* long when you get a chance (over 10 min.)

I agree with him that the surge was overrated, but I think there were other factors in addition to the ethnic cleansing that contributed to the declining violence (walling off sections of Baghdad and establishing hard checkpoints, clever use of Predator surveillance, etc.)

Still, the strategy of the surge itself is sound for securing a relatively small area like a city but it's absolutely ludicrous to try to attempt it on a country-wide scale as McCain seems to be suggesting. The number of troops required to do that would probably exceed the population of the U.S.

The reporter is absolutely right about Pakistan, and I like his analogy. We could turn Afghanistan into paradise, but the foothills of the Afghan/Pakistan border are turning out to be the new terrorist training center and there doesn't seem to be anything the current Pakistan government can do to stop it.

Good stuff. I swear I've seen this one before elsewhere a while ago, though obviously not on TV.

Overreaches a bit -- he's had to eat crow on the violence, but it was increasing every month until November 2007, and he's still saying the surge hasn't brought about the political reconciliation it was supposed to, and therefore it didn't "work". Also, he often points out that the Anbar Awakening deserves a lot of credit for reducing the violence, as well as the deal cut with Al Sadr and, saddest of all, because most of the ethnic cleansing has been done.

The bit from 2003-2004 where he argues against timelines is golden, they should just focus on that one, because he's going to have a harder time walking that one back.

I'd love to see McCain try to beat up Obama for voting to fund the war. What, by chance, do you think McCain would have done if he'd voted against funding it? Applauded his moral stance for peace?

It's a good way to change the subject from whether or not staying or leaving is what people want to do, which McCain desperately needs to do, because there aren't too many people who want to stay.

Farhad exaggerated just a very tiny little bit. I'm sorry, but my opinion is that this piece of Kremlin propaganda really, really ought to be discarded. That is, no offense or bad feelings, bamdrew, because, like you said, you don't know what to make of this.

I won't quote internet sources, as even among the multitude of those that have covered this conflict, few have any bits of trustworthy info at this point. What I can say is that yesterday I had a short conversation with a Georgian citizen that's originally from Abkhazia (much like South Osettia, it's supposedly a de facto independent administrative state within Georgia that "wants" to be annexed by Russia). He explained to me that he's been in contact with his relatives and friends in Georgia and pretty much the only civilians Georgian forces have killed are those that got caught in crossfire because of the positions that the Russian-backed seperatists have entrenched in.

Claims of genocide and ethnic cleansing by Georgian troops are outrageous - and so far seem to be completely false. It was actually one of Russian generals that blabbed about how they're carrying out 'cleansings' on ethnic Georgian villages in the now occupied South Osettia.

Please do not upvote this - at least not until you've read too much of Kremlin propaganda.

The Baath party was secularist coalition incorporating both Sunni and Shia elements. It never let this kind of Sunni vs. Shia genocide happen. The de-baathification of Iraq has empowered religious fundamentalists and destabilized the country. Saddam was a terrible tyrant, but the ethnic cleansing that has occurred in Baghdad in the last 3 years is worse than anything Saddam ever did. But I remain agnostic about whether, in the long run, Bush's war will have been better than noninterference with Saddam's regime. Eventually the Iraqi people might have improved their own government without unsolicited help from the USA.

This just reminds me how scary ethnic cleansing is...

yes... thanks for helping me get to 100 votes... I fixed the video...

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i've seen it before and enjoyed it, and you posted it, so even though it's *dead, i'll vote it through and then you can fix it, yes?

NO! she isn't dead! Move over... CLEAR! *electrocutes the video till there is a pulse again* She's alive!!!

BTW, the video is back up and running, thanks for the heads up...

In reply to this comment by Shepppard:
Sorry, but she's *Dead Jim.

I don't even have a clue what MINK was saying.

But as for the hiding comments - People are acting like thread integrity will be ruined for all if Sazry decides block QM. It's not like its going to affect any other sifter in any way - so I don't really see what the concern is about.

And Farhad? Seriously, Dag is right. Lighten up. Just becuase I have the option to ignore someone doesn't mean that Dag and Lucky are scheming up ways to ethnically cleanse the community.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/26/10234/1725/937/484182

- Associated Press, 3/17/08

"Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," Clinton said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver....There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

"[S]he evoked foreign battlefields, recalling a trip to Bosnia as first lady, when the welcoming ceremony ‘had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.’ She said she had traveled to more than 80 countries and was ‘on the front lines’ as the United States made peace in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and helped save refugees from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo."

"I was the first, you know, high-profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement. We wanted to make it clear to the Bosnians of all backgrounds. Plus we wanted to thank our American military and our allies for a great job. So, we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don’t remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac."

Maybe if they had cut together speeches as if Hitler was singing the words. Otherwise its just two really played out memes in juxtaposition.

Meh.

Oh and HollywoodBob, the Third Reich was hated for military aggression and ethnic cleansing. I don't think Churchill and Roosevelt were cool with Hitler until they got wind of his fantastic parades.

A preemptive war against a pathetic little dictatorship has nothing to do with "defending our freedom". First it was about WMDs and 9/11, but that turned out to be false, then they changed course completely and said it was about freeing the Iraqis, even though most of the Iraqis don't want us there. Saddam's abuses are nothing compared to the posse ethnic cleansing that has been unleashed in the anarchy after his government was toppled. The only reason civilian deaths are down is because there's no ethnic cleansing left to do. The Sunnis have fled from Shia neighborhoods, the Shias have fled from Sunni neighborhoods, and almost all the Maronite Christians have either fled or been executed by fundamentalist islamic posses.

If we had a draft, I would sympathize more with the dead soldiers. Since we don't have a draft, the respect dead soldiers deserve is contingent on whether the war they're fighting is just, because they chose to fight it by joining / staying in.

Overthrowing Saddam was a great and lofty goal, but it hasn't worked out very well!

forget about a statistic, then, if it doesn't suit your understanding.

if you want to simply talk about what 'we' did, how about the egregious collateral impact on the iraqi economy and environment? the historic and cultural losses from opportunistic ethnic cleansings and museum lootings?

depleted uranium?

no jobs? educational opportunities? water?

More then a "nil" percent will die of cancer from unacceptable living conditions.

And playing with kids is a good thing, instead of teasing them with water. No doubt. FOr reaLS.

Damn those conspiracy theorist/liberal/terrorist/atheist* truth sayers.

*delete as appropriate.


Quantummushroom - insert your usual ad hominem argument here. Then we can return to the slaughter, murder, ethnic cleansing, resource stealing, illegal invasion of Iraq/Iran/Palestine* without further delay.

*delete as appropriate.

MarineG,

I think the trouble is with the concept of fighting 'terrists'. There isn't "al-Q" coming from all over to Iraq to fight there. Does that even make sense? So Iraq is like a pest trap where Japanese Beetle fall in the water?

Look, the vast, vast majority of people there with guns are insurgents, aka pissed off people who have lived there their whole lives. I guarantee if some country occupied your hometown you would also become an insurgent. Now we have sectarian war and ethnic cleansing going on.

The US has no business staying there. It would be one thing if anyone in the puppet regime even wants us there, but they don't. It would be another thing if the US was doing a good job with even basics like water, electricity, infrastructure, but they haven't. We have left people stuck with almost NO electricity. Wasted billions on rebuilding projects, lost billions of money that just vanished. Guns are being given and sold to who know what, all over the place. If we wanted peace there, we would be ARMING BOTH SIDES.

The goal is to keep it as unstable as possible to keep access to the oil. It is the biggest screw up and illegal war in modern history. Staying there makes less sense especially when people admit what a bad idea it was in the first place.

So you came home drunk from the bar and wake up next to a 350lb, one legged, inbred 45yr old cougar. So you keep dating her because you were duped, and you already invaded her. You already setup shop, and it's going to upset her if you leave...

No Drachen, the video is not very accurate. It barely even says anything. It tries to make a point on a few of the signs and then just breezes by all the others, sometimes showing a picture or two so that the audience will jump to their own hasty conclusions without any actual evidence having been presented.

Some of you seem to not know what fascism is. It's sad enough that I don't even know why I'm here arguing this. Oh, but I'll continue anyway.

When a fascist government has mass control of the media, it's not one news network (that people can choose to watch or not voluntarily) that has an obvious bias, while there are several others without that bias. A fascist government shuts down any station that disagrees with them and controls any news that gets out.

Disdain for human rights doesn't refer to some bitch at Abu Ghraib pointing at a tied up guy's privates. It refers to massive discrimination against certain groups of people. For example, the genocide at Darfur. Ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. Keeping prisoners of war at Gitmo, while some may find it bothersome in terms of human rights, is nowhere near what a fascist dictator would do.

God, all the bitching and moaning about Bush. He's a fascist! He's a fascist! Go to any serious political forum and start saying this crap. You'll get laughed the hell out for not even knowing what a fascist government is.

Once the government shuts down CNN, MSNBC, and all the other news stations, then you can talk. When they decide to start executing all the Gitmo prisoners instead of releasing them or continuing to detain them, then you can talk. When Bush starts demanding his voice be heard over a loudspeaker in every city and town for a daily prayer, then you can talk.

As it is, you are just humiliating yourself.