If a Republican is elected in 2008, there will be no "cutting and running." Frankly, at this point, I personally believe it's more likely that Bush will throw in the towel before 2008 than someone like Rudy, Romney, McCain, or Thompson will afterwards.

I'm not stupid. You're not stupid. If a republican is elected he'll pretend to fight the ending of the war, but he will not really do anything but posture and piss and moan about the 'democratic cowards in congress'- thats part of the whole 'blame shifting' thats already being set up.

The worst nightmare for the right and for America is if they regain an effective congressional majority. Then they will be presented with a choice of Eating the largest crow in American Political History and ending the war, or continuing for another 2-4 years pumping out 'turn the corner' rhetoric and pray they lose a congressional majority.

Because we both know, that unless someone re-writes or tears up the constitution, the congress has ultimate say in this issue. Not the president, not without an official declaration of war and a war powers act.

No, the only people in Washington who are deluded that there will be a Republican Presidency are, well, the hand-full of republicans running. That all changes if Nader or another like him runs a credible campaign.

"If a Democrat is elected, all bets are off. Someone like Obama or Edwards would retreat immediately, and let the Middle East burn. Not sure what the hell Hillary would do."

Your Rhetoric about the cowardice and low moral qualities of your favorite boogieman 'commies' aside- We do live in a democracy, and I expect that (a) a democrat will be elected (or potentially a third party candidate!) and (b) there will be a clear, distinct and undeniable mandate of the electorate to leave Iraq. We do live in a democracy, and the people will get what the people demand, regardless if they deserve such an awful fate or not (See also: Bush)

"The only chance our enemies have in Iraq is to get us to give up, and almost everything they're doing now has this as its aim. This summer is their last big opportunity. The bombs are going off in Iraq, but the targets are in Washington and the newsrooms."

First off, we handed a victory to every enemy of America the day we invaded Iraq, and in the subsequent years of undeniable incompetence with which the aftermath of that invasion was handled. Lets be clear about who 'handed' our enemies a victory. If you shoot yourself in the foot, and that foot subsequently has to be removed by the time you finally go to the doctor after letting it fester for years- Well, the fault is you shooting yourself in the foot. Not the doctor.

"Incidentally, there still seems to be the assumption that Iraq left under Saddam would have resulted in less of a regional problem than the end-game scenario you describe. That assumption is wrong, and that judgment is also "based on history.""

I've said this before. I'll say it again. First off, its a bald faced lie and libel to say that I or other people who opposed this war and its subsequent handling think this way. Its such a stupid, STUPID dumbing down of the positions at play here and elsewhere in America. Again with the foot: If you had bone cancer in your foot, and you decided to shoot yourself in your foot despite the vocal protestations by many that this was a bad idea- and then (of course) you ended up with a ragged bloody foot AND metastatic bone cancer... The appropriate response to those who said it was a bad idea in the first place is not "Well, what would YOU have done!"

Saddam was a problem- but I predicted in early 2003 that this would turn into our own west bank with suicide bombers, snipers and regional instability. Thats just a dumb Okie from Perry Oklahoma with no political science degree. But I wasn't alone- virtually every scholar of that region was screaming at the top of their lungs 'Don't do this, this is stupid!'.

I have plenty of retorts about what else we could have done. What you want is to sucker whoever you can into an argument I have taken to calling elsewhere the "Harry Turtledove" Defense- play pretend with history, make believe different things happened, and argue ad nauseum about that. You can't win the case on reality, so you want to argue fantasy.

I instead suggest that we continue the medical analogy and say that what we should of done is this:

FIRST, DO NO HARM

" In fact, an undivided al Qaida war against the West would have been easier for al Qaeda in Afghanistan, with their western Pakistan havens right on the border. At least Iran and Syria do not have provinces crawling with al Qaeda."
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There was no easy and painless way out of this once war was declared on us on September 11. The idea that killing bin Laden would have solved everything all by itself is childish.


Go fish- again you lose on the basis of simple reality. The people we are fighting in Iraq are Iraqis!. The metaphor for Iraq is not 'terrorist flypaper'. The Metaphor is 'a massive rotting corpse out in the desert'. Fuel for maggots.

BTW, I love how you assume that if we didn't build a quagmire in Iraq, we would have had one in Afghanistan. Thats actually quite rich with meaning. Its the ultimate excuse for the Rumsfeldian Mismanagement, the incompetent execution, the maciavelian build up...

"See, we would have had an impossible fight somewhere... its like, destiny! Iraq is as good as any"

Its also really rich that you think tracking, trapping and killing and/or capturing the person who was most responsible for 9/11 and the death of 3,000 Americans is 'a liberal fantasy'.

9/11 was a call to our country and our people. It was a confrontation of an information age society (the culture that built the information age, in fact) with a strong cohesive movement who apply information age technologies but are driven by essentially stone age philosophies. This conflict is the modern interpretation of a human classic... Barbarians at the gate.

There are many reasons why some 'Great Civilizations' fail and some succeed in facing their Barbarians. Key to failing is not understanding the threat.

I saw in Afghanistan hope that we understood the threat- and in fact I think those who actually ran that war did: The special forces, regional CIA experts and etc. They went to the village and the village elder. They gave hope. Etc. At least until they all packed up to 'fire bases' as the resources and manpower got sucked off to Iraq.

But with Iraq, no- we demonstrated that we fundamentally did not understand this threat. From beginning to end. It became about Washington power and the bizarre religiously toned ideology of one man, and the conceited power-hungry jaded political machinations of those who surrounded him.

And jingoism. And 'War'.

We are failing our test, and one thing is inevitable for civilizations who do. The barbarians always win.

I think i understand the challenge, but thats another long post.

Now its late, and I'll finish with this:

"Try and think about that"

To hell with you, Tom, for patronizing me. The times you have been right about anything in Iraq? Zero. You have been wrong on every. Single. Thing. No ties to Al Qaeda, No WMD, No 'Its all going fine, its just liberal propaganda'. 4 years later and we are still undermanned, under-equipped and under-performing on every single objective. What have I been right about? Snipers in the Street? Check. Suicide Bombers? Check. The rise of Iran? Check. The intractability of the situation? Check. No ties to Al Qaeda? Check.

I don't care if people see me as right or wrong. But what person IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would listen to you? And what sort of idiot would continue to pronounce and pronounce and pronounce on the correctness of this whole Iraq endeavor and the success of the effort after being so incredibly wrong at every turn? What sort of head job would patronize the people who were, if not right, were at least not as absolutely mind-numbingly completely wrong about everything as YOU?

You are the dumbest smart man I have ever met. I mean that. And once again- I feel like a fool for bothering with this place.

Yeti