define worked?

In case you hadn't been reading the wingnuts propaganda about how the surge worked and we won in Iraq.  Tom Ricks asks the pertinent question.

Question of the day: What should I say the next time someone tells me the surge "worked"?

I don't think that means what he thinks it means

Cheney says " We made the right decision."  To invade a random country for no reason and have no plan to deal with the blowback from our actions. WEEEEEEEEEE!!!1?!!!!

not so deep thought

I guess we have become stoopider since 1943.

Hearts and Minds: We can has them?

I bet these flaming r-tards are from the south.

Walnuts McCain cribs Hillary talking points...or is it the other way around?

McCain attacks Obama.

I just have to say that this experience argument is stupid. No body besides GHWB, Bill Clinton, GWB, and Jimmy Carter have experience being President. But in defense of Hillary and Walnuts, they are right they have more experience than Obama. Experience at being WRONG, almost all the time. It didn't take a genius to figure out invading Iraq without international support was a bad idea. Dick Cheney thought so.



Ryan Leaf has experience being a NFL QB but he was bad at it, Hillary and McCain have had a lot of experience being wrong and promise more of the same if they are elected.

LOLCATS: on Iraq

moar funny pictures

Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

The Decider has now embraced the Iraq/Vietnam analogy. Wtf???!?!?1? This has caused me endless cognitive dissonance, haven't we been told for five years that such comparisons were specious, defeatist, and indeed traitorous rhetoric that only full blown Comintern members would accept? Thankfully, I have Google to try and verify my suspicion.

Here is a sample of the writings explaining the wrongheadedness of the Iraq/Vietnam analogy.

• Remember when Colin Powell assured us that, unlike Vietnam, Iraq "is not a swamp that will devour us." Perhaps, he just meant that because it was the desert, it was quicksand that would devour us, which would explain why he has since claimed to be against the war in the beginning.
• Hitchens called it "an ex-analogy."
• Fred Kagan called it "A pernicious equivalence."
• In 2003, George C. Wilson explained the main difference between the two wars is a lack of Pentagon body counts.
• John McCain made this non sequitur in 2005, South Vietnam "never had a legitimate government in Saigon that the people believed in and trusted." Unlike the universally loved and supported government in Iraq.
• Here is one I missed, from Lieutenant Colonel Powl Smith in September 2004, "Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Guadalcanal—one campaign of many in a global war to defeat the terrorists and their sponsors. Like the United States in the Pacific in 1943, we are in a war of national survival that will be long, hard, and fraught with casualties. We lost the first battle of that war on Sept. 11, 2001, and we cannot now afford to walk away from the critical battle we are fighting in Iraq any more than we could afford to walk away from Guadalcanal." The obvious implication being that if we had lost on Guadalcanal the Japanese would have occupied California in short order. I'm no expert, but from what I know of military history rarely is war decided by one battle. But, then again, after Little Big Horn the Sioux did lead a enraged Indian army straight to the Potomac, didn't they?

There are over 42,000,000 results if you Google "Iraq not Vietnam" so this is obviously a extremely truncated list, but you get the point.

The analogy Bush is trying to make is that if domestic political pressure(which is clearly influenced by the fifth column Stalinists who run rampant all over America) forced us to withdraw from Iraq then millions would die. The fact that this outcome was virtually guaranteed by the invasion of Iraq does not deter him from demonizing critics of his endless series of wars strategy. Jim Henley points out that in Vietnam "millions died while we were there." The same is true in Iraq, tens of thousands are dying and being displaced while we are there. So will any of our intrepid MSM reporters point this out to Bush? No. The media will kowtow and continue to regurgitate the administrations press releases and disserve the American people. Which is, as Norman Solomon points out, one way that Vietnam and Iraq are certainly similar. Money shot.

War after war, decade after decade, the U.S. news media have continued to serve those in Washington who strive to set the national agenda for war and lay down flagstones on the path to military intervention.
From the U.S. media’s fraudulent reporting about Gulf of Tonkin events in early August 1964 to the fraudulent reporting about supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the first years of the 21st century, the U.S. news media have been fundamental to making war possible for the United States.

The wingnuts who, from an undisclosed location, continually tell us that the liberal media are undermining the war have exceedingly short memories. The beauty of this is, of course, that the warmongers who bravely sit in front of their computers and insist that others die in service of an impossible goal for dubious reasons also get to falsely harangue the commie news media in an effort to stir up support among their base.

Winning the Hearts and Minds... or not

Iraqi children orphaned by the invasion and forced into begging. This quote provides all the context necessary.

"Only four years ago, the vast majority of these children were living at home with their families."

The wingnuts of course will spin this to be fault of the the Democrats. Because clearly if lefties were more supportive of the never ending war these children would have parents, or at least find employment with some multi-national that bravely employs children to produce its goods.

Of course the Bush strategy for victory isn't limited to driving children into beggary but also drugs, violence and prostitution.

"Sami Rubaie, 12, lives on the streets of Baghdad. He said he ran away from home because he could not stand the beatings he got from his father for not bringing home enough money from begging all day. He soon turned to glue sniffing. To support his habit, he recently joined a gang and now men have sex with him in exchange for glue and money. "I cry every time a man has sex with me and they usually hit me because I am crying. After I do it, my boss gives me a good quantity of glue and around US $3 dollars for food. I know what I'm doing is wrong but it's better than living with daily beatings from my father for not bringing him enough money," Sami said."

I imagine that all of these children will forever be grateful to the United States for providing them with such a tremendously glamorous lifestyle. Mr. Bush, you have clearly sown the seeds for a democracy loving country that will be our faithful allies forever. Mission Accomplished. Congrats, I know Jesus looks down on you and smiles.

Barack Obama Hates America and American soldiers!

That is according to pro-torture wingnut Michelle Malkin. Here is the Obama Clip that riled Malkin up.



Malkin says

" Sen. Barack Obama's nutroots are showing. RedStateLady has the video of Obama arguing that each and every member of the military who volunteered to serve and died in Iraq wasted his/her life"




She then goes on to point out that Soldiers in Iraq believe in what they are doing. Soldiers like 2nd Lt. Mark Daily, Marine Sgt. Joshua J. Frazier, and Corporal Jeffrey B. Starr all believe that the war in Iraq is the right thing to do. I ' m shocked. REALLY? How this rebuts the idea that the war in Iraq is a catastrophic failure that has not accomplished any of its stated goals I'm not sure. I personally think these brave soldiers' belief that they are fighting a just and righteous war is sincere and I have have respect for their views. This said, belief is not an argument, the terrorists believe in what they are doing as well, it doesn't make them right.

Malkin trots out these soldiers opinions in order to stifle discussion, because who could argue with people who have fought and died in Iraq? The bankrupt arguments of Malkin and her cohorts on the Right substitute rational debate for the pathos of an empty ideology. This is also true of the entire Bush administration's faith based foreign policy. Results don' t matter, facts don't matter, and most importantly the continuing slaughter of Iraqi's doesn't matter. In Tikrit, Baghdad, and throughout Iraq they die. Sacrificed to the ill-conceived imperialism that Malkin supports. But they are only brown people, right? So they don't really count in the distorted world view of Malkin and her compatriots.

The point here is that Obama is right, the brutally sad fact is that American lives have been wasted in Iraq. Whether it is tomorrow or in ten years, when America does the inevitable Saigon '75 Redux. Iraq will be worse off and America will be worse off. But Malkin doesn't bother to actually make an argument she just says that American soldiers believe in what they are doing. Well that sure showed all of us pinko America haters on the left didn't it?