Party of Defeat

It's just amazing to see the persistent pessimism, defeatism, hopelessness and denial Democrats hurled at our military and President Bush. And they were completely, utterly WRONG.

• Democrat Joe Biden, Jan. 2007: "If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan. 2007: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

• Democrat Hillary Clinton, Jan. 2007: "I cannot support [the] proposed escalation of the war in Iraq."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan 2007: "I don't think the president's [surge] strategy is going to work."

• Democrat John Kerry, Feb. 2007: "The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn't the answer--in fact, it's a tragic mistake. It won't end the violence; it won't provide security; ...it won't turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won't deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won't rein in the militias."

• Democrat Dennis Kucinich, Feb. 2007: "It has been proven time and time again that troop surges don't work."

• Democrat Harry Reid, Apr. 2007: "The war is lost... This surge is not accomplishing anything."

• Democrat Christopher Dodd, Apr. 2007: "We don't need a surge of troops in Iraq... there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jul. 2007: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

• Democrat Dick Durbin, Aug. 2007: "By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."

• Democrat Jan Schakowsky, Aug. 2007: "I believe overall the surge is a failure. ...It's clear to me we cannot win..."

• Democrat Joe Biden, Sep. 2007: "We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home... [When asked whether Iraq closer to political reconciliation than before the surge began, and would continuing the operation stop the killing between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds?] ...The answer to both those questions is no."

• Democrat John Kerry, Sep. 2007: ""The president's escalation ... has failed to achieve its goal of bringing about a resolution of the fundamental conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite."

• Democrat Chris Dodd, Sep. 2007: "It pains me to say that ... the surge tactic is a failure _ and that failure is reconfirmed everyday by unfolding events in Iraq."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Oct. 2007: "[The surge is a] complete failure... Iraq's leaders are not reconciling. They are not achieving political benchmarks."

• Democrat Harry Reid, Nov. 2007: "It is indisputable that the goals of the surge have failed."

• Democrat Joe Biden, Nov. 2007: "This whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy."

• Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Feb. 2008: "There haven't been gains [in Iraq]... The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure."

• Democrat Carl Levin, Apr. 2008: "...the purpose of the surge as announced by President Bush last year... has not been achieved"

• Democrat Joe Biden, Apr. 2008: "The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together... We Democrats understand that this war must end..."

• Democrat Bill Richardson, Jun. 2008: "[when asked if he was ready to concede that John McCain had been right in proposing the surge, said] "Absolutely not."

Saving the lives of American soldiers... bastards.
Spending the billions of dollars currently being wasted on the war on better things... assholes!

Really? Show us how then that the surge has actually worked? If so then perhaps you can call your neo-con buddies and have them do the same thing in Afghanistan...we seem to be getting our asses handed to us over there.

You know I always thought that the surge was too small, and would be a smashing if it had only been much much bigger. There are roughly 30,000,000 people in Iraq and 300,000,000 in the states. So why not just conscript 30,000,000 of our people and send them over to Iraq? That way there is one soldier per person in Iraq and we can follow everyone around with a gun pointed at their heads all day and dare them to misbehave. Sounds to me like if we did that not only would the surge be a smashing success but it would wipe out unemployment in the states at the same time.

Link to the original piece, please.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/07/history-lesson-how-democrats-doubled.html

What's interesting is that Democrats are attacking the idea of drilling and developing domestic oil supplies with the same vehemence that they attacked the Surge: It just won't work, it's a mistake to even try, abandon all hope, we can't do it, surrender Dorothy. What's with this loser attitude?

I dunno. What's with you and plagiarism?

My god... they don't like stupid ideas. How did they ever get involved in the United States government?

http://michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=7&Itemid=

That's what the soldiers seem to want. They are getting bored in Iraq, there's no one to fight

Other 'neo-cons; like Obama have suggested a Surge in Afghanistan after such a success in Iraq.

Of course, our enemies say the opposite: The real war was for Iraq

So Obama, again, really doesn't understand what's going on. Lieberman helpfully pointed out the Redeemer of all Mankind wouldn't be able to visit Iraq if we had done what he wanted 18 months ago.

How's your province's economy doing lately thanks to oil and gas? Do you think that's 'stupid'?

It's doing just fine thank you. But see... it actually provides enough oil and gas to make it worthwhile. And the painfully large start up cost has long been paid off.

It's kind of hard not to have a defeatist attitude about Iraq since it was horribly mishandled for years.

First, false evidence and the lack of WMDs.

Second, the horrible Abu Ghraib scandal.

Third, the general mishandling of everything until the surge, the complete fuckery of Rumsfeld. Bad tactics, bad equipment, bad strategy...

Even as a moderate who thinks of defense as one of his conservative-leaning issues, I can't look at Iraq without seeing what a mishandled fuck-up it has been since day one. It's hard to retain a positive attitude after all that bullshit.

I didn't want to go in in the first place, but when we did I tried to be positive... the destruction of a horrible leader, possible democracy, etc.... but years of horrible mistakes has ruined that optimism.

Can you really blame people for just wanting it over?

What the soldiers want really is not the point. Unless you're advocating military rule of the US. Which you probably are, given the general drift of your posts.

AMEN.
The surge actually seems to be working, albeit imperfectly, but it seems like too little too late. The problem is the way they dithered and fucked around beforehand. We were fighting a counterinsurgency war since May 2003, but Petraeus is the first commanding general in Iraq who specialized in that type of warfare. Probably not a coincidence we got him after Rumsfeld left, since Rumsfeld seemed to be trying to fight the kind of war he would've when he was had the same job for President Ford: a land war in central Europe against the Red Hordes.
And while I'm in favor of more oil drilling (though not offshore), I've felt from day one the money spent in Iraq would've been better spent on researching alternative fuels and renewable energy.

The surge is only working because al Sadr pulled back his militia, and we all know it. Even Stockula would know it, if he didn't have a biased agenda to fulfill.

Is the surge working for it's actual intent?

Definitely.

Interesting to note, al-Sadr is not very pro-Iranian at all, for lots of family reasons IIRC. So the idea that the surge might be working against Iran doesn't really stack up either.

I forget. What was its intent? Was one ever published? Stock?

I'm not sure. But we haven't had an announcement in the news lately that the current month is the deadliest on record since Bush stood in front of the "Mission Accomplished" sign. I guess that counts as "success" . . . sort of.

So the surge has worked? The war is over? Whoo-hoo, yeah! Now lets get the fuck out...

We can't get out, because then the terrorists will have won.

But the surge worked, so the war must be over.

But if the war is over, then we can leave.

But if we leave, the terrorists will win.

But if we won the war, there aren't any more terrorists, because the surge worked.

But if there aren't any more terrorists, we should be able to bring the troops home.

But if we bring the troops home, the terrorists will have won . . .

Ummm, hey buddy, stop twisting reality around. Dems are not attacking the drilling for more oil, they are attacking how Big Oil are trying to gobble up all sorts of new areas to drill offshore, despite how they are not even using30% of the areas they can drill in right now.

If Big Oil wants to start drilling, they are more than free to do so, RIGHT NOW! Considering how much area they have not yet touched, why do they need more? They are pulling in record profits...

oh that's right, they want the areas that it is even cheaper to drill in so they can make even more money! My bad....

no shit the 'real' war is for Iraq. do you know why the real war is for Iraq? because we hung by the neck the only motherfucker in the region who could keep a bootheel on the motherfuckers we're have to fight now. it's simple math: if you have three guys that all hate each other, the smart guy is going to let the other two fight each other. that way, the smart guy doesn't have to fight, and his enemies get weaker.

instead of being the smart guy, we decided to curbstomp the guy who posed the smallest threat to us. do you understand that? do you understand that Iran was and is more dangerous than Saddam could ever dream of being? Saddam was an idiot and a thug. Iran is a god damn Mafia don. we used to have a leash on Iran. we used to have a stick we could shake at them. now, we have an Iran that a) hates us as much as ever, and b) doesn't have Saddam there to keep them in line.

so, fuck yeah Iraq's the real war. it's the real war because Iran--and every other anti-US faction in the region--wants it to be the real war. they want us to drain ourselves in Iraq, to get stuck there and get bloodied over and over again until we don't want to fight anymore. and when we don't want to fight anymore, they'll be free to do whatever the fuck they want to do.

but, hey, at least we got those Iraqi WMDs out of the picture, right? the mobile NBC weapons labs? the Iraqi support for Al Qaeda? whew, we're safe!

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