Selectively reading?
Apologies if hard to read. I dont have the time to properly tag all this........

Biden: The Egyptians have offered to train hundreds more of the police. And the Jordanians have offered advanced military training for young officers. Yet none of these offers have been—we have not taken them up on any of these offers.

Tom: Iraqi forces have been training in Jordan and elsewhere for many months.

Me: From your document:
The training initiatives with the largest international components are those designed to train Iraqi police at locations in Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Iraq (see below). Police instructors from Jordan,

See any reference to advanced military training in your doc? I see police training.
See any reference to egypt in there?
BTW, you forgot France.

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Biden:Third, we should press our NATO allies to come up with a small force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops to help guard the Iraqi border, particularly around Syria.

Tom:Over half of all NATO nations already have troops in Iraq, although most don't have very many.

The Democrats have been pushing the myth that the only thing keeping France and Germany from pouring troops into Iraq is Bush somehow preventing it. Maybe Biden knows the secret phrase that would have France eager to enter the war. If so, why not just write it down on a card and give it to the State Department?

Me: Who mentioned France and Germany? Why you yet again.
"Most don't have many". Think about that a bit more, and tell me with a straight face that bribery, oops, I mean diplomacy, couldn't squeeze a few more troops from countries with spare capacity.
The border needs to be better secured. Got a better idea?

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Biden:And fifth, we must refocus the Iraqi government on how to eventually integrate all militias in Iraq. <snip>

Tom:The government of Iraq has been trying to do this for some time. Again, if Biden has a trick up his sleeve to accomplish it, I'd like to know.

Me: Well me too. How about we help the government stop squabbling over who sits in what chair, actually get down to writing the friggin constiturion they're there for and maybe then they can refocus.
You saying it's impossible? Where are your ideas, or are you content lib-bashing?

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Biden:Third, we must focus resources on smaller projects that make an impact on ordinary lives.

Tom:Most of the "Good News From Iraq" series describes such projects.

Me: Which is why they still have 2 foot of shit in their yards.
One of these days you may understand that the reconstruction has been a disaster.

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Biden:And parallel, we should increase the amount of reconstruction funds given directly to our military, which has been one of the few success stories in the whole reconstruction process.

tom:The Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) has been doing this as well, and has been well-funded.

Me: If it works, give it more.
Why only 6 billion* out of 18 been spent? (*if Biden is right, 2 billion on actual reconstruction)
Why Pentagon looking into a billion worth of KBR overcharges?
You've got the money, spend it, but spend it wisely.
Spend it locally to ewase the 40% unemployment.
Spend it on the things that makes a lot of peoples lives better faster.

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Tom:It pretty much keeps going like this. A lot of good ideas, most of them already in play, or impractical.

Me: Really? You've been complaining for ages that democrats don't do this kind of thing. You whine that all they do is whine about bush.
I point this out to you and, you complain some more.

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Biden:And finally, we must recruit other countries to share the burden in Iraq. I still believe that what I called for more than a year ago is the right thing to do and that it's doable.

Tom:So do it already. Still waiting for the "how."

Me: Well me too. If in doubt, bribe em. It worked for GW1.

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Tom:The assumption through all this (Kerry made a similar speech recently) is that the Bush administration has attempted or accomplished none of these things. That "staying the course" somehow means no reconstruction, no training, no working on getting international cooperation. This is not the case.

Me: No, no, no. The assumption is that this current administration has made mistake after mistake and shows no bleeding sign of stopping that pattern.
Staying the course means more f-ups.
What they and I would like is an admission of reality and a practical plan to make up for past mistakes. It's really that simple.

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Tom:Kerry lost the election partially because he could not answer the question "what would you do differently in Iraq?" Simply announcing "we need a better plan" is a null statement.

Me: I may even agree with this one. Kerry seemed to have "a plan" for a lot of things.