From today’s Rocky Mountain News, p. 36A:
Top: “Dems stick to troop pullout”:
Democratic-backed legislation to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq cleared an initial Senate hurdle Wednesday, but Republicans confidently predicted they had the votes to defeat it. President Bush backed them up with a veto threat.
The legislation, calling for combat troops to return home over the next 12 months, “would hobble American commanders in the field and substantially endanger America’s strategic objective of a unified federal democratic Iraq,” the White House said in a written statement.
The strong veto message underscored the intensifying struggle between the administration and the new Democratic-controlled Congress, which is determined to end U.S. participation in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,100 Americans and cost more than $300 billion.
Below the fold: “Baghdad emerging as ‘safe’”:
Bomb deaths have gone down 30 percent in Baghdad since the U.S.-led security crackdown began a month ago. Execution-style slayings are down by nearly half. The once frequent sound of weapons has been reduced to episodic, and downtown shoppers have returned to outdoor markets favored targets of car bombers.
There are signs of progress in the campaign to restore order in Iraq, starting with its capital city.
[…]
In the months before the security operation began Feb. 14, police were finding dozens of bodies each day in the capital victims of Sunni and Shiite death squads. Last December, more than 200 bodies were found each week with the figure spiking above 300 in some weeks, according to police reports compiled by The Associated Press.
Since the crackdown began, weekly totals have dropped to about 80 hardly an acceptable figure but clearly a sign that death squads are no longer as active as they were in the final months of last year.
Bombings too have decreased in the city, presumably due to U.S. and Iraqi success in finding weapons caches and to more government checkpoints in the streets that make it tougher to deliver the bombs.
In the 27 days leading up to the operation, 528 people were killed in bombings around the capital, according to AP figures. In the first 27 days of the operation, the bombing death toll stood at 370 a drop of about 30 percent.
[obligatory non-partisan nota bene: “Embarrassing! Factually incorrect! I question the timing! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM!, &etc.”*]
And speaking of impeccable timing, how about my very own Colorado legislature, which garnered today’s RMN cover story: “Loud and Divided on Iraq”:
Protesters on both sides of the Iraq War issue flooded a legislative hearing yesterday. With Democrats in control of the hearing, the resolution passed the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, as expected. It now will be heard by the full Senate.
I’m beginning to think that success is likely to be the ultimate downfall of the US military—at least, so long as the liberal Democrats have their say…
NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS!
SUCCESS IS FAILURE!
Newest one on the list:
HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY MASCULINITY!!
They certainly stick to Poop.
Success and failure are only particular determinations of archi-failure, and the vulgar concept of success is merely that of a failure whose failurality has been forgotten, like the erect phallus or/of the paternal logos, you stupid peckerwoods.
The sad thing about it all is that the war’s opponents now have so much invested in proving that they were “right,” there’s now no way they’re going to change, no matter how well the military does. Everything is seized on as an example of American perfidy and wrongdoing. It’s not a matter of facts – it’s a matter of validating their worldview.
Here’s a good example. Now, Larisa Alexandrovna isn’t set to inherit the Vladimir Nabokov Prize for Successfully Transferring Her Literary Talents Into Another Language any time soon, but you might be able to expect that she would at least be able to distinguish the fact that KSM is a no-joke bad guy, and that there are sources other than Gitmo interrogators who provide reasonable grounds for believing he did it.
But she doesn’t, and this kind of thing is increasingly common on the left. It has always been there – it’s just that they feel safer expressing it as 9/11 recedes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/where-is-waldo-err-khal_b_43503.html
And for the record, I really do apologize for putting a Larisa Alexandrovna link here – the last thing I want to do is give her traffic. I just thought it was important to, y’know, make sure stuff like this gets noticed for future reference. If we DO manage to win the war, it’s going to be like the Cold War: we’re going to hear continually about how we were all really on the same side all along.
Back in 2001 every liberal/Leftist/Progressive/Democrat I encountered on the world wide web vehemently opposed the war in Afghanistan and were convinced that we were doomed to suffer the same fate there as the Soviets (quagmire, Afghan Winter, etc).
Now, they all hasten to “remind” me that they “supported” the war in Afghanistan, and they are just disappointed that resources have been diverted from that conflict to Iraq.
And after that will come a lot of sad, wise sighs about how we could have defeated Al-Qaeda, toppled the Taliban, ousted Saddam, and planted democracy in Iraq without the reign of terror for American Muslims and the massive rollback of civil rights here at home. If only we’d listened to them, that is.
BOB!!!
I can remember the same thing: “Oh, Afghanistan has swallowed up so many armies…” bunk, every word of it, mouthed for the most part by people who acquired their knowledge of the British and Soviet involvement there from Slate and Salon.com.
It started early – before the bombing began it was “concern” – “I’m really concerned about what we’re going to do…..”
Alexandrovna’s a particularly vile example of bad faith in debate, isn’t she? I mean, she grew up in the USSR. The differences between the two countries must leap out at her – they certainly leapt out at all of the Russians I have ever known. And yet she nevertheless continues to maintain that there’s an incipient tyranny here. That strikes me as deeply dishonest.
In 2002-2003 when I was arguing the case for invading Iraq the replies I got were “WAR FOR OIL!! WAR FOR OIL!!”
Now the WAR-FOR-OIL’ers want us to know that they opposed the war out of concern that we would never be able to contain sectarian warfare between Shiites and Sunnis.
Reminds me of George Soros.
Probably an indication that something’s wrong.
Oh my, does that second link go to an Associated Press story?
Maybe peace is indeed at hand.
Not all of them. Although, granted, the target of the attack was a Master Corporal in the Canadian Forces.
But that just makes it all the more unbelievable. I thought all Canadians were polite.
It’s a credible story because there are no pictures.
I dunno if they stuck to it, but they got it stuck to them again…
Did BoZ drop a Genette reference? Or am I suffering Drambuie hallucinations?
This comment brought to you by the architextual form, metacommentary / intratext / allusion.
The Democrats have been a huge disappointment. Where is the unified and potent opposition to this damn war? Nothing. A bunch of fractious and fatuous geese. Their big project now is to extract the Alberto Gonzales abscess, and rightly so. But still.
Military support is perfectly safe; nobody would touch it, and that’s probably the only smart move so far. But what about the ongoing assault from this mutant, renegade administration?
What’s the big weapon? A NON-BINDING RESOLUTION!!!
That’s like me going a day without a bra.
Why don’t you post a couple or three pics, cynn, and let us be the judge of that?
This is a family site, Cynn.
For fuck’s sake.
Oh, so the historical reenactment is out?
It all depends on who is on the conference committee on the Iraq funding bill, cynn.
Somehow, I think you’ll be pleased with the bill in the end.
You know, just for the record, I wasn’t being cutesy there. I really am pissed at the half-assed blowhards that are supposed to figure this shit out. I elected these people, and I expect results.
I feel the same way about the Rockies. I’m financing the freaking stadium…WHERE’S MY WORLD SERIES RING?
Well, the World Series doesn’t actually involve the WORLD, does it, pigbag isolationist?
Nah, cynn, it’s perfectly reasonable.
We’re talking about people who will March in the Street, Singing Songs, Chanting Slogans, and Carrying Signs Bearing Baleful Symbols, then go home with the cheerful and confident knowledge that they have done everything that is both effective and ethical to Accomplish Something. After a brief celebration of their Courage and Determination, they then retire to issue denunciations of the “xtianists” for their faith-based magical thinking.
By that standard, a non-binding resolution is more or less equivalent to a nuclear weapon. Issuing it is probably a violation of the NonProliferation Treaty.
Regards,
Ric
Thanks, Ric. I am disillusioned with the actors, but committed to the cause.
So cynn gets the thread moving in the right direction by causing us all to think of her huge, untethered boobs flopping freely in the wind and alphie then derails it with another nonsensical keyboard fart?
Is there no limit to your uselessness alphie?
Please continue cynn.
I am cranking this out in a hurry, so it may not be clear, but a what may be a large reason for the divide in this country just occured to me. I grew up in a rural, farming community of do it yourselfers. We were constantly challenged as youngsters to take on tasks of ever increasing difficulty, and if we thought about it too long a common refrain from the men would be “you need to do something, even if it is wrong.” In other words, inaction was the worst choice, because even if the first attempt was wrong, it would steer you toward the correct one.
The left doesn’t operate by this principle, their biggest fear seems to be making a mistake, rather than not completing the task. Inaction is the safest approach to them.
Absolutely true. However, I will add, that while the left is afraid to start the project, they are all too eager to stand by and watch those who have started the task and tell them what they’re doing wrong. It has caused many a shovel to land on many a head in my neck of the woods.
We need to swing more shovels.
Perfectionists.
I hate perfectionists.
It’s threads like this that illustrate the difference between an alphoid and a valued member of the PW community.
And puppet heads. Don’t forget the puppet heads. It’s nearly impossible to ignore the persuasive political statement a clever puppet head makes.
Cynn, don’t worry. There aren’t enough votes in Congress for the Dems to do anything. If you’ll recall Trent Lott whining about judicial filibusters in the last Congressional terms, a majority of one in the Senate is akin to anarchy. For a party to be able to do something amazing, you need Lyndon Johnson in the Senate (i.e. a political genius) or 60 votes.
At the present rate the lackluster Republican candidates, their acceptance of the war, the lack of progress in said war (Bob Kagan’s triumphalism aside), and mood of the non-PW American people, you will have your 60 votes in 2009 and a President who will not veto a “get out of the war” bill.
Whether or not that’s a good thing will be argued for the next 18+ months, but it’s basically a fait accompli. If the “true believers” can be clam for a moment, they will have their wish in 2008.
Careful with those predictions, TimmyB—I was talking about “Sixty in ‘06” just two years ago. That’s an eternity in politics.
McGehee, when were you thinking that was possible? Right after the ‘04 election? Because the Social Security debacle, followed by Harriett and the worsening Iraq thing should have had you thinking in ‘05 that a slaughter was right around the corner. Short of amazing pacification of Iraq, which won’t happen, despite some nice recent reports or a major terrorist attack (like shaking the snow gloe, who knows what would happen).
In the end, though, for Cynn’s sake, the next president can do what she wants without 60 in the Senate.
Only if she’s not Hillary Clinton.
The she made me laugh when I typed it…..still does.void(0);
wink