Newsday: Baker plan for Iraq sounds familiar (Kerry proposed it in 2004)

[Cocoa]

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=313848&Category=14&subCategoryID=

<snip>

This course, which academic and other experts on the Middle East have been advocating, bears a striking similarity to the approach promoted by a certain prominent American politician more than two years ago: Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry.

“We still have an opportunity to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state and a haven for global terrorists and Islamic extremists,” Kerry wrote in a Washington Post op-ed article on July 4, 2004.

The Democratic presidential nominee called for a change of course that would give economic incentives to draw in estranged European allies, who might then agree to a peacekeeping role for NATO troops. He proposed a regional diplomatic conference with Iraq’s neighbors to keep borders intact, prevent outside interference in Iraq’s internal affairs and protect minorities.

Many of these ideas were included in Kerry’s plan, co-authored with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, to gradually redeploy U.S. troops by July 1, 2007. The measure was voted down, 86-13, in June. Republicans cried “cut and run.” Most Democrats cowered.

more...

[rodeodance]

1. Most Democrats cowered.----this has been a major problem all along.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. K&R - suck on THAT, "security moms..."

:grr:

[State the Obvious]

3. Here is an idea...

DEMS: Always refer to this as the" KERRY PLAN 2004".

When Baker actually talks about this plan in depth, just make sure every Democrat refers to it as the KERRY PLAN 2004.:rofl:

Never refer to it as the Baker Plan or whatever phrase the Republicans will demand. always say:

The Kerry Plan 2004...
The Kerry Plan 2004...
The Kerry Plan 2004...........:)

[yurbud]

5. "We are gratified to hear that Baker is echoing the Kerry plan..."

"If he would like any more of our ideas that have been ignored by the media and GOP for the last 14 years, he is welcome to them too--as long as he admits where he gets them."

[State the Obvious]

7. Perfect. Baker is "echoing the Kerry Plan". nt

[yurbud]

6. Next Bob Dole will come out for single payer health care...

"Bob Dole thinks America needs simpler health insurance. Bob Dole says single payer cuts overhead. Bob Dole likes cutting spending. Cutting spending is a Republican idea. Bob Dole thinks the Democrats could never come up with an idea like this..."

[blm]

9. Headline: BAKER PUSHES KERRY PLAN FROM 2004 - COUNTLESS LIVES WASTED

Countless lives wasted in 2005 and 2006.

[yurbud]

13. like Nixon's secret plan to end Vietnam war...

fight for five more years then take the deal the Vietnamese offered LBJ.

[blm]

16. Only difference is better medical treatment. The death toll would astound

people if the circumstances of medical treatment was the same as Vietnam. The 3000 plus dead and 25000 casualties would be about 15000 dead.

[yurbud]

18. aren't they screwing with the numbers too, like you actually have to die

on the field, not in a hospital or something?

[blm]

19. That would be my expectation of their methods.

.

[yurbud]

20. "he was in the helicopter before he died. Doesn't count."

[sandnsea]

10. If Dems would stop positioning

I do not understand why they don't see it can only be good for ALL candidates when our 2000 AND 2004 candidates can be proven to have been RIGHT on everything they said.

I do not know why the leadership continues to cower at the right wing attacks on our Presidential candidates. It isn't like they aren't using the same attacks against Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Hillary too for chrissake.

Stupid stupid leadership. :spank:

[blm]

11. They need to embrace the words Gore was right and Kerry was right

instead of shrinking away as if Bush won in any legitimate way.

[newyawker99]

21. Hi State the Obvious!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[yurbud]

4. here's a thought: Give IRAQIS economic incentives to stop insurgency

those people aren't stupid. they know Bush is there to take the oil and leave them the hole.

Any plan that doesn't directly and bluntly address this, including freeing the Iraqi government from any economic restructuring and oil deals done with a gun in their face would probably go a long ways toward reducing the insurgency--almost as much as pulling out our troops would.

[npincus]

8. Go, Newsday!

[Jacobin]

12. Nice for poltical fodder and all that

Possibly it could have worked two years ago.

Things are so out of control right now, I suspect this is not doable.

[blm]

14. You're right. It was doable THEN, but now it's a Civil War and withdrawal

is needed.

[Jacobin]

15. MAYBE doable

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and at least it had some thought to it and perhaps had some glimmer of success, with long odds back then.

Right now we have a major civil war going on, with no safe places except (perhaps) the Green Zones. We do NOT occupy Iraq. We are holed up behind concrete barriers among a sea of 24 million armed, furious Iraqis.

[blm]

17. The key is to get more people CALLING it a Civil War with no equivocation.

Once the reality is accepted, then the Senate has to draft a new resolution.

There's some rule or something that has to be addressed about any mission that includes the circumstance of civil war - that's why Murtha and Kerry have been adamant about calling it civil war all this time - and Warner promised Kerry he'd call for a new resolution once it became real to him - and he just came back from Iraq and it hit him hard. That's why Bush is pushing this Iraq group decision process, to preempt Warner, methinks.