Are the Democrats going to cave?

[Lemon law]

I disagree with the following---Bush disregarded all other options to pursue this "Surge". Congress has granted him that, and could extend deadlines or do a lot of things if it proves successful...

Congress never granted GWB&co. the surge---the mini-surge was invented out of whole cloth by GWB&co. as a way of delaying the inevitable loss of Iraqi control the election of 11/06 demanded. For now congress is not directly confronting what amounts to a clever political ploy. How much time it will buy GWB&co. is debatable and unknowable at this time. Some suggest all the way into early 08, some suggest until the fall of this year, and I am guessing no longer than this summer. But I am also guessing this mini-surge will be GWB&co's last hurrah because congress will not allow another newly coined plan to be the new mantra when the mini-surge is a universally acknowledged failure.---of course there are a few delusional types on this forum who still think the mini surge will work, But they will be disappointed again is a safe bet---unless GWB&co. can come up with the 200,000 additional troops
the plan needs TO WORK.

And in the grand scheme of things GWB&co. is like anyone else and have a track record of sometimes flip flopping----but on the most part---GWB&co. is very consistent at simply flopping. And now the sands of time are running out on a scoundrel.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Fern
It IS about who takes responibility for what occurs after a withdrawl and the '08 Prresidential election.

The Dems won't force a withdrawl because of the risk of what may happen in the region afterward. If things got much worse as many expect, it may cause them to lose the '08 election.

And if a Democratic becomes president in 2008? He/she will look like a total idiot and the party in general if they continue to fight what Bush started.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Maybe by default this has happened, however, the issue may become forced as to does Congress have the authority to control how the war is implimented. That may be stepping beyond their constitutional scope.

Bush could/should veto a time limitation and force the issue

If Congress is providing funding for something, they have the right to attach conditions to that funding. It has been done countless times throughout our history, it was the reason for the pullout in Vietnam, and even John Yoo (the ultimate promoter of the unitary executive/crazy bush-hack) admits that it's within congress' power to make funding conditional. There is simply no doubt on the subject.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

If Congress is providing funding for something, they have the right to attach conditions to that funding. It has been done countless times throughout our history, it was the reason for the pullout in Vietnam, and even John Yoo (the ultimate promoter of the unitary executive/crazy bush-hack) admits that it's within congress' power to make funding conditional. There is simply no doubt on the subject.

Putting aside for/against the war, like/not like Bush, etc...

...does it make any common sense at all to tell those we are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere when we'll be leaving?

Why would we ever do that???

This would be like two businesses competing in a sector, and neither is gaining much ground. Instead of keeping the other in the dark (business is war afterall) about strategic plans, one of the businesses announces that in 6 months, it's going to stop direct sales and support to that sector. In 18 months it'll be completely pulled out. Better yet, the people that invested into its system are totally up the creek alone.

Then that same business would try and convince other customers - both current and prospective - to buy its system via third party.

If I'm one of the customers already bought into that system recently, I'm really not going to be pleased.

If I'm a prospective customer who was or could have been swayed into that system, no way am I going to buy into it after seeing the committment that company showed its previous customers.

Now just replace the two companies with the insurgency/radicals vs. US, customers with populations under governments with rampant radical influence, and systems with radical/anti-West vs. moderate/pro(or at least not rabid hate)-West. Current customers would be Iraq, and prospective customers would be the rest of the ME.

Chuck

 

[Lemon law]

Well Chucky2---if you want a business analogy---try GWB&co is the CEO of a given company that is selling a product---and congress is the board of directors---and the American people are stockholders---and the stock holders are watching their stock fall like a rock in active trading---because the CEO is trying to sell a product no one is buying.--and refuses to develop another product that will sell.

Isn't it high time to fire the CEO and get someone in to develop a product the customer will buy?---or alternately get out of a money losing market while firing a clueless CEO. The hell with a timetable---do it yesterday. And if the competition does not have all that great of a product---you can re-enter that market when and if you have that better product.

Hope that explains it to you.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Well Chucky2---if you want a business analogy---try GWB&co is the CEO of a given company that is selling a product---and congress is the board of directors---and the American people are stockholders---and the stock holders are watching their stock fall like a rock in active trading---because the CEO is trying to sell a product no one is buying.--and refuses to develop another product that will sell.

Isn't it high time to fire the CEO and get someone in to develop a product the customer will buy?---or alternately get out of a money losing market while firing a clueless CEO. The hell with a timetable---do it yesterday. And if the competition does not have all that great of a product---you can re-enter that market when and if you have that better product.

Hope that explains it to you.

You sort of just dropped my analogy and created another one...not sure if that's because you totally disagreed with mine, or you couldn't make your point by using mine. I even said right at the start of my post, for/against aside...my analogy was in response to a timetable. But, going with yours...

"and the stock holders are watching their stock fall like a rock in active trading..."

Our stock price isn't falling like a rock, it's stagnant or gradually declining. I being an investor realize that's not good, however I also realize it's not a total disaster either. Of course, an investor just looses money...it is a total disaster for those who are directly affected by lost lives...for them I understand even a takeover of the competing company won't ever make it right.

"---because the CEO is trying to sell a product no one is buying.--and refuses to develop another product that will sell."

This would be like AMD trying to break into the business sector with K6 and the lovely MVP3 chipset...wasn't happening. Even when they brought K7 and later K8, it took a long time before Corp. buyers started trusting them. What AMD did not do was say, Well, K6 isn't selling....time to bail out of the CPU market. I know you want a new product...many many people do, myself among them. I'm sure if it was so exceedingly simple as that, it would have been done. Only a fanatic would say "Bush&Co" is killing bunches of people because their stubborn or want to make money or some other silly sh1t. The answers may not be plain or easy or agreeable, but their there.

"Isn't it high time to fire the CEO and get someone in to develop a product the customer will buy?"

Except that's not possible, because the problem isn't with the CEO or the product. Go back to K8 kicking the cr@p out of Netbust, both in performance and price. Stability was more than enough for business use. What we have now is the IT staff (average Iraqi) willing to go with K8, and Intel lovers spreading FUD (insurgency/terrorists) that that isn't the way to go. We have K8, the insurgents/terrorists have Netburst. But because of our past K6 days, and because the Intel FUD'ers spread panic so well, it's hard to make entryway with K8. The average IT person knew the truth though...their voice just wasn't heard, and they weren't in a position to do anything about it.

"or alternately get out of a money losing market while firing a clueless CEO."

This is exactly like AMD in the K6 days. Who would argue it would have been good for AMD, it's shareholders, or the rest of us who want their products or enjoy the benefits of their products if they had gotten out of the game? Again, the CEO has nothing to do with it...other than it's always fun to pick at the top guy.

"And if the competition does not have all that great of a product---you can re-enter that market when and if you have that better product."

Granted, that's a valid choice to make. Big risk involved, but a valid choice. The problem there is if you go back to my analogy, and you ask those customers that you abandoned to buy back into your system...or you go to different customers and ask them to trust you in not abandoning them after going whole hog on your new system...why would you expect them to buy back in?

Chuck

 

[Lemon law]

To chucky2 who asks---why would you expect them to buy back in?

Because the competition does not have a great product remember!---you know ole inferior Saddam and backwards Islamists. And if your existing product can't beat that, there is clearly something wrong with your product or sales pitch. And renaming your product the surge won't cut it either.

Now how fast can team USA retool and come up with a winning product?---the only thing you know is that as long as you retain the same CEO and product is just another day when you are defacto no longer in the marketplace. Which in your AMD analogy would be like AMD trying to market a 8086 clone because they can't compete with a dual core intel---and then claiming we are still in the marketplace and will hurt ourselves if we quit hawking a product that won't sell. Get rid of the CEO and we may get someone who will hit the ground running.
And we may not need to vanish from the marketplace at all.

 

[chucky2]

Unfortunately in this case, the only other product being offered is the terrorist/insurgents...maybe someone new will break into the marketplace, but even worse that's likely to be Iran. We know you don't need great product to sell it to the masses, because look how many Netbursts Intel sold...and look how many people bought them. More disturbing is look how many media outlets recommended it...there's your radical leaders over in the ME.

Right now we have like K7 we're tring to sell, and Intel and their FUD'ers are doing everything they can to cram their own product down the masses throats, while trying to make K7 be K6.

We can try a different product, maybe get K8 in there...but as anyone that dealt with recommending AMD over Intel back in the K7 and early K8 days, you know that's an uphill battle.

Getting another CEO isn't going to happen for another 2 years, so either the BoD can help him or F him. If it's a responsible board, it'll help him, as that helps the company. If it's a board looking out for their own ends, then you'll know what'll happen. See prosecutors, bills that are automatically going to be vetoed, constant whining instead of real ideas, etc.

Every one of us has a vested interest in the ME starting to buy AMD....because if they don't, it's going to be an Intel monopoly over there, and we all know what happens then:

Prices get very high.

Chuck

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: chucky2

...does it make any common sense at all to tell those we are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere when we'll be leaving?

Chuck

No.

But neither does ending "half-finished" wars. We'll end up needing to go back later and likely face a far larger problem.

Fern

 

[BMW540I6speed]

Fern said:

But neither does ending "half-finished" wars. We'll end up needing to go back later and likely face a far larger problem.

The "war" has been over long ago. More like a "half finished" occupation.

Or more appropriate:

A "bungled from the start occupation & reconstruction"

They keep calling this thing a "war". It isn't. It's an occupation that is going terribly wrong. Occupations aren't won, they just tend to bleed the occupiers and the occupants white - then the occupiers finally leave.

The large majority of 'terrorists' operating in Iraq are nationalists and sectarians only worried about what their slice of the eventual pie will be once the dust settles there.

These factions would prefer that we, the referees of this little grudge match, leave sooner rather than later.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, would prefer - indeed desperately needs - for us to stay there. Iraq is the best recruiting poster and real life training ground they've had since Afghanistan in the 80's.

Funny how they never seem to learn that.

To "win" a "so called war" in Iraq, we need soldiers on the ground, as many soldiers as we can get.

And the war needs support from the public.

A massive outpouring of volunteers would solve both problems. But they won't do it, because they know they won't get any number of volunteers. Even war supporters won't volunteer for the war.

Far from being Churchillian, they're simply being cowards. And their supporters are cowards. Far from being determined to win the "war" or avoid "losing", they are in fact "letting losing happen", and are blaming Democrats and rational republicans for the loss.

They need to be called out on this.

The president should be asked why he isn't calling for volunteers.

Dick Cheney should be asked why he isn't calling for volunteers.

Rush Limbaugh should be asked why he isn't calling for volunteers.

If they really want to win the "labled" war, that's the way to do it -- get as many volunteers for the war as they can. But they aren't doing it.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: chucky2

...does it make any common sense at all to tell those we are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere when we'll be leaving?

Chuck

No.

But neither does ending "half-finished" wars. We'll end up needing to go back later and likely face a far larger problem.

Fern

I thought it was half finished after GW 1. So will we now be two thirds finished? I hear fainted echoes of 1991 in my ears.

As long as we're making progress and W has brushed up on his fractions. He's the commander guy after all.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

For all the invoking of WWII, their pointed refusal to acknowledge the dead and to ask for sacrifice is revealing; they're trying to have it both ways, as they always do:

Business as usual during wartime; tax cuts during military escalation, etc.

The War in Iraq isn't WWII; but now we have the so called "War on Terror", unfortunately, with as dire ramifications for us as WWII was for the world. US v. World (e.g., anyplace we decide to invade) is a recipe for our own doom, despite, or even because of, our military dominance, which blinds us to the new realities on the ground.

Just as strategy and tactics in WWI were vastly different from WWII, so should the strategy and tactics in so called "The War on Terror" be very different from WWII.

The Bush League are fighting the so called "War on Terror" as if it was WWII, Part Two. Their rhetoric, their policy, their strategy, their tactics - all going the old 20th century "total war" route (shock and awe, smash and burn, seek and destroy, torture and murder).

And unfortunately, while they're rhetorically invoking Churchill, they seem to be taking pages from the fascist handbook on the actual practice of the war. Secret prisons? Torture? Executions? Autocratic power-grabbing? Moral high ground it isn't.

And that kind of approach just doesn't fly in a smaller, more globalized world.

The so called "War on Terror" has to be fought diplomatically, where we are, unfortunately, weakest these days, Bushco, having squandered our standing as a country.

As people say often enough, you can't wage war on a tactic; and that's what terrorism is.

We're trying to swat flies with a shotgun, and Bush and Company are busy demanding more ammo, again and again and again. It'll work this time, I promise!

With their heads back in the glory days of WWII, the Pax Americana, all of that, the Bushies simply fail to realize that things are different today. What worked then isn't working today.

Just compare and contrast Iraq before we invaded it, and after, to look how well it's working. Look at even Afghanistan, another front in the so called "War on Terror". And if they go into Iran for "The Bush doctrine", it'll be that much more of a catastrophe.

Whether this is an unfortunate episode in our country's history, or a death spiral, depends entirely on how we change as a country, how we adapt to the time that we're in, rather than vainly praying for the world to oblige us in our war against it.

 

[Lemon law]

In terms of the democrats caving for GWB&co.---I just returned from the yahoo news and that looks like a no---after meeting with some of the Presidents men, a bipartisan congressional delegation are now floating a plan to give Bush his unrestricted funding all the way into 7/07 and then benchmarks and automatic withdrawal starts to kick in. While there is some congressional division on exact wording, its likely thats what GWB&co. will receive by the end of May/07.

So GWB&co. will likely end May with a sign or veto dilemma.

So if any of you Bush fans thought your commander was going to get the dems to cave---looks like you may have been a wee mite premature