Headline Says Democratic War Plan …
… but it looks like a modified Surrender Plan to me. Out by fall ‘08, if not by fall ‘07.
In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats are advancing legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.
Democratic officials who described the measure said the timetable would be accelerated — to the end of 2007 — if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not meet goals for providing Iraq’s security.
The conditions, described as tentative until presented to the Democratic rank and file Thursday, would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They’re anonymous, pending caucus results, suggesting Democrats are leaving room for a clear shot at their collective foot.
… Underscoring the debate among Democrats, several opponents of the war issued a statement late Wednesday saying they “have had a constructive dialogue with members of our party’s leadership. … However, at this time, we have not reached any final agreement.”
…
Pelosi and the leadership have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.
The decision to impose conditions on the war risks a major confrontation with the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress.
But without a unified party, the Democratic leadership faced the possibility of a highly embarrassing defeat when the spending legislation reaches a vote, likely later this month.
To make the overall measure more attractive politically, Democrats also intend to add money to Bush’s request for military operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is expected to mount a spring offensive.
The latter point says it all. This is not actually about strategy, winning, the usual wartime priorities. This is about a political view of what the war against global jihad should be about. And yeah, while we’re at it, so there:
The bill also will exceed Bush’s request for veterans’ health care and medical programs for active duty troops at facilities such as the scandal-scarred Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.
As usual, the lede is buried.
The legislation also calls for the Pentagon to adhere to its existing standards for equipping and training U.S. troops sent overseas and for providing time at home between tours of combat.
Yet it also permits Bush to issue waivers of these standards. Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president into adhering to the standards. But they concede the overall effect will be to permit the administration to proceed with plans to deploy five additional combat brigades to the Baghdad area over the next few months.
The entire bill is an effort to embarrass the president, while appearing to be doing something and dispensing of that annoying accusation that they have no war plan. Unfortunately, a lot of people will buy this claim that an exit schedule is a war plan.
Meanwhile, the Dem Cong’s ally in New York buries an inconvenient truth in its own discussion of surge issues:
… some military officials in Iraq say it is unrealistic to expect a troop buildup of several months to create enough of a breathing space for Iraqis to achieve political reconciliation. “There is Washington time and Baghdad time,” said a senior Defense official in Iraq. “Some in Washington want it now, and there is reality on the ground in Baghdad. They don’t always match.”
One concern is that Shiite militants and some insurgents will try to outlast the American troops if the buildup is too short. A longer buildup would give the American and Iraqi forces more time to disperse economic assistance, provide better protection to Iraqi neighborhoods and try to win over the Iraqi public.
“You have to protect the people long enough to get economic assistance to them and change their attitude and change their behavior,” said Jack Keane, the retired vice chief of staff of the Army, who has argued that the troop buildup should last 12 to 18 months. “You cannot do that in weeks. It takes months to do that. The problem with the short-term surge is that the enemy can wait you out.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:30 am on Thursday, March 8, 2007
28 Responses to “Headline Says Democratic War Plan …”
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March 8th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
So this is their war plan. Did they borrow it from the French? Is the Dem Cong now to be the new cheese-eating surrender monkeys?
March 8th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
The Dhimmicrats show their true faces to the world.
Again.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Pressing Petraeus // Latest Dem Surrender Plan
Gen. Petraeus speaksMichelle Malkin “It is not in our power to turn back the clock to the day before the al Askaria Mosque was bombed. We can, however, in partnership with our Iraqi colleagues, help improve the security situation and
March 8th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Must be nice to set your own goals, budget and schedule and judge your own success.
Hard to tell the U.S. military apart from liberal welfare programs these days.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
“Hard to tell the U.S. military apart from liberal welfare programs these days.”
That Post WWII Marshall plan that included parking 250,000 troops in Europe for 50 years that turned the endlessly warring tribes of Western Europe into bunch of pacifists incapable of war was a real failure wasn’t it?
When are we ever going to learn the lesson of WWI, winning and running…is no different than losing.
Once you have won…sticking around and making sure the whole thing doesn’t fall apart is really cheap compared to going back for a second or third or third even bigger helping of death and destruction.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
The occupations of Germany and Japan were immediate successes, SD.
Our troops stayed in Germany and Japan becuase of the rise of Soviet and Chinese power.
Comparing our occpations of Germany and Japan after WWII to our current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is so wrong it should be criminal.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
alphie:
No, they were not immediate successes.
The papers in the US were doing stories about how the US had won the war and lost the peace in Europe within 3 years of the end of the war.
German insurgents were killing American soldiers and there were riots among American soldiers in Europe because they did not want to occupy Europe, they wanted to come home.
If not for the Berlin Airlift Germans under the occupation of the Soviet Union would have starved and the US damn near came to war with Stalin’s government right there.
You really do not know what you are talking about.
It was years before the Marshall Plan was even implemented in Europe. When Truman went to Europe at the end of the war you could literally smell death in the air and the continent was in ruins, people were starving.
And it was about a decade before Austria and Japan had control of their own governments.
After Germany fell more than 15,000 German civilians were killed in Czechoslovakia alone, there was no law, no order, no food, no medicine, no nothing but death and ruins.
It is a ridiculous comparison.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
We’re coming up on four years in Iraq and six in Afghanistan and we’re increasing troop numbers in both countries, Terrye.
Any resistance to our occupations of Germany and Japan after WWII were minimal and short-lived.
No comparison whatsoever, unless you’re a fanatic looking for any example, no matter how nonsenical, to support the Iraq fiasco’s continuation.
In which case, any example will do, won’t it?
March 8th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Snippets
The initial period of the occupation from 1945 to 1948 was
marked by reform, the second phase was one of stabilization. Greater
attention was given to improvement of the economy. Japan was a heavy
expense to the United States.
The treaty of peace with Japan was signed at San Francisco in
September 1951 by Japan, the United States, and forty-seven other
nations. The Soviet Union refused to sign it. The treaty went into
effect in April 1952, officially terminating the United States
military occupation and restoring full independence.
http://www.cyberessays.com/History/98.htm
March 8th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Damn! I left this out…
The occupations of Germany and Japan were immediate successes, SD.
Made it another day, huh? Wonderful…really, I mean it…wonderful.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
No great accomplishment, El Cid.
It’s not like I’m an Iraqi civilian.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
You really do not know what you are talking about.
Sorry, but that’s just plain wrong to say to alphie, Terry. THIS is what you should say::
You do not know what you are talking about, alphie.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Alphie,
If the occupation of Europe was an immediate success…then why did we have to draft 5+ million soldiers to achieve it?
Iraq would be an immediate success if we sent 5 million soldiers.
Iraq would be an immediate success if we sent 500,000 Soldiers.
Iraq would be an immediate success if we sent the number of soldiers that were stationed in Germany in 1980.
Right…250,000 Soldiers re-inforcing the “immediate” success….if it was so successful…why did we need 250,000 Soldiers there for 50 years….isn’t Moscow part of Europe?
March 8th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
SD,
The U.S. Army went from 8 million soldiers in the summer of 1945 to 1 million soldiers in the summer of 1947.
We didn’t draft anyone for the occupations, we were shedding troops rapidly.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Let’s hear your recipe for success in Iraq, Alf. You’re all snark when it comes to what the “criminal Rethuglican fascists” are doing wrong, but you’ve yet to tell us what we should be doing. We’ve all made it clear we support the effort in Iraq, so we don’t have a lot new to add to the plan. You, on the other hand, must surely have a different plan. So let’s hear it. Man up, Alf, go on the record and tell us what you want to see happen in Iraq.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
A complete withdrawl of the U.S. military today, Reb.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Unrestrained death squads, slaughter, chaos, and total civil war, then. Unsurprising.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Relying on the psychic hotline for policy decisions, Reb?
I think a post withdrawl slaughter is more wishful thinking on the part of the pro-war crowd than a rational assumption.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I lurk, but rarely post. But I must post a rousing cheer to soldiersdad 4:17. Rarely has so much, of such consummate insight, been so succintly expressed.
My regards, sir. Long may you wave!
March 9th, 2007 at 3:25 am
The occupations of Germany and Japan were immediate successes
So how come it took Germany about 10 years to get a constitution?
March 9th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Iraq has a constitution, PA, and look at it.
See what the late, great Richard Feynman said about Cargo Cult science.
What we have created in Iraq is a Cargo Cult democracy.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:41 am
So how come it took Germany about 10 years to get a constitution?
March 9th, 2007 at 9:55 am
alphie:
Talk about wishful thinking, first we get the obligatory self righteous comments about iraqi civilians {as if you gave a rat’s ass} and then we say the immediate withdrawl of our forces woud just fix things right up.
So when are we going to withdraw our forces from our oh so easy and successful occupation of Europe and Japan? After all the Soviets like Hitler are history.
Why do you hate those people so much? Why do you want Iraqi civilians who have done you no harm to die?
March 9th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
if you put lipstick on a pig…it’s still a pig.
I too get caught up with trying SOME reason, but mostly shots at IT.
While IT has a right to speak freely, I suggest ITS own Blog, AplhaVictim (click ITS nic) to voice ITS conviction. Who knows the kos kiddies may even let IT in. OR IT may become such a potent force, IT will swallow the kos kids.
HEY! Maybe we should comment at ITS, Blog. A tabled turned.
BUT IT will never open ITS mind…Put as much lipstick on IT as you want, IT is still a PIG.
March 9th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Excuseeeee me AlphaVictim…and I just left this
March 9th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
The above link via http://www.instapundit.com/
March 9th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Terrye,
More lazy thinking?
You hate Bush/the troops/the Iraqis?
How about a compromise?
Let’s put the voting system we’ve set up in Iraq to good use.
Hold a national referendum with a single question:
Should American troops remain in Iraq?
If a majority says yes, I’ll support our occupation, If a majority says no, let’s get out pronto.
After all, who would know better than the Iraqis themselves?
April 18th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Stupidity to the degree displayed by Alphie is astonishing and tragically, there are millions more just like her. She surely proves the old adage that the most dangerous things in the world are large groups of stupid people.
Comparing Iraq to WW2 is a useless exercise. Liberals of today bear absolutely no relationship to those of FDR’s era. FDR fought the war to win. Liberals of today fight wars to lose. Since WW2, liberals’ solution to any conflict is to pee their pants and run away.
They did it in Korea and now we have one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet on the verge of getting nukes (additional thanks to Clinton and Carter for their gift of nuclear technology to our good friends in North Korea).
They did it in Vietnam and, and before the lilly-livered liberals had assumed the fetal position under their beds, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, exterminating a third of the country’s population (2 million dead including virtually all doctors, teachers, lawyers and students.
They did it in Samolia when master tactician Bill Clinton refused to give the troops armored vehicles to get the job done, and then, when everything went south, ran away and yet again displayed to the world just what gutless wonders Democrats are. In the process Clinton proved to the enemy that if you just kill enough Americans, enough whining liberals will pull their thumbs out of their mouths, crawl out from under their beds and cry like little girls to the Nitwitness news that we need to surrender.
Now they want to cut and run again because the war is difficult, or because they hate Bush, or because the world hates us, or 3500 bodies are icky or whatever their absurd rationalization is these days. The larger picture is lost to them and the rammifications of surrender is something they can’t grasp. To liberals, words speak louder than actions.
Liberals live in some fantasy world where cowardice is bravery, running away is “redeployment,” and quitting is considered “strategy.” In their little world, there is no evil, just misunderstanding. In their world, liberals think that you can compromise with people who want you dead or subjugated under a worldwide Caliphate. In their little paradise where nobody is rich or poor, nobody is smart or stupid, and everyone gets along because they’re all liberals, the fact that there are 120,000,000 muslims out there who are working very hard to obliterate the west - and who will not give up - escapes their little Pollyanna brains. That these people must be stopped by force and not by compromise is a horrifying thought to a liberal.
Compromise? How does one do that with somebody who wants you dead? Do you make a deal with them that if they only put you into a coma they’ll let you live a bit longer?
Please Alphie, explain how you compromise with fundamentalist Islamic fanatics. And don’t bother mouthing general platitudes. Give me a brilliant step-by-step plan on just how Queen Alphie would appease the enemy into coexistence.