Must read! This is encouraging given the current situation

[babylonsister]

The whole article is dead-on. Thanks to DUer specimenfred1984 for originally posting this.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/26/maliki_dead_man_walking.php


Maliki: Dead Man Walking
Robert Dreyfuss
July 26, 2006

snip//

Partially obscured by Israel’s rampage in Lebanon, which has grabbed the headlines, the war in Iraq grinds on. Durbin highlighted the fact that since the start of the Lebanon war, Israel has lost 22 soldiers, while over the same period the United States has lost 24 killed in Iraq. It’s too early to say to what extent the Democrats intend to draw a bright line between themselves and the Republicans over the war, but according to a well-connected Democrat, the party is coalescing around the need to embrace some hybrid of the get-out-now position—supported by Kerry, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and others—and the let’s-start-thinking-about-getting-out view put forward by Reid and Carl Levin of Michigan. Standing in the way is Joe Lieberman, who may become an also-ran as of August 8, and, of course, Hillary Clinton. It’s fair to say that if America remains in Iraq through January 2009, it will be the fault of Hillary and Bill (“Re-Elect Joe”) Clinton.

The fact is, getting out of Iraq is a winning position, despite efforts by the GOP and Maliki to link the war to the struggle against al-Qaida. Even Republicans, especially those in swing districts in the Northeast and the Midwest, are getting the message. Last week, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a six-term Republican congressman from Minnesota, put it bluntly: “What the White House is saying is, ‘Stay the course, stay the course.’ I don’t think that course is politically sustainable.”

One highly placed political insider told me: “There are people in the party, on the Hill and in the White House, who see a political train wreck coming.” If the Democrats win back one or both houses of Congress in November, he said, that would unleash a series of investigative hearings on Iraq, the war on terrorism, and civil liberties that could fatally weaken the administration and remove the last props of political support for the war. And that prospect has moved many moderate GOPers, such as Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, and Jim Gerlach and Charles Dent of Pennsylvania to question the Bush administration’s stay-the-course idiocy.

snip//

[KKKarl is an idiot]

1. Lets stay the course

No need to set a timetable for moving troops out. Lets just be there till who knows when (cannot disclose the date, we may let the terrorists in on our plans). Then one night at midnight we will get all our troops out. It will be a surprise pullout. We will then set up scarecrows with military uniforms to stand where the troops were. This will make them think we are still there. If someone got very close a bomb will go of. One day they will make a movie called "attack of the scarecrows". The GOP would oppose the movie being released because it will jeopardize our position in Iraq by informing the enemy that the military men standing watch are just scarecrows. Eventually the scarecrows will be removed & replaced with troops because the Iraqi government will say we breached our contract to "stay the course".

[Deb]

2. Good news but confused, how Sen Clinton is "in the way"

as she was one of the cosponsors of the Levin Amendment?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109:1:./temp/~r109zKYQWx:e294353:

http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=257561&&

Seriously, I just don't get it. :shrug: Wish I had more time for CSPAN.

[babylonsister]

3. Clinton has been steadfast in her support for the continuance of

the Iraq war until recently (the speech you referenced was from last month).

She jumped aboard the Levin bandwagon then which, as this article describes, is all about the let’s-start-thinking-about-getting-out view, without a concrete date to make it happen.

I think the writer of this article, like myself, just wants us out of there, and her (in)actions haven't helped.

[Deb]

4. Thanks!

Now I get it.

[babylonsister]

5. Kicking -