Thread: Democrats: What is the most politically-advantageous number of dead US troops?

Originally Posted by Bluesman

I wonder if Clinton's disbelief is still suspended.

She basically called Petraeus - PETRAEUS!, for Gawd's sake! - a liar right to his face.

Where does she get that kind of nerve? How does she expect to do things like that, then sit across the table from men like him, and command their respect if she becomes their commander?

I saw parts of the hearing. Petraeus has my utmost respect for the way he just sat there and let those idiots call him a liar. My face would have been red with rage even if I didn't jump up and accuse them of being traitors.

I guess that's why he's the general.

Originally Posted by TopHatter

My god...can enough progress be made before the '08 elections bring those spineless whores into the White House and reverse it all? :(

When the war is over the dems will claim victory. They'll say it was their unrelenting pressure that ended it when it did.

Originally Posted by Feanor

Yes and no. Russia and the U.S. are definetly opposed in the region, but Russia ability to influence events is marginal. And a peaceful pro-American Iraq would not mean that Iran, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Syria, Yemen, etc. etc. etc. aren't still going to want to buy Russian weapons.

Iraq is only the first step. You don't think the U.S. will stop in Iraq and ignore those other havens for terrorist do you? To put an end to terrorism those countries and more will have to be "reconditioned" If this process is allowed to continue there will still be a perceived need to buy weapons, but the market will not be nearly what it is today so Russia stands to lose hundreds of billions of dollars which is something their economy can ill afford to do. Russia is not about to sit on their hands while the U.S. takes over a whole region.

Originally Posted by bonehead

Iraq is only the first step. You don't think the U.S. will stop in Iraq and ignore those other havens for terrorist do you? To put an end to terrorism those countries and more will have to be "reconditioned" If this process is allowed to continue there will still be a perceived need to buy weapons, but the market will not be nearly what it is today so Russia stands to lose hundreds of billions of dollars which is something their economy can ill afford to do. Russia is not about to sit on their hands while the U.S. takes over a whole region.

Of course not. Hence when israeli troops broke into a Hezbollah weapons depot guess what they found? ATGMs labeled Rosoboroneksport Tula Russian Federation.

Originally Posted by JAD_333

No problem.

I take your point that the Bush administration made mistakes in the early going in Iraq and consequently the war has lasted longer. If we take that at face value there isn't much to argue about. Few wars go smoothly.

As to why the Bush administration did not go all out for the win to start with, the short answer is who knew the war would follow the course it did. And I wonder if anyone would have thought to ask such a question at the outset. The military leadership's view of a win back in the beginning was wholly different than it is now. They had no great expectation of the insurgency or a political morass that came later.

But I would argue that the administration has been committed to an all out win in Iraq all along. It just didn't plan well for it at the outset. We may differ now in what we see as an all out effort. I think a win is a secure, democratic Iraq--the sooner the better. So, some of the "all out" stuff may not be appropriate, such as classical massed arms and scorched earth tactics. They might have rid Iraq of insurgents sooner, but IMO they would have been counterproductive. They would have not only alienated the majority of Iraqis, whose hearts and minds we were out to win, but would have destroyed much more of country's infrastucture making security more difficult.

I am a believer in the maxim that "all's well that ends well". Past mistakes are to be learned from, not cried over. When move-on.org or any opponent of the war cites past mistakes, difficulties ahead and cost as reasons to end the war, they not only disconnect from purpose, but turn logic on end. Most of what we do as a nation addresses a need at home or abroad. When people start to lose heart because the need is not easily met and success is uncertain, that's when weaker hands are likely to begin questioning the purpose and casting around for negatives on which to base their opposition.

The only valid argument an opponent of the war can make begins with the contention that winning will make us worse off than quitting.

I believe one of the huge mistakes we made in Vietnam was that we allowed the enemy to have free havens in neighboring countries so they can regroup resupply and attack us at their leisure. We are making the same mistake in Iraq. We are sitting back and allowing insurgents to come into Iraq before engaging them. We have not learned much in 40 years in this respect. The Bush administration has done very little to slow down the flow of weapons from Iran which should really piss off the U.S. troops in Iraq.

Though tempting, the scorched earth approach was not needed, but did need to be more heavy handed against opposition and we needed more ground troops from the onset just as many of the commanders there requested. Instead, we were spread too thinly and allowed the insurgents some early victories which opened the floodgates.

Bush acted on horrible intel (if he used it at all) concerning Iraq. No western, ie non muslim, restructuring of Iraq was going to be done with out long term and fierce resistance. This is going to be a long process and many knew this from the onset, so it should be no surprise of what we have had to deal with the last few years. I think the current administration is only recently coming to grips with the realities of Iraq and they are employing the smoke and mirrors until the democrats take over next year and end up taking the blame for the whole mess. Then the republicans can rise from the ashes in 2012. You know, it is the same old," party before country" politics as usual that irks me so. If Bush was as committed as he is supposed to be and is half the leader people say he is, why has he not engaged the American people to the cause? Bush could have galvanized the citizens to the war to the point of making the democratic leaders totally impotent and the country would have but one cause, but he did not do so. Hell, he did not even try to approach those outside of his party. That single, monumental failure may have cost us the war.

If we win this war, we all need to come to the realization that it will not be won quickly, cheaply, nor will it be won cleanly. We need strong leadership in congress and the white house. We really have to get rid of our current republican/democratic "leadership" so we can make room for those who will put country first, and political party rhetoric somewhere else.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/72030

The Case For Facing Facts
Why we need to acknowledge that the news from Iraq has been getting better.

Chris Hondros / Getty Images
No More Saigons: Petraeus has to learn from Vietnam's sorry end, and be loyal to the Iraqis who have been loyal to us
By Charles Peters | NEWSWEEK
Dec 3, 2007 Issue
I have been troubled by the reluctance of my fellow liberals to acknowledge the progress made in Iraq in the last six months, a reluctance I am embarrassed to admit that I have shared.

Giving Gen. David Petraeus his due does not mean we have to start saying it was a great idea to invade Iraq. It remains the terrible idea it always was. And the occupation that followed has been until recently a continuing disaster, causing the death or maiming of far too many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Still, the fact is that the situation in Iraq, though some violence persists, is much improved since the summer. Why do liberals not want to face this fact, let alone ponder its implications?


The problem is one that I have seen cripple our political life again and again and that seems to grow steadily worse. Liberals and conservatives are equally guilty. Neither side wants to face facts that don't fit its case.

Consider abortion. Too many pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem determined to ignore the other fellows' points as they cling to their own rigid positions. And abortion is just one example.

Conservatives refuse to face the fact that free markets need to be regulated to guard against chicanery and to protect the health and safety of consumers, workers and the public in general. Liberals are too prone to see government as the solution, which of course it can be, and not as part of the problem, a role in which it has also demonstrated impressive potential.

I have yet to find a conservative who acknowledges that our lowest unemployment rates since World War II have come in years when we had the highest income-tax rates, but it is a fact. And I have yet to hear a liberal express regret that it was not one of our own who had the courage and imagination to challenge Soviet leaders "to tear down this wall."

Conservative and liberal rigidity joined to create a tragic end to the war in Vietnam. Liberals became so antiwar that they could not admit that every South Vietnamese was not a closet Viet Cong; in fact, a significant number of them did not want to live under the communist North. The Nixon administration could not admit that South Vietnamese leaders were too inept to prevail. This meant that neither the administration nor its liberal critics planned for our exit. In our chaotic departure, we abandoned hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who could only escape across the South China Sea in boats so rickety that many did not survive. Many of those who could not flee languished for years in North Vietnamese prisons and "reeducation camps."

This sad story should inspire us to face similar facts in Iraq. General Petraeus has proved that many Iraqis will respond to the kind of empathetic approach with which he has replaced the previous strategy of banging down doors and shooting first. At the same time, we have seen Iraq's politicians remain unwilling to get their act together. I agree with other war critics who believe these politicians will be motivated to reconcile their differences only when they know we are going to leave on a date certain and they will no longer be able to dither endlessly under our protection in the Green Zone.


Nonetheless General Petraeus's success provides important lessons. By talking to enemies like the Sunni tribal leaders and by taking his troops out of isolated bases and putting them into Baghdad neighborhoods where they could learn to understand the people and the people could see them as human beings, he has taught us how to deal effectively with insurgencies. And liberals should be the first to point out to George W. Bush that talking to our enemies is a good idea.

Finally, the Iraqis who have responded to General Petraeus remind us of our obligation to all Iraqis who have helped us. Even believing as firmly as I do that we must leave, I recognize our duty to try to do so in a way that poses the least danger to our friends. Above all, we should never repeat the shame of Vietnam. We should make plans now so that if the worst happens we can extricate the Iraqis who have stuck their necks out for us.

Peters is the founder of The Washington Monthly and president of Understanding Government, a foundation dedicated to better government through better journalism.

© Newsweek, Inc

Originally Posted by bonehead

Iraq is only the first step. You don't think the U.S. will stop in Iraq and ignore those other havens for terrorist do you? To put an end to terrorism those countries and more will have to be "reconditioned" If this process is allowed to continue there will still be a perceived need to buy weapons, but the market will not be nearly what it is today so Russia stands to lose hundreds of billions of dollars which is something their economy can ill afford to do. Russia is not about to sit on their hands while the U.S. takes over a whole region.

If we manage to win in Iraq, the idea is that this development, this radical re-plot of the entire map of the region, will obviate the need to invade everywhere. The Bush Doctrine is not one of perpetual war, as the opponents of it have claimed. It is, rather, an 'avalanche' effect, and, before it was killed in its crib by Democrats so feckless that they couldn't perceive its effect, or were frightened of the political implications of allowing their political opponents to make such a master-stroke, was actually working VERY well. And then, the Democratic sabotage combined with the errors of the Bush Administration and the usual international suspects exerted themselves to harry and annoy and impede the progress in a misguided terror that America would actually succeed, and the insurgency gathered momentum, and we lurched into the ditch with the whole project.

But I invite everybody to review those few months when it seemed that the incredible wave was building, and the Doctrine was proving both brilliant and absolutely transformative: we had 'em on the run, the world was amazed and it appeared as if a new era was upon us.

We came so close. Now, we may salvage the more crucial aspects, but we may still lose, as well, and if we DO lose, it'll be way worse than merely not being able to do all the things that were once possible. We'll lose the whole pile of chips we've got riding on this hand, and it's a LOT. If were just a matter of not winning the big bet, we could absorb that. But that's not the case: we stand to suck up a gigantic loss.

Winning this war is absolutely paramount, and if we do, we're still going to realize enormous advantages, even if it won't be what it could have been. And losing it is unthinkable, because our enemies will be strengthened in exact proportion that we will be weakened, making the correllation of forces to their advantage.

We can't allow it. We've got to win.

Originally Posted by bonehead

I believe one of the huge mistakes we made in Vietnam was that we allowed the enemy to have free havens in neighboring countries so they can regroup resupply and attack us at their leisure. We are making the same mistake in Iraq. We are sitting back and allowing insurgents to come into Iraq before engaging them. We have not learned much in 40 years in this respect. The Bush administration has done very little to slow down the flow of weapons from Iran which should really piss off the U.S. troops in Iraq.

Though tempting, the scorched earth approach was not needed, but did need to be more heavy handed against opposition and we needed more ground troops from the onset just as many of the commanders there requested. Instead, we were spread too thinly and allowed the insurgents some early victories which opened the floodgates.

Bush acted on horrible intel (if he used it at all) concerning Iraq. No western, ie non muslim, restructuring of Iraq was going to be done with out long term and fierce resistance. This is going to be a long process and many knew this from the onset, so it should be no surprise of what we have had to deal with the last few years. I think the current administration is only recently coming to grips with the realities of Iraq and they are employing the smoke and mirrors until the democrats take over next year and end up taking the blame for the whole mess. Then the republicans can rise from the ashes in 2012. You know, it is the same old," party before country" politics as usual that irks me so. If Bush was as committed as he is supposed to be and is half the leader people say he is, why has he not engaged the American people to the cause? Bush could have galvanized the citizens to the war to the point of making the democratic leaders totally impotent and the country would have but one cause, but he did not do so. Hell, he did not even try to approach those outside of his party. That single, monumental failure may have cost us the war.

If we win this war, we all need to come to the realization that it will not be won quickly, cheaply, nor will it be won cleanly. We need strong leadership in congress and the white house. We really have to get rid of our current republican/democratic "leadership" so we can make room for those who will put country first, and political party rhetoric somewhere else.

There's a whole helluva lot wrong with this post (as usual), but the last half of that last sentence is gospel-true.

Originally Posted by astralis

The Case For Facing Facts | Newsweek Iraq War | Newsweek.com

The Case For Facing Facts
Why we need to acknowledge that the news from Iraq has been getting better.

Chris Hondros / Getty Images
No More Saigons: Petraeus has to learn from Vietnam's sorry end, and be loyal to the Iraqis who have been loyal to us
By Charles Peters | NEWSWEEK
Dec 3, 2007 Issue
I have been troubled by the reluctance of my fellow liberals to acknowledge the progress made in Iraq in the last six months, a reluctance I am embarrassed to admit that I have shared.

Giving Gen. David Petraeus his due does not mean we have to start saying it was a great idea to invade Iraq. It remains the terrible idea it always was. And the occupation that followed has been until recently a continuing disaster, causing the death or maiming of far too many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Still, the fact is that the situation in Iraq, though some violence persists, is much improved since the summer. Why do liberals not want to face this fact, let alone ponder its implications?


The problem is one that I have seen cripple our political life again and again and that seems to grow steadily worse. Liberals and conservatives are equally guilty. Neither side wants to face facts that don't fit its case.

Consider abortion. Too many pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem determined to ignore the other fellows' points as they cling to their own rigid positions. And abortion is just one example.

Conservatives refuse to face the fact that free markets need to be regulated to guard against chicanery and to protect the health and safety of consumers, workers and the public in general. Liberals are too prone to see government as the solution, which of course it can be, and not as part of the problem, a role in which it has also demonstrated impressive potential.

I have yet to find a conservative who acknowledges that our lowest unemployment rates since World War II have come in years when we had the highest income-tax rates, but it is a fact. And I have yet to hear a liberal express regret that it was not one of our own who had the courage and imagination to challenge Soviet leaders "to tear down this wall."

Conservative and liberal rigidity joined to create a tragic end to the war in Vietnam. Liberals became so antiwar that they could not admit that every South Vietnamese was not a closet Viet Cong; in fact, a significant number of them did not want to live under the communist North. The Nixon administration could not admit that South Vietnamese leaders were too inept to prevail. This meant that neither the administration nor its liberal critics planned for our exit. In our chaotic departure, we abandoned hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who could only escape across the South China Sea in boats so rickety that many did not survive. Many of those who could not flee languished for years in North Vietnamese prisons and "reeducation camps."

This sad story should inspire us to face similar facts in Iraq. General Petraeus has proved that many Iraqis will respond to the kind of empathetic approach with which he has replaced the previous strategy of banging down doors and shooting first. At the same time, we have seen Iraq's politicians remain unwilling to get their act together. I agree with other war critics who believe these politicians will be motivated to reconcile their differences only when they know we are going to leave on a date certain and they will no longer be able to dither endlessly under our protection in the Green Zone.


Nonetheless General Petraeus's success provides important lessons. By talking to enemies like the Sunni tribal leaders and by taking his troops out of isolated bases and putting them into Baghdad neighborhoods where they could learn to understand the people and the people could see them as human beings, he has taught us how to deal effectively with insurgencies. And liberals should be the first to point out to George W. Bush that talking to our enemies is a good idea.

Finally, the Iraqis who have responded to General Petraeus remind us of our obligation to all Iraqis who have helped us. Even believing as firmly as I do that we must leave, I recognize our duty to try to do so in a way that poses the least danger to our friends. Above all, we should never repeat the shame of Vietnam. We should make plans now so that if the worst happens we can extricate the Iraqis who have stuck their necks out for us.

Peters is the founder of The Washington Monthly and president of Understanding Government, a foundation dedicated to better government through better journalism.

© Newsweek, Inc

I have a few quibbles with this, too, but the fool has my admiration for at least this aspect: he recognizes that it was HIS side that abandoned our Vietnamese allies, that the shame of Vietnam is 100% owned by the Democrats. And that if it happens again, there will be no excuse, no claim of ignorance of what will be absolutely clear is coming next, and that anybody that is still calling for us to quit now is just as guily of mass murder as the animal that pulls a trigger.

For this, I'm grateful to him.

For the rest, though, he remains the enemy.

bluesman,

he recognizes that it was HIS side that abandoned our Vietnamese allies, that the shame of Vietnam is 100% owned by the Democrats

actually, he says:

Conservative and liberal rigidity joined to create a tragic end to the war in Vietnam. Liberals became so antiwar that they could not admit that every South Vietnamese was not a closet Viet Cong; in fact, a significant number of them did not want to live under the communist North. The Nixon administration could not admit that South Vietnamese leaders were too inept to prevail. This meant that neither the administration nor its liberal critics planned for our exit. In our chaotic departure, we abandoned hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who could only escape across the South China Sea in boats so rickety that many did not survive.

not wishing to get into the Vietnam War in this thread, but in "A Better War," Lewis Sorley actually gets partially into this argument here, of how we actually won the Vietnam War but Congressional abandoning led to the destruction of South Vietnam. (his main thesis is how abrams, using a far better strategy than his predecessor westmoreland, managed to do far more with less. and that it was BECAUSE abrams had less, that the new strategy was not only conceived of, but succeeded.)

he writes about how many ARVN units, which had been much-maligned, proved at the end capable of fighting till the last man, inflicting many times their losses- particularly at the battle of xuan loc.

but then he puts in the part where due to the lack of American re-supply, ARVN units were forced to buy even their small arms and small arms ammo on the black market. col. yu remarked at this point in time that there was something very, very wrong with a country that could not produce its own small arms/ammo.

bottom line is, in the end, the South Vietnamese- most particularly their government- did not have the will to survive on their own, and to make the right decisions that were needed to survive. (this is similar to what happened in the Chinese Civil War. in the end, the KMT lost its nerve and then its will to victory. NOT because the US failed to supply enough weapons.)

the current successes of the surge rely largely if not mostly upon the fact that it was the sunnis whom finally realized that al-qaeda was NOT their friend, as well as the shi'ites whom are starting to realize that their militias aren't getting them to where they want to be. were it not for these decisions made by the iraqis, would the extra 20-30k troops made the difference between victory and defeat?

victory and defeat in iraq can be influenced by our decisions (as demonstrated by the surge), but in the end, we (the dems, the republicans, the military, even) are no longer the main decision-maker here (also as demonstrated by the surge). if victory is defined as a stable, democratic iraq- that lies within the hands of the iraqis now, more than ever. petraeus has said as much, and acknowledgement of this fact is the fundamental point of the petraeus strategy.

on another note, bluesman,

don't you get the feeling that you're sorta preaching to the choir here?

or at the very least, like the catholic missionary to protestant lands?

i mean, most of us already feel that the democrats are political whores about this whole issue (as are the republicans). and hell, some already follow your idea of the traitorness of the dems. but most importantly, how many people reading this thread are gonna vote dem in the first place- and are gonna change their minds now that they've read it?

i don't mean to be mean here, i just think you are getting very worked up for little gain. you're in california, dude- go out and enjoy a beer at the beach, dammit )

Originally Posted by astralis

on another note, bluesman,

don't you get the feeling that you're sorta preaching to the choir here?

or at the very least, like the catholic missionary to protestant lands?

i mean, most of us already feel that the democrats are political whores about this whole issue (as are the republicans). and hell, some already follow your idea of the traitorness of the dems. but most importantly, how many people reading this thread are gonna vote dem in the first place- and are gonna change their minds now that they've read it?

i don't mean to be mean here, i just think you are getting very worked up for little gain. you're in california, dude- go out and enjoy a beer at the beach, dammit )

You're right, of course. I'm extremely overwrought about the whole issue. But, as I said many times, what gets me is that there's no outrage. Are people just so exhausted by the constant day-in-day-out outrages committed by these people that it stops BEING outrageous? I mean, WHY do some of these people even have political careers at all, after what they do and say? How do people not see this, or, if they do, why are they not scandalized?

We are at WAR, and our troops are quite literally being killed due to what these people do and say. Why are they not considered disloyal, enemies to their own country?

I have two of the four people that I love most in the entire universe that will go to Iraq next year. I take it personally that they would be played with like this. I am so furious about the others that have already made the ultimate sacrifice when it was so unnecessary, if these snakes had behaved with any decency and valued those wasted lives as much as they value political power.

I hate them.

And I am incredulous that any good American would do anything but revile them, and treat all who lend thm support as nothing more than either fools or enemies, or foolish enemies.

This is at the bottom of it what this is all about: how can you do this to your own country? Just look back 40 years, and see it in context. It's not new or strange, and it can be seen with clarity. Look at this picture:

That's a Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest that was organized and attended by John Forbes Kerry in Washington DC in 1971, at a high pitch of the war, when American troops were being killed in large numbers every single day.

Kerry's fellow-travellers are carrying pictures of Chairman Mao and Viet Cong flags in the picture.

Kerry, you may recall, was judged fit by the Democrats to be the leader of the entire world, Constitutionally empowered as the Commander-in-Chief of America's armed forces, custodian of all its secrets and power.

He shouldn't even have a political career at all. Same for Clinton; same for Carter.

Why does he? Why is he seen as acceptable to a large percentage of Americans? He dam' near won the office; it was a pretty close election.

And it's no stretch at all to say that he's a traitor.

Why do you not become furious with any of that? Why are you not driven half-mad with frustration and rage when that kind of thing is not just countenanced by so many, but actively supported?

Am I talking to myself? Does nobody 'get' this? Is there anybody out there that is not about to explode when it's apparent that these people are STILL trying to do us harm, and nobody is calling them on it?

Why aren't more people on my side, here? Why do YOU not help do something about any of this? Why would any loyal American that knows any of the details about what's going on EVER send in money, say a kind word, or especially cast a vote for this kind of black-hearted treachery and villainy?

Do you not love your country, and do you not hate her enemies? Well, I do, and I don't care if they were born here or not, I know 'em when I see 'em.

And I'll fight 'em all the way, in any way I can.

Heck yeah, I'm on your side Bluesman.

-dale