest their lying asses! I wish I could be their but I can't. I suggest you start a thread in GD and in the MA forums with this information!

Thanks! I am spreading the word in my sig line too! :hi:

Done!

:thumbsup:

and :hi:

thing more than *speak* against the war. you're down to 3 right off, because DiFi is a non-starter. if she don't already have one she should be getting her lifetime DLC goldcard any day now. hell, there's a lotta money yet to made in iraq.

comprehend why so many do.

Important to keep her calculated talking points on the Iraq War publicized - she's a pol, pure and simple, and I do not respect or trust her.

don't expect a new deal for people with Hillary.

...during the early years of Bill C's administration---not the same woman.

not all Democrats are "blowing it again", just the ones that are trying to position themselves as presidential front-runners. As the article lightly touches upon, there are Democrats who've taken a stand and said they were mislead and made the wrong decisions. They just don't happen to to be the "marquee", DLC Democrats that get the lions share of attention

"Clinton and Nelson should get a copy of the NPR segment and listen to the responses of Sens. Dodd, Feinstein, Rockefeller, and Harkin who all said they would not have voted the way they did. They should also listen to the speech John Kerry gave today in which he said that “knowing what we know now” he would not have voted to give the administration the authority to go to war".

We have to start looking beyond Hillary for our '08 candidate. I'm already tiring of the thought that Hillary is representing "all Democrats" and that she's the one preordained for the '08 Democratic candidacy. Hillary has disappointed me in her stands (or non-stands) on key issues, it's time to start looking at others who are not afraid to ruffle a few feathers.

Hillary is not a democrat. Never was, never will be

The first principle of defense economics is: "Sunk costs are no costs."

For those in position of national leadership who don't know what that means, they need to do their homework. We just can't leave? Wrong. If it is in our economic interest to do so, we should leave so fast, the door doesn't hit us in the ass on the way out. The Iraqis don't want us there, pure and simple. The political show on the evening news about constitutions and voting doesn't change that one bit.

We can't sustain the costs. In the last three years, the federal debt has tripled. The cause is the totally wrongheaded national security agenda of this administration which has deliberately fashioned a national security crisis. Their purpose, to create and maintain a new mythology about the so called "war on terror" to support an interventionist, imperial policy that goes way beyond cold war excesses to the level of fascist fraud and belligerence.

The people in power today represent the old military industrial complex, which includes corporations they own and control, which would go broke if they couldn't gouge the American taxpayer and their children and grandchildren on a daily basis. The endless discussions of "pain sharing" and budget discipline never once include a discussion of the huge unaccountable excesses in the trillion dollar defense establishment.

The war and its jingos simply provide carte blanche for the war profiteers and corporations to rob the country blind.

and can't understand what it means to honor our fallen troops by killing more? Oh Hillary, you disappoint me so :(

Exhibit C was the report I got from the intimate Democratic strategy session held at Ron Burkle’s house in Los Angeles to discuss the Dems’ need for a united message. Those present included Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid’s chief of staff, Susan McCue, pollster Doug Shoen, Haim Saban, Rob Reiner, Steve Bing, and Warren Beatty. Among the highlights was the Hollywood unveiling of the Dems’ new slogan -- “America Can Do Better” -- a soulless and vacuous phrase that sums up a party that’s become pathologically risk-averse. The discussion also included the latest report from Democracy Corps, run by James Carville and Stan Greenberg, which is calling for an agenda focused on “heath care, education and energy, followed by a top end tax cut repeal and homeland security”. In other words, let’s party like it’s 2004!



But even the word "stategist" implies craft and deceit. It's like "How can we market the same old pack of lies so that we can look like we really care".

Our "Party" needs is an infusion of soul. Where are the "Democratic visionaries"?

Let me make a prediction. The extent to which the Dems fail to use Iraq as a campaign issue, is the extent to which they will lose again.

and the same Left that held its collective noses and worked for Kerry in 2004 to get rid of Bush, will never repeat the same mistake again of supporting a candidate that is not committed to end the war immediately and unconditionally.