<p>Having an opinion on the surge at this point is a bit like having an opinion on Normandy a few hours into the invasion. It’s too soon to tell other than, as expected, we are losing some fine young men. It was predicted and it is happening and it is very sad. It was also sad that we lost 25,000 fine young men in the days after Normandy - much of it due to very bad decisions by our leaders.</p>
<p>
Gee, who is my “team” discussing these topics with? Could it possibly be your “team” that loves to spout talking points? Nah, for you to see that would require a look at both sides with an open mind.</p>
<p>Fundingfather…Im not on anyones team I say what I think I assume that since you are disparaging someone else polemics you are admitting that your polemics should be disparaged. </p>
<p>Now to the point of the discussion .I said … Now what is you point? Well let me tell you what it appears to be from reading you comments. Your point appears to be, there was no underlining crime proven so it is unfair to indicted and convict Libby for lying to the grand jury. I will be interested to read what you think of my effort to distill your point into one short and clear statement.</p>
<p>So rather than avoiding the issue by trying to associate me with someone else saying something I did not, address my question. Is it your position on the issue of Libbys conviction and pending incarceration that: there was no underlining crime proven so it is unfair to indicted and convict Libby for lying to the grand jury?</p>
<p>I look forward to your response and hope that the response you give answers my question.</p>
<p>“So rather than avoiding the issue by trying to associate me with someone else saying something I did not”</p>
<p>Hmmm, I thought that it was you who accused me of polemic BS. Perhaps there are two tommybills out there.</p>
<p>The fact that there was no underlying crime should be considered in the sentencing. Instead, Fitzgerald lobbied for and got sentencing as if a serious crime had been committed and proven. The fact that Fitzgerald used dubious techniques throughout the investigation is indicative that he was akin to Nagin and Earl in their prosecutorial zeal - anything to get a conviction. </p>
<p>Fitzgerald knew as soon as he started his investigation that he had no case for a crime. Yet he pursued it until he could find someone in a contradiction. Then ala Nagin’s attempts to try the case in the public forum he holds a huge press conference and makes it look like he just broke the Rosenberg case in terms of the “national security threat” that Libby posed. Unfortunately, when time came to put up or shut up he shut up and never provided any evidence to support his initial public claims. Finally, when it was too late to rebut any of his claims, he opened up once again and reiterated the same BS that he spewed before, trying to get a harsher sentence. His actions throughout were exactly of a prosecutor who wasn’t interested in justice and any fair minded person should look at those actions and wonder what kind of fair trial Libby received.</p>
<p>Since there was no underlying crime, his punishment should be no more than what Clinton received for his perjury - a slap on the wrist. Instead his punishment was far greater than the slap on the wrist that Sandy Berger got for a far more serious crime of intentionally stealing and destroying classified documents.</p>
<p>But he wasn’t convicted of a REAL crime. (Insert whining noises here. Oh, and a BJ in the oval office is a crime?) </p>
<p>Demands for a pardon – because, treason? Nahhh. Outing a CIA agent during war time? It was all a little misunderstanding. </p>
<p>He has CHILDREN!!! (OMG the first father to be imprisoned!) </p>
<p>Talking points flying around like crazy (repeat the same lie over and over and Americans believe it – they really do!)…“She wasn’t a covert agent! Really. She wasn’t.” (The hell with the evidence presented at trial.)</p>
<p>And Bush feels so Sorry for Libby and his family. Hey – what about Valerie Plame and her honorable career? What about the nameless-faceless causalities of the outing? Oh, you don’t hear that from the phony compassionates.</p>
<p>Sickening. Just sickening. The lying hypocrites.</p>
<p>I know this is hard for you on the left to believe, but sometimes it takes awhile before a complete answer can be provided. Unfortunately, answers come very reflexively to the left: If Bush or a Republican is involved, it is bad/evil/sickening. That’s quite a shame since in the long run we are all in this together and answers and policies based on politics can be nothing but detrimental to us all. Yet, except for Joe Lieberman and Bob Kerrey, it seems like the whole Democratic Party has sold its soul to the politics-driven far left.</p>
<p>I’ll bet you $100 that you can’t produce that evidence because it was never presented. This is just about as “factual” as the rest of your post. Treason, indeed.</p>
<p>Don’t paint everything with one brush stroke. I was looking for your answer, not making an assumption about what it would be. </p>
<p>My problem with assessing the surge is that there were no real measurements attached to it, so it’s impossible for someone like me (and I assume you) to know how it’s really going. </p>
<p>But I will tell you one thing: I absolutely do not believe Lieberman’s assessment because he’s got a dog in the fight and I think he’d say it was going fine no matter what was happening (as has been his track record). I guess you call that soul, or being on the right side of things.</p>
<p>You were a lot more honest, I thought, in saying it’s hard to tell.</p>
<p>What doesn’t look good are things like American casualties. And the comments of generals who are saying that we were way to optimistic in terms of how long it would take to quell the situation there during the surge.</p>
<p>My position on the surge is that it was too little, too late in all likelihood. The NYT reporter that you said should be listened to about the surge repeatedly called it a “5 minutes before midnight” kind of last-ditch chance. He was open-minded to its possible success, but he was not enthusiastic about it.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed is that now the Administration rhetoric is turning to a Baker-Hamilton Commission-cum-this-is-like-Korea-and-we’ll-be-there-for-50 strategy. I believe the burden of proof should be on the Administration to show progress if we are to continue being there. It’s not enough to say things will be bad if we leave. They need to be better if we stay, IMO. </p>
<p>I have come to the conclusion that conservative columnist David Brooks is right about Joe Biden’s and Les Gelb’s plan for the federal partitioning of Iraq. That’s the only plan that has a reasonable shot at putting an end to the civil war there, and letting us leave with a plausibly secure situation. I guess you would call that victory, at this point. For me, it’s the most honor we’ll be able to snatch from the situation, in all likelihood.</p>
<p>But, one thing I think the vast majority of folks, and now increasingly Republicans would concede: we don’t have a president/Administration deft enough to put such a difficult plan in place. Bring on the pro’s after the next election, from whichever party; in my case I’d prefer Dems, but mostly I want the Comps. That is, the Competents.</p>
<p>Bedhead,
Now, that was a reasoned response. But why the initial accusations of me dodging the question when you ultimately accept my answer (it’s too soon to tell) as “honest”?</p>
<p>FF, honestly because several times on CC I have had you buzz a point or conversation I was making with a polemic statement (and polemics are not necessarily a bad thing). And I have responded with something that has either evidence or thought behind it and you didn’t respond. That’s all.</p>
<p>What do you think about the plan to partition Iraq?</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I don’t know the details of it, but intuitively, it seems like it could cause more harm than good. First, a major thesis of the war was to let the Iraqi’s govern themselves. For us to impose a partitioning plan on them would be counter to that policy. To strong arm them into something like this could backfire and be used as yet another propaganda piece against the US as yet another bullying tactic used by a Western country over a Muslim country. </p>
<p>Secondly, despite the bloodshed and apparent animosity between the various groups, polls of the Iraqi people have shown a strong desire for a single Iraq. </p>
<p>Finally, there is no way to neatly divide the country into three parts. Especially in the Baghdad area but also throughout the country, the Sunnis and Shia have long intermingled. To try to create geographically distinct boundries between the sects would seem to be officially sanctioning ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>Perhaps Biden (and Brownback) have a plan to address all of this, but so far I’ve only heard superficial talking points.</p>
<p>SO, FF, are you saying the war, the surge, the plan, are not going well?</p>
<p>And when you talk about superficial talking point, your guy is in charge, along with all his staff, so does he have respoonsibilty for this result?</p>
<p>I guess this is what comes of only trusting right wing news sources for your information, FF, you completely miss the fact that Libby was convicted of obstructing justice in addition to perjury.</p>
<p>From David Brooks’ piece A Million Little Pieces:</p>
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</p>
<p>Continued:</p>
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</p>
<p>So, FF, I am asking you to look forward to the end in Iraq. I want to see the polls that say a majority of Iraqis want a unified Iraq; can you show them to me, where I can find them? The Shi’ites, which make up a vast majority of the population, seem to want it – but for them democratically chosen government means Shi’ite rule. The Kurds say they want it, but meanwhile they often fly Kurdish flags from their buildings. A united Iraq means more protection for them from Turkey, a bitter enemy.</p>
<p>So between the Shi’ites and the Kurdish Sunnis, there may well be support for a united Iraq, but a united Iraq means different things to these different groups. One thing it does mean is the Sunni Arab population, a mainstay of the insurgency against the US, is permanent minority status in a hostile land, most likely. I wonder if they are for that.</p>
<p>I am for pullout right away. In the first place, I believe we were insanely stupid to have taken on this effort in light of the above facts. But I grudingly accept that we should leave Iraq something less than the basket case that it has become, if we can. A partition plan – whether de facto or led by us or a bit of both – is what will get this done, most likely.</p>
<p>And for the record, David Brooks is a conservative columnist. He’s not part of my team. ; )</p>
<p>Yes, I’m quite familiar with Brooks. However, he doesn’t really address any of my concerns. Sometimes I think Maureen Dowd or one of the many other people from the other team at the Times are slipping something into the bottled water for Brooks to drink.</p>
<p>“I guess this is what comes of only trusting right wing news sources for your information, FF, you completely miss the fact that Libby was convicted of obstructing justice in addition to perjury.”</p>
<p>Oh brother, you are really reaching to find something to find fault with on that one. That is a bit like taking someone to task when they say that someone was convicted of murder but don’t also mention that were also convicted of possession of a weapon with the intent to do bodily harm. What he was clearly not charged with nor found guilty of was anything directly related to what created the call for the special prosecutor to begin with.</p>
<p>What exactly would you expect a judge to say when he has effectively doubled the penalty that an independent board has recommended? “I know that the board recommended a more lenient sentence, and I know that even some of the jurors recommended a pardon, but I’m in a foul mood today, so I’m going to throw the book at you.” Of course he is going to say the words to make it sound convincing.</p>
<p>I’d like to see his documentation to support those words, however. No one can give a logical explanation as to how the investigation would have turned out any differently if Libby had said that he told Russert about Plame versus vice versa. To suggest that this would have changed the results of the case is ludicrous. So, the fact that he said those things just tells me that he was trying to use what little evidence and justification that he had to make a bigger political statement. It doesn’t reflect very well on the judicial system at all.</p>
<p>FF: That was a really interesting poll. I read through all the questions.</p>
<p>Some takeaways from a quick breeze through:</p>
<p>1) Unanimity of responses saying that the US is a force for destabilization, that it should leave, that the people would be more supportive of the US, if there were a clear timetable for withdrawal. 78% of Iraqis thought at the time of this survey, which is now about 8 months out of date, that the US was a force for destabilization. 71% of Iraqis wanted the US to pull out within a year – four months to go on this, given that the poll was 8 months ago. 58% said that inter-ethnic violence would decrease a lot (35%) or a little (23%) if the US left. 61% said security for Iraqis would increase if the US left. Only 9% would like to see us leave only gradually as the security situation improves.</p>
<p>2) 79% say we have a mostly negative influence on the situation in their country, markedly less than Iran and Syria. 61% approve of attacks on US forces.</p>
<p>3) 37% say the central govt. grants too much power. 35% say it grants too little power. 26% say it grants the right amount.</p>
<p>4) 67% feel some or most of the violence against ethnic neighborhoods is thought to be for the purposes of driving people out and setting up armed forces.</p>
<p>5) 28% say it is not very likely or not at all likely that Iraq will be a single state in 5 years, 30% think it’s very likely it will be, and 42% say it’s somewhat likely.</p>
<p>6) 77% thinks it would a good thing to have a strong government to get rid of the militias vs. 21% that want the militias.</p>
<p>7) A majority of people think in both cases that attacks on Shia and Sunnis are because of foreign fighters.</p>
<p>Conclusion: We are not seen at all as a helpful presence. This begs the question, if Iraqi public opinion is held to be important, why are we there?</p>
<p>There is nothing that indicates to me that Iraqis want a strong,unified central govt. as opposed to some kind of federal arrangement; this poll is silent on that subject. It does say a strong govt. will help stabilize against militias. That’s fundamentally a different question.</p>
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</p>
<p>Nice try. That is flat-out intellectually dishonest, FF, and I am calling you on it. The way you group this makes it seem that 42% think it’s fairly likely. My take on “somewhat likely” is that it’s just as unlikely as it is likely; certainly this is open to interpretation and does not justify your presentation. I could just have easily said 68% say it is not very likely, not at all likely, or only somewhat likely. The fact is 30% think its very likely. 42% are in the middle – i.e. somewhat likely. And 28% think it’s not very or not at all likely.</p>
<p>The only thing that comes out of this poll for me in a straightforward way is that we are not wanted in Iraq. We are viewed as a destabilizing force and people want us to leave.</p>
<p>So if you hold polls as indicative for what we should do, as you seem to, why don’t you think we should leave?</p>
<p>And furthermore, you don’t like a federal or partition idea, okay. So what do you like? What do you think the right plan is? A lot of people think what we have now is continuing attrition of our troops on the way to nowhere. The vast majority of Americans, I dare say, may feel this way. If you think we are on the way somewhere, where is that somewhere? What does it look like?</p>