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heheh

everlong205 wrote:

Funny you should mention the Manchurian Candidate, because Obama's 16 months brought to mind the scene in the manchurian candidate (the original not the terrible remake) where Senator Iselin and his wife (played by Angela Landsbury) are arguing about how many communists Iselin should say are in the state dept and she spies his Heinz ketchup bottle and the camera pans into the 57 varieties label on the bottle. Then the next scene Iselin says "There are 57 communists in the state dept." or whatever he says.

If you're going to quote something, you might as well put some effort into getting the quotation right.

Mrs. Iselin: [at meal time] I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number?
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember.
[Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thump a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup onto his plate]
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: [addressing the Senate] There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!

source

I swear, everlong, sometimes, it sounds as if you just don't care. Put some effort into your screeds-- and work on your style.

That's obama's 16 months to redeploy. Its a cookie cutter answer who's number is based on nothing. Certianly nothing said to him by generals in charge of the war, who he in keeping with his lack of seriousness, has not actually conferred with yet.

Maybe he was watching 16 candles when coming up with his redployment plan for Iraq.

If I might quote the Messiah:

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

source

You're still thinking that the war might be won. Obama suffers no such delusions. Instead, he asked his advisers this simple question:

At what rate can we safely withdraw troops from Iraq, leaving behind a residual force?

The disciples  answered Him

One to two per month

Since there are about 20 brigades in Iraq, "16 months" seemed about right.

Obama intends to end the Iraq war. McCain doesn't. The 16 month figure helps Obama differentiate his position from McCain's wishy washiness.

Now, if you like the Iraq War, and you like throwing billions of dollars down the toilet, and you like not having troops in reserve, then by all means, vote for McCain.

bedstuy wrote:

bedstuy wrote:

Bush is probably yanking Malaki's strings as we speak and there will be a retraction in 12 hours.

I can't locate a published remark but CNN is reporting that Malaki's already being reigned in by his puppet masters for straying off the reservation earlier today.

edit: here it is

Crap I wanted to be the one to post it.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/ … index.html

There it is, again, just for posterity.

And, I like your characterization too. Maliki, when making what you thought was a pronoucement that looks like he supported Obamas claims was pounced on like he was mr truth teller. But of course, now that a retratction is posted, suddenly Maliki is back to either being Iran's stooge or the puppet of Bush. Why not simply accept that Der Spiegel mistranslated what he said in the first place?

bedstuy wrote:

Probably because "but a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately" doesn't clarify what he actually said or didn't say, and Der Spiegel, where the report initiated, has not retracted anything in their reporting.  Aside from that Bush came out with his "time horizon" comment 2 days ago, which is just another word for what Democrats/Obama have been saying all along.

It's not like it's the first time this has happened with Malaki this week either.  See a trend?

At any rate what can be very, very clear is that Malaki is rejecting McCain's position on long-term bases à la Sorth Korea.

NO its not what the democrats/Obama have been saying all along. they are trying to lose this war. Bush has said "as they stand up, we'll stand down" MEANING as the iraqis are capable of leading, and as the situation stablizes, then we can start removing troops. And this is based on information on the ground, not artificial timetables from politicians at home.Its a given that troops will leave. They will leave though when they complete their mission, not with their tail between their legs. That is completely different that the democrats position.

A time horizon where our troops can come out for Bush is, again based on how successful we are. As the surge has been extremely successful, it may push this timeline horizon forward. For Obama the time horizon is 16 months period.

If I were Everwrong I wouldn't fret too much over O'Bama's military plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. They're not really that different. Iraq is already as success inasmuch as the bases, the major ones anyway, are a done deal whether the Iraqi government is yet aware of the fact or not. And redeploying  from Iraq to A'stan is an inevitable policy move if the pipelining from the Caspian is to be secured; and it will be. 

All anyone is doing is arguing over tone, not substance.

So much was made of the Bush admin's movement away from something called "reality". I strongly suspect the O'Bama presidency will have its own flavour of unreality about it. But the overall strategy for the mid east and asia will be effectively the same. How can it really be substantially different at this stage?

everlong205 wrote:

I don't want to address all of these as it would require me to go looking for a bunch of links and is too much work for one post. But one problem is that you're, in some cases, using the critics case against the admin (ie the allegation of impropriety) as the fact as opposed to the allegation.

...and by "critics" you mean others within the administration itself and our own intelligence communities?

Dubious information was used even after the intelligence agencies waved the administration off of it (much of it single-sourced to begin with and based solely on the testimony of prisoners or those with connections to Chalabi).

more of the same

Nothing about Powell or how strong the administration's case would have been without the sensational claims that did not make up any part of the ILA.  Oh well.

bratboy wrote:

everlong205 wrote:

NO its not what the democrats/Obama have been saying all along. they are trying to lose this war. Bush has said "as they stand up, we'll stand down" MEANING as the iraqis are capable of leading, and as the situation stablizes, then we can start removing troops. And this is based on information on the ground, not artificial timetables from politicians at home.Its a given that troops will leave. They will leave though when they complete their mission, not with their tail between their legs. That is completely different that the democrats position.

So what is the opinion of the majority of the American public?  They want to "lose this war?"  They want to leave with our "tail between its legs?"

I've asked over and over about the view of the majority of America in this thread, and you seem awfully hesitant to respond on that point.  Easier to direct your ire at the "democrats" than the rest of the country, right?

The majority of americans dont even know whats going on in Iraq, so its really not that useful to compare their "opinion" to people who should.

I did not realize this discussion was going on here when I posted my thread about the very same issue.

That CNN article posted up top is incredibly misleading in its title. It says the Iraq PM disputed the original report by Spiegel, but I don't see any such thing in the article. It is the spokesman who disputed Spiegel, speaking through Central Command. None of this really comes as a surprise.

I hope I'm not off base here, but I think one important aspect of all this is: if the Prime Minister is indeed asking us to leave in the form of a timetable, how is McCain steadfast in wanting to remain there indefinitely?

"PETERSON: We're now ready for questions. Please wait for the microphone, identify yourself, keep your questions to the point, if you would, and try to remember we have only one speaker here, speaker McCain. Our distinguished new head of the Washington office asked me to kick off one or two, senator, and let me try.
Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it's a hypothetical, but it's at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."

http://www.cfr.org/publication/6973/

I'm determined to lose this war no matter what it takes! 

everlong205 wrote:

No, just telling it like it is for the democrats. They have been invested in defeat since the beginning. They think its an unwinnable war, in fact Harry Reid pretty much said as much on the senate floor. The soldiers are targets, stuck in the middle of a civil war, that can't be won militarily, or that has no military solution, thus we need to get our troops out asap. Finesse that any way you like, but that is called trying to lose a war. Not only losing a war, but running to the nearest exit with your tail between your legs kind of strategy.

That you would suggest otherwise is high comedy. You should get an HBO comedy special for jokes like that.

Colonel Panic wrote:

Proud owner of a hammer and little else ^^^^

Steyr AUG wrote:

bratboy wrote:

everlong205 wrote:

NO its not what the democrats/Obama have been saying all along. they are trying to lose this war. Bush has said "as they stand up, we'll stand down" MEANING as the iraqis are capable of leading, and as the situation stablizes, then we can start removing troops. And this is based on information on the ground, not artificial timetables from politicians at home.Its a given that troops will leave. They will leave though when they complete their mission, not with their tail between their legs. That is completely different that the democrats position.

So what is the opinion of the majority of the American public?  They want to "lose this war?"  They want to leave with our "tail between its legs?"

I've asked over and over about the view of the majority of America in this thread, and you seem awfully hesitant to respond on that point.  Easier to direct your ire at the "democrats" than the rest of the country, right?

The majority of americans dont even know whats going on in Iraq, so its really not that useful to compare their "opinion" to people who should.

Too bad we're letting the smurf vote too eh?

ha ha -- seems the translator was an Iraqi from Maliki's office.  Not only that but The New York Times has the audio of the interview and it's even more obvious now that the Bush administration leaned on him to backpedal.  Of course, they're so utterly incompetent about absolutely everything they can't even cover their own tracks. 

Sad.

Last edited by bedstuy (2008-07-20 10:45 pm)