New Approach
 

I listened to the President's speech last night wherein he stated his "new approach". Surprisingly, I agree with some of his positions.
On moving forward with reconstruction, I agree. Let's start with New Orleans.
On "advancing liberty", I also agree. Let's start by repeal of the signing statements that allow his administration to monitor our phone calls and read our mail.
On Mr. Bush's definition of "victory" as " a functioning democracy that polices its territory, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people",
again I agree. Let's begin in the United States. This would be a "new approach".
I disagree with Mr. Bush's faith in Mr Maliki being able to bring resolution to the civil war that rages in his country. Mr Maliki has already demonstrated his competance in presiding over last week's lynching, oops, execution of Saddam Hussein.
I also will not bet on any horse that our President recommends. Though he has finally taken the reponsibility for mistakes that have happened in the past, I do not wish to exonnerate him for his continuing ones. He's good at picking losers.
DTS

lol. I was disappointed he didn't say lowering taxes on the rich would win the war.

I heard nothing that gave me the slightest bit of encouragement...I didn't really expect it but still...I stopped watching Buffy reruns to listen to him...waste of time!

Taxes didn't come up.
Do any of you find it to be a little amazing that the US and Iran (Shia) are fighting a common enemy, the Sunnis (Sadr's), for which we are sending an additional 21,500 troops? That makes sense.
But then again, the second biggest backers of the huge national debt we are incurring is the Saudis (Sunni) the ones we are fighting this proxy war for, to prevent Iraqi oil from competing on the open market. hmmm....
Didn't Osama bin Laden come from Saudi Arabia? 16 of the 9-11 hijackers?
The clear thinking that went into this "new approach" astounds me!

Richard Durbin's response:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007..._official.html

Before Cowboy George got on the horse, our Middle East politics were a bit more subtle. We supported the Shah, then cut him off. We supported Saddam then had cut him off. It was all about money.

It would be naive to think Bush would do anything that could remotely be considered critical of the Saudis. Too many film clips of his father hanging out with les Sheikhs as well as far too many friendly fortunes made.

And maybe you and I are the only two people in the world that don't know that the war is going so well we are now ready to take on the
Iranians and Syrians.

I am all for winning wars but this has gotten ridiculous.

Ridiculous...agree.

We just need to bring the troops home. Enough is enough. There will never be peace in the mid-east.

Hey, B! Hooray for playing Devil's Advocate in discussions! :) Thanks for chiming in.

Here's some thoughts on those issues, from Tim F. on balloon-juice.com. I'm just lifting it because he puts it better than I could. What do you think?

<<Let’s take a quick recap through last night’s speech, and then wrap up with what struck me as his one big idea.

First, the things that don’t matter:

* More troops. 20,000 more troops is a drop in the bucket. Unless we also change how our army operates (more on that below) I doubt that insurgents will even notice. The people who will notice, however, are the military managers who are trying to a strained force from collapsing entirely. Plus the poor saps trying to win in Afghanistan.
* A larger military. Fine idea considering our current readiness levels, but it won’t mean much for Iraq. How long will it take to transform policy into boots on the ground? Years, at best. Our time in Iraq won’t last that long, now even less long thanks to added strain from the President’s “surge.”
* Mandates. What are the consequences for Maliki blowing off our demands? As far as I can tell, nothing. The extra troops will go in anyway.
* “Diplomacy.” The only two regional partners who matter are Syria and Iran. As always the President will only talk to them if they agree to give up everything in advance. The best explanation that I have heard for such obvious bad faith involves fears by the administration about having a weak bargaining position vis a vis Iran. We don’t have any leverage, of course, because we removed Iran’s regional competitor, installed an Iran-friendly regime in his place and ground our fighting forces to dust in the process.

That leaves one point which could have an impact. Like Noah Shachtman I think that moving troops out of the insular FOBs and changing the rules of engagement will change life both for us and for the insurgents. Without a doubt this move comes from the Petraeus playbook and in 2003, with sufficient number of men, I think that we would have a chance of a positive result.

Sadly this isn’t 2003. Too much poisoned Euphrates wter has passed under the bridge for embittered Iraqis to give Americans the benefit of the doubt again. The sectarian mobs have had years to equip, train and exchange bloody shirts. Insurgents have years of hard training at our hands and porous borders to endlessly replenish their numbers, which will swell each time our new engagement rules accidentally makes another taxi full of civilians into a statistic. That has nothing to do with malicious intent on the part of our soldiers, it is simply the inevitable result of loosening the rules in a maddeningly complex urban environment. Good people will do bad things by accident and for perfectly understandable reasons, but none of that is visible to the local public. Only the bad things. And then you have idiotic stories like this which have the same war-losing value as a division of insurgents.

Of course the move out of FOBs is only a half-assed implementation of the Petraeus Doctrine . Fred Kaplan recently observed that Petraeus would need about twice as many combat troops as we have in all of Iraq. Instead of that America can spare 20,000. There is good reason to think we can’t even spare that. So if America’s best informed counterinsurgency strategist thinks that we have nowhere near the number of men needed to win, what exactly is the point of putting more men in harm’s way? Unless Petraeus’s own manual is comically off-base the change won’t win the war. As near as I can tell it will just put more Americans in convenient AK-47 range.

It helps to recall why American commanders pulled troops into secure FOBs in the first place. Insurgents became very good at picking off unprotected troops, to the point that casualty levels became politically dangerous. Barring a compelling reason to go out (say, an overarching war strategy) it makes sense to keep troops inside and in armored convoys until we can get out of Dodge altogether. So what has changed? The President has moved past reelection and isn’t grooming anybody to replace him, which means that casualties aren’t politically dangerous anymore. Democrats won’t impeach him and it seems vanishingly unlikely that they will cut off the war funds, leaving the President free to do more or less whatever he wants.

Democrats of course have nothing to lose by protesting. The more the public sours on this GOP war the more they stand to win. Obviously the GOP, who did everything possible to own this war when ownership looked like a good thing, has more of a dilemma on its hands. You have to wonder what they plan to do about it.

***Update***

Some extra points:

* Other than moving troops out of the FOBs there really is no there there.
* Now that’s interesting. Instead of pulling the funds, attach so many strings to them that Bush vetoes the money himself. I hope the President likes that GOP-brand medicine.>>

But I can't see how 20,000 is nearly enough men and women, if that's the intent, you know? It seems to me it would take a lot more boots on the ground, and that Bush is still trying to wage war on the cheap as it were.

I also see no way around Iraq descending into sectarian violence no matter what once we're gone. Which is horrible, though I wonder if it will take the focus of Islam vs. the West and put it on Islam vs Islam, you know?

GR,
Here's my "take". It's blame shifting. Dubbya says, we gave you additional forces. You Iraqis didn't stabilize, so we're out of here. It's all your fault Iraqis, not ours. We did our best. See ya...

another thought...sorry for the double post.
This is the "exit strategy".
Don't look at what people do, look at why people do what they do.
Game over.

Here's something that's interesting. If the Dems follow Teddy's lead, they look bad. (defunding).
Dubbya is looking to pass the tar baby to who ever is willing to catch it.
Smart move...let him keep it. It's his.
Action by the Dems opens them to blame. He's looking everywhere else besides the mirror.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/0...e_n_38434.html

The one man who kept Iraq together, they lynched, er hung.

Sumitas,
Sad to say that Saddam can't be brought back (not that I'd want him to be).
Looking back denies looking ahead to where we're going.
Sorry this is from common dreams...it's been a while, and it's long.
Take the time, poke holes if you can. Too easy to poke holes in Dubbya.
We are in fact a nation that is ruled by a madman. Sorry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0111-25.htm

well, that just goes without saying...

slept right thru it myself.

so many have been sleeping for the past four years...time to wake up, Danzig, and all the rest.
America!!!!!! Don't hit the snooze button!!

Hold it awile,huh? There's more football games....how 'bout they reconvene Congress 2 days after the Super Bowl so's everybodys' hangovers will be gone!! I mean, geessh, let's have some priorities here,huh?

Sadr is a Shia, not a Sunni.

dts, i get up before 3 am. i wasn't sitting up to watch that bozo. i knew i could read all the talking points today.

Correction noted. Thank you Rupert.

From the BBC.... Seems fairly balanced and summarily informative. It's not surprising (at least if you ascribe to this columnist's views) that things hinge more on politics, jobs and money than tends to get reported through the US media.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6254869.stm

S2S,
That's an interesting article. Thanks for the link.
Now, for a minute, consider the game of poker.
The game begins and you sit with a big pile of chips after 9-11. You lose pot after pot, but you keep on betting. Bluff as big as the bluffer you want to see hung. He is, and you still have another card or two to play, one more hand, or maybe two.
Except, now you're going "all in", betting on Maliki.
To me, that's not a smart bet. And the "chips" are the additional soldiers lives that get thrown into the "game". They'll buy some time for the next hand, if it's dealt.
The next hand is already being stacked in the shuffle. The cards will come up Iran, Iran, Iran.
Seems to me that there just seem to be too many wars to start, too little time, and a horrible legacy to consider.
So, the Taliban is back bigger than ever in Afghanistan? So what?
So, Iraq is lost except for letting the next one pick up the losing cards. So what?
So, the "war on terror" is world wide and the dupes see it limited to Iraq. so what?
The next hand will be dealt, and it will be all about Iran.
Sad to say, this losing poker player is playing with our chips, and we'll all walk away from the table as much the losers as he is. But, so what?
btw, if you're a poker player and can read faces at the table, have a look at the video of his speech. It says it all.
DTS

DTS this is flat out inaccurate. We are trying to stop the Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other. We have killed numerous Shiites while trying to protect ourselves. American troops are attacked by more Shiite militias than Sunnis. And the Shiites are fighting amongst themselves for power. It really is not fair to over simplify and then imply that it does not make sense.
BTW the man we would most like to kill is a Shiite... Sadr from that bopping of town of Sadr city.

oops did not read enough, Rupert caught it. And I also think we got more information out of the Bush adminstration as far as tactics than we have ever gotten before. At least we know how they are going to try to create safer areas and how this in turn might stabilize the country. Having said that I dont think its going to work. We have reached an extreme level of instability. Urban civil war.

P,
I noted the correction, post #26. What I meant to say was that the Iranian backed Shia are also those that the US is allied with against the Sunni.

To me, it is easy to justify genocide, whether the words are "surge", "escalation" or "augmentation" (like they need bigger boobs).
It make about as much sense.
Believe whatever you think is justified.
I don't.
Insanity is obvious.

Pgardn,
Two more questions:
1) Have you noticed that since the speech on Wed. there is a lack of reporting by all major US media on the situation in Iraq?
2) What do you make of this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/wa...rtner=homepage

I think the press, which I consider vital to this country, is being intimidated by this administration thru legal means. Witness what happened to the reporters in the CIA operative leak ordeal. Madness imo.

The press being able to accurately report situations is vital to the freedom of this country. I view the press as almost the 4th branch of government, even though they are not a part of the government... Terribly important to any true democracy. Almost all dictators, etc... countries that want tight control over everything, attack the intellectuals and press first.

Forcing the reporter to testify was going to hurt the Bush administration, not help them. The reporter knew which person in the Bush administration leaked the story. The Bush administration didn't want the reporter to be forced to testify.

I just listened to one of the reporters last night on C-span talking about the ordeal. He basically stated that the current administration has been terribly hostile towards the press, including the incident in which he is awaiting an appeal.
I dont think the Bush adminstration cares one way another what happens to these reporters or revealing sources. It is true that "they" could have put a CIA operative in danger of being killed, but this adminstration is not crying over the reporters going to jail. I dont think the adminstration is worried about any trail leading back to someone important at this point. At least that is the clear feelings of the male reporter who will not reveal his source(s) and very well could end up in jail.

My big problem is reporting that is so biased as to be laughable. CNN "reporting" the news thru Lou Dobbs (these are editorials). And Fox... bad.
Actually I listened to Fox this morning and they actually grilled Cheney to the point he did not answer questions. I thought they would just give him the Soap Box, but they did not. Cheney appears to have a different agenda than the president and they pointed this out with lots of back tape. I officially declare Cheney out of touch after that interview. I cant see how the military can work with this guy after the way he came off today. His own words, thats what I want. Good solid interview. Very rare.

For years there has been a huge liberal bias in the media. Now there are actually some stations that lean to the right. What's wrong with that? There should be a balance. If practically all the stations lean to the left, I don't see a problem with a station that leans to the right.

By the way, some of my most liberal friends are actually watching Fox News these days. They actually prefer it over CNN. They think CNN is terrible.

Why would you have a problem with CNN having Lou Dobbs? That would be like me complaining that Fox is too liberal since they have Allan Colmes.

There should not have to be a balance in the first place. I hate Dobbs because he does not report the News. He reports his opinions on the news.

The best listening comes on Sunday where one gets to listen straight from the mouth of people in charge. And most of the time its garbage because people in charge dont answer the questions they are asked. Today on Fox, they actually got Cheney to say some very interesting things that I found very insightful. Charlie Rose sometimes gets some very interesting interviews when he is not asking his Hollywood friends to come on.
Its the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times for me for the most part.

Journalists are human. They are not robots. Most of them have at least a slight bias at the very minimum. Even when they try to be impartial, there is still often times a slight bias.

The newspapers you mentioned both have a bias. The Walstreet Journal is notoriously conservative. The NY Times is notoriously liberal.

You can always read between the lines. The importance is that both of these papers have very good writers and can get to stories because their tendrils reach deep into the political soil, and they have so many foreign correspondents. Most papers just dont have the man power to go out a get basic information.

NY times has a great Science section also. They actually have people that know their stuff. Very comforting, to me anyway.