Say Anything Blog

“I wish the president had paid more attention to the history of Iraq before we had gotten in there,” Dean said. “The idea that we’re going to win this war is just plain wrong.”

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable statement to me. Pat Buchanan has said similar stuff. Right winger Gen. William Odom has said they should put Saddam Hussein back in power because it takes an autocratic leader to keep order in Iraq.

It is a delusion to think Iraq is going to end up a liberal democracy. Watch as the specifications for “winning the war” slowly get narrowed down to make sure when ever we leave we have met the requirements to win the war.

I am actually all for that. This administration has shown it’s skill at spinning issues, I wish it would spin us out of the war.

Maybe keeping the war going will be an opportunity for us.  Keep us a reason to station troop in the middle east to deal with Iran and Russia.  And what wrong with that?

Why should we believe your defeatist, unsubstantiated rhetoric, Graeme, when the evidence for steady progress and a democrat, secure Iraq is readily identifiable?  Not from anything the media tells us, mind you, but from what we’re hearing from the soldiers themselves?  And the people actually in charge of liberating and rebuilding that country?

In the face of what we have accomplished in Iraq, anyone saying that we’re going to “lose” is cleary doing so out of bitter, knee-jerk partisanship.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

[...] I couldn’t agree more. Which isn’t to say that I think dissent about the war should be silenced. Far from it. There is plenty of room for criticism about how this war has been prosecuted, but when you have the leader of one of the nation’s two most powerful political parties telling the world that we cannot win in Iraq we have a problem. Especially when its clear that Dean and other Democrats are only saying these things because it is politically expedient for them to do so. [...]

[...] Dean and his fellow Democrats have been busying themselves trying to convince the American people that we are losing in Iraq, yet the President can’t respond to that without being accused of “attack” his political opponents by the media? [...]

[...] Imagine that. Partisan Democrat gimmicks creating unease among our allies in the war on terror. [...]

[...] Cherry-picked, eh? Here’s an excerpt from the original statement: Democratic Chairman Howard Dean on Monday likened the war in Iraq to Vietnam and said, “The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong,” comments that drew immediate fire from Republicans. [...]

[...] The war in Iraq is the biggest issue facing this country right now. I’d be willing to wager that there is more time spent by our media covering the war than any other topic right now, yet when the leader of one of country’s two major political parties announces that we cannot win that war it goes largely ignored by the mainstream media. [...]

[...] In response to Howard Dean’s claim that we cannot win in Iraq, which prompted a ND Rep. Earl Pomeroy to tell Dean to “shut up,” ND Senator Kent Conrad offered this lame defense: Well my understanding is that he said that in the context of we don’t change course and we don’t change direction. This is not so certain as some as thought because this has been the statement of many including prominent Republicans over the last three months that we’ve got to change course. [...]