Senator Joseph Biden's Op-Ed
To any of ya'll that read print news, or at least print news online, you may have stubbled upon the Washington Post's editorial by Senator Biden. Biden is a leading democrat that has presidential asperations in 2008 and of course wants to get his name out to become commonplace. Now if you don't know where to find the article, i will post it here:
Biden's Op-Ed
Now when I read this I saw it as a dishonest attempt to put the war in Iraq in the worst possible light. I got this impression from the first sentence in the article. "The question most Americans want answered about Iraq is this: When will our troops come home?" This is already the wrong question and is not the question that most Americans want answered at all. It MAY be the question that most politicians and democrats want answered but the real question being asked by those of us that are a) have been or will be going to Iraq b) general supporters of the war is what else do we need to do to win the war. If you have to ask "As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?" you are already wrong. The answer is that question does not matter because WE WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL OUR SECURITY INTERESTS REAMIN INTACT. Duh. When you are fighting a war the most important thing is victory, also known as accomplishing the mission. We aren't going to set a time table, find out that timetable was not sufficient and just pack it up like that timetable meant somthing. All a timetable does is projects, its stupid to a specific time set up when you don't know how long it will take to do a job. I don't decide that i will work on a project for 45 minutes and then just get up and leave after 45 minutes if its not done. That is exactly why all the democrats that support a binding direct timetable should not be trusted with our national security. They don't get the long term but only understand short sighted goal. Now lets look at the 3 points or goals that Biden talks about. First, we already have a constitution, or more appropriately state, the Iraqi people have a constitution that they wrote and decidly voted for. So, Sir, you are an idiot or are entirely dishonest to ignore that huge success in Iraq. As for leveraging the neighbors, the two most influential are Saudi Arabia and Iran. Given how they run their countries, not exactly who i would look to for help and advice in the long term don't ya think? The second point actually makes some sense i will allow. Only problem is that Senator Biden talks past himself in consecutive points. He proposes country sponsered ministries but then in the next sentence notes that the countries that promised aide are giving far less than they promised. How can you trust countries that have yet to come through with aide to take on an even bigger job? The third point here is completely nonsense. He is right on the facts but misconstrues the meaning. He emphasises that only one battalion operates completely independent of the US forces, but then adds only as an aside that 40 more operate with our support. Now this is true but you have to look at GEN Casey's testamony to get his meaning. The 40 battalions that he mentioned operate with only American logistical support, not combat. Almost every country in the world uses American logistics because we are so damn good at it. We have by far the most developed military infastructure such as signal and intelligence not to mention transport and supply. We have been doing that for practically every ally for the past 60 years. Only the UK has anything close and its on a much smaller scale. So basicaly, the 40 battalions he mentioned get help on movement and intel from us but do the job entirely by themselves. Also there are well over 100,000 recruits in the past year in the training time so in the next year we have a much larger force as well. Senator Biden talks of gambling on the Iraqis but then a few paragraphs up he states they need to be taking a larger role. Its this kind of taking exact facts then putting spin on them that makes people the Senator Biden unfit to be trusted with our security
Also check out this blog that has similar writing (oddly):
Captain's Quarters
Biden's Op-Ed
Now when I read this I saw it as a dishonest attempt to put the war in Iraq in the worst possible light. I got this impression from the first sentence in the article. "The question most Americans want answered about Iraq is this: When will our troops come home?" This is already the wrong question and is not the question that most Americans want answered at all. It MAY be the question that most politicians and democrats want answered but the real question being asked by those of us that are a) have been or will be going to Iraq b) general supporters of the war is what else do we need to do to win the war. If you have to ask "As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?" you are already wrong. The answer is that question does not matter because WE WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL OUR SECURITY INTERESTS REAMIN INTACT. Duh. When you are fighting a war the most important thing is victory, also known as accomplishing the mission. We aren't going to set a time table, find out that timetable was not sufficient and just pack it up like that timetable meant somthing. All a timetable does is projects, its stupid to a specific time set up when you don't know how long it will take to do a job. I don't decide that i will work on a project for 45 minutes and then just get up and leave after 45 minutes if its not done. That is exactly why all the democrats that support a binding direct timetable should not be trusted with our national security. They don't get the long term but only understand short sighted goal. Now lets look at the 3 points or goals that Biden talks about. First, we already have a constitution, or more appropriately state, the Iraqi people have a constitution that they wrote and decidly voted for. So, Sir, you are an idiot or are entirely dishonest to ignore that huge success in Iraq. As for leveraging the neighbors, the two most influential are Saudi Arabia and Iran. Given how they run their countries, not exactly who i would look to for help and advice in the long term don't ya think? The second point actually makes some sense i will allow. Only problem is that Senator Biden talks past himself in consecutive points. He proposes country sponsered ministries but then in the next sentence notes that the countries that promised aide are giving far less than they promised. How can you trust countries that have yet to come through with aide to take on an even bigger job? The third point here is completely nonsense. He is right on the facts but misconstrues the meaning. He emphasises that only one battalion operates completely independent of the US forces, but then adds only as an aside that 40 more operate with our support. Now this is true but you have to look at GEN Casey's testamony to get his meaning. The 40 battalions that he mentioned operate with only American logistical support, not combat. Almost every country in the world uses American logistics because we are so damn good at it. We have by far the most developed military infastructure such as signal and intelligence not to mention transport and supply. We have been doing that for practically every ally for the past 60 years. Only the UK has anything close and its on a much smaller scale. So basicaly, the 40 battalions he mentioned get help on movement and intel from us but do the job entirely by themselves. Also there are well over 100,000 recruits in the past year in the training time so in the next year we have a much larger force as well. Senator Biden talks of gambling on the Iraqis but then a few paragraphs up he states they need to be taking a larger role. Its this kind of taking exact facts then putting spin on them that makes people the Senator Biden unfit to be trusted with our security
Also check out this blog that has similar writing (oddly):
Captain's Quarters
posted by Maddawg at 11/26/2005 03:53:00 PM
5 Comments:
Actually, if you will allow, the question most people are asking IS "When will our troops come home," because MOST people NO LONGER support the occupation. MOST people are tired of seeing absolutely no progress.
Yes, the object of a war is to "win," to achieve "victory." But "victory" was announced already. Remember? Our Commander in Chimp flew in in a fighter jet and landed on the U.S.S. Sandbomber, and hopped out in his little pilot suit and proclaimed "victory." Remember that?
The point is this: MOST people want some way to measure progress. Period. This has nothing to do with the war. They just want a way to measure progress. In everything. Especially with the inept administration we have right now.
Now what does that mean for the war? Training troops. Regaining and controlling ground. Less insurgent attacks. Is any of that happening? No, not unless CNN is lying to me.
The only reason the bipartisan group of 79 Senators wanted a "timetable" for the war is to put pressure on the administration to SHARE some of the information with them. I'll be honest, Jim, to MOST of us, it looks like absolutely nothing is getting accomplished. I know you probably have a different perspective, but to the everyday Joe's, it looks like we're just wasting a whole bunch of time and a whole SHIT TON of money. And we have nothing to show for it.
Was it ambitious for Bush to go for peace in the Middle East by the close of business? Yes, and to a certain extent I can admire that. But at some point you've got to just come out and say this is working, this isn't working, now what should we do? But the only message we get from the Illiterate? "Stay the course."
Information breeds confidence. Silence breeds fear. Quite frankly, Jim, a lot of us are scared of what we've gotten ourselves into.
Even if the point is that MOST people want some way to measure progress, that is not at all what Senator Biden is say in his Op-Ed. That might even be true. But when he takes partial facts out of context (as he did with the 40 battalions) he is painting an unrealistic picture of what is going on in Iraq. He is intentially making the war in Iraq look worse than it really is because it furthers his goals of unseating the republican president in 2008 elections. And yes, CNN is not being totally factual with you as i pointed out in the training of the Iraqi troops. There is significant progress in that area but the MSM refuses to report most of that. You don't hear about any of the successes in the normal news because a) good news does not sell b) most of the media is against the war from the beginning and liberal so they have no reason to cover good news in the war which is good news for Bush and the republicans. If you actually dig around, you can find tons of things that are going very well in Iraq. And as to delcaring "victory" we never did. We declared mission accomplished, which it was one of the missoins. There were 3 in case you ever wanted to look up what was stated 3 years ago. 1 was the removal of the Iraqi Baathist government headed by Saddam Hussain. We did that, and very well and fast. 2 was to verifty and ensure that any WMDs in Iraqi could not be used against us or our allies. We did that. 3 was to let the Iraqi people form a representative government that would be run by the people. We are working on that but by its very nature, its a quite long process. Sorry that we don't have daily situation reports but the president probably doesn't even get them from the ground commanders ( or air ;) ). The massive approval for the constitution was a huge milestone for the Iraqi people. There is elections coming up in less than a month. So there is a large amount of progress being made in Iraq. 2.5 years is pretty freaking fast for how long we have come so i'm sorry if you thought we should be moving at the speed of light. If you actually listened to any of the major speeches, the American people were told many many times that this would be a long and arduous process (means tough). So while you got a few points that are wrong none the less are honest questions, that is not at all what the Op-Ed was about. The Op-Ed was a blatant attempt from a presidential hopeful to put the Iraq War in a bad light and to put all of the blame on the administration. There are many very good questions to ask about the Iraq war, Biden however has to lie his way through the facts to get to his points. And he still does not get a pass for "As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?" for the same reason i stated before: We should not even be thinking of leaving UNTIL our interests are secure because its so important.
Before I get to responding, I was reminded of another point that I'd forgotten by Senator Russ Feingold on This Week this morning.
One of the MAIN reasons the insurgents from Iraq and from all over the Middle East are fighting so fervently (means with much passion - see, I can be condescending too (means speaking down to)) is BECAUSE we have an indefinite occupation on our hands. If we say that we'll leave by a certain date, they'll accept that it's just a temporary occupation by infidels and they'll stop pulling this shit.
Not to mention that it was Kant who said that being trapped in a corner makes you act. If we give ourselves a timetable, we put pressure on our guys to accomplish what they need to accomplish by the time they need to accomplish it. And there's no more boondoggling going on.
As far as the three missions, the second one was accomplished before we even went to Iraq, since, y'know, they didn't HAVE any weapons of mass destruction.
Something else I would ask you is this: even though good news doesn't "sell" in news media, a VAST majority of America wants to know what's going on. There's a DEMAND for good news, if there is any good news at all. Wouldn't it serve this inept administration well to ANNOUNCE what good is going on, rather than being cryptic and just repeating the mantra of "stay the course"?
And again, why the partisan bashing? I'll remind you that there were 34 REPUBLICAN Senators that voted IN FAVOR of the President going public with a plan for Iraq. Are those 34 Republicans ALSO trying to unseat a Republican President? Because, I know that there are moderates in the Republican party, but could 34 of them REALLY be trying to sabotage a Republican administration? That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it, Jim?
Here is why you are flat out wrong: "Not to mention that it was Kant who said that being trapped in a corner makes you act. If we give ourselves a timetable, we put pressure on our guys to accomplish what they need to accomplish by the time they need to accomplish it. And there's no more boondoggling going on." Do actually know what you just accused our troops of doing? Pretty much you just said that the troops are just fooling around now and if we have a timetable then we will settle them down and make them do their job better. I mean that is exactly how i read it and people i have asked to read it so it that i wasn't being dumb and thats what i got from them too. I mean how freaking arrogant are you to think that the people over there that are putting their life in danger arnt doing their fucking best? I would say they have the biggest pressure to get the job done the best now since, you know, they are in a life threatening situation, and you are nice and comfy drinking beer on your couch.
As for good news, the whole point is that the administration should not have to fix the crappy reporting of the media to get it out fairly. And if you look hard enough you can find good news. The restoration of all the power grid. All the new schools. The fact that the Iraqi people have had several marches and demonstration against terror. Several Sunni political parties that have denounced the murderers. I mean its there if you look for it. There is two realities. The made up one that the media presents. And the real one that people who go over there and see know about. Thats the biggest thing that pisses off people returning from Iraq is the negative coverage when they know about all the good that goes on there.
As for the Republicans amoung the 79 Senators, they did vote for it but its also a nonbinding resolution and the stronger one that was binding was resolutely voted against. Quarterly reports from the administration would be nice I agree so i support it but to have a strict timetable given to members of Congress for political reasons is stupid. Also look in the House at how massively the immediate pullout was voted down, like 450-3 er something close. I am too lazy to goggle the exact count.
The main problem is that there are good questions to ask about Iraq. The resolution started by Republicans that 79 Senators supported is helpful. But lying about and misconstruing the facts and painted the worst possible picture from the ranking democrat on the foreign relations committee is irresponsible at best. Everyday Joes might not have the most complete picture but someone like Joseph Biden does, and he chooses to distort them unfairly.
Actually, I did not accuse our SOLDIERS of farting around in Iraq. I have no doubt that they ARE doing their damnedest to get their individual missions accomplished.
What I question in terms of the absolute lack of urgency is from higher-ups in the military and even the administration. There seems to be a sense that "since we told America it'd take a while to do this, we don't have to do it as quickly and efficiently as we can," which is COMPLETELY unfair to the soldiers that are on their third, fourth, and fifth tours!
As far as the timetable thing goes, Biden doesn't want an absolute timetable. Google the transcript for "Meet the Press" this morning, or even better, get the video clip from MSNBC's website. He says EXPLICITLY that he doesn't want a strict timetable, that he wants a plan, and quarterly reports. It was MYSELF who wants a timetable, because with the current plan, which nobody seems to know, there's nothing going right.
That said, if Bush came out and, without even setting up a tentative and flexible timetable, said "this is our plan of attack, this is what we've been working on for two and a half years, and this is how it's been going," and then did that every three or four months, there'd be a different sentiment EVEN from this communist right here. But ALL we get is "stay the course," and "we gotta fight the terrrrr-ists."
That's not good enough anymore, not even for 34 Republican Senators.
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