The Facts in Iraq are Changing

[FLALAX]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printp ... nging.html

[Jac Coyne]

Sadly, many Democrats still root for the U.S. to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan because if we win, it terminates their raison d'être.

[Steno]

If George W. Bush was wrong about the surge from summer 2003 to January 2007, Barack Obama has been wrong about it from January 2007 to today. John McCain seems to have been right on it all along. When asked why he changed his position on an issue, John Maynard Keynes said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" What say you, Sen. Obama?

Isn't that flip-flopping? Or is changing your mind ok in 2008?

[jayjaciv]

Sadly, many Democrats still root for the U.S. to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan because if we win, it terminates their raison d'être.

If you actually think that way, I just feel bad for you. It must be awful to think so poorly of your fellow human beings. Surrounded by commies all the time, eh?
Anyway, is it even possible to lose if it's impossible to win? The two are intertwined; one must be possible for the other to be.

That was a nice article though, FLALAX. I am impressed with Mr. Barone's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barone_(pundit)) ability to write without thinking. It is truly a feat.

I can remember how opponents of the Vietnam War simply tuned out news of American success

...And the Vietnam War is now widely remembered as a shining moment in American military history.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyard Zebari told Obama in a phone conversation that a precipitate withdrawal would embolden al-Qaida and Iran.

Really? The Iraqi Foreign Minister who is only in office because we put him there and only remains because our military presence allows him to, thinks our military should stay? Weird.

Public opinion has switched sharply and now favors drilling offshore and, by inference, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

That is one of the most outrageous statements I have ever heard. I would laugh if I didn't know people were actually taking these words as truth.

Perhaps he's still trying to avoid facing facts that undermine his narrative.

Facts have been notoriously bad to politicians trying to create a narrative recently; facts such as "there are no WMDs in Iraq" and "even when the number of troop deaths is at its lowest in the course of the entire conflict, there were still 18 dead American boys in Iraq in May." At least we're winning though?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... iraq_N.htm
Unfortunately for Mr. Barone, there aren't any actual facts in this article which undermine Obama's "narrative" (which could also be described as "what's actually going on in Iraq").

I know where I'm going for actual facts about Iraq. I love you, Lara Logan: http://www.deusexmalcontent.com/2008/06 ... -shun.html

[Steno]

Agreed, especially with your point about offshore and ANWR drilling. Energy independence cannot include development of domestic resources, especially an area as oil-poor as ANWR.

The report, issued by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said that if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the crude could begin flowing by 2013 and reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025.

But even at peak production, the EIA analysis said, the United States would still have to import two-thirds of its oil, as opposed to an expected 70 percent if the refuge’s oil remained off the market.

To read more of these commie lies, just go to
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/

Sure, the article was written in 2004, but they facts have yet to really change.[/quote]

[FLAK]

Agreed, especially with your point about offshore and ANWR drilling. Energy independence cannot include development of domestic resources, especially an area as oil-poor as ANWR.

The report, issued by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said that if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the crude could begin flowing by 2013 and reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025.

But even at peak production, the EIA analysis said, the United States would still have to import two-thirds of its oil, as opposed to an expected 70 percent if the refuge’s oil remained off the market.

To read more of these commie lies, just go to
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/

Sure, the article was written in 2004, but they facts have yet to really change.

Here's another quote from the article:

No one is certain how much oil is beneath the Alaskan coastal plain. In assuming 876,000-barrel-a-day production, the EIA assumed the “mean” estimate provided by geologists of 10.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable reserves. Geologists say there could be less or much more.

They can't officially know how much is down there unless they allow companies to survey the field. It's called "Exploration".
In the grand scheme of things no amount of drilling can relieve our dependence on foreign oil, but no site can fully relieve that dependence as the middle east sits atop a sea of oil.

What the drilling could do is increase domestic production which obviously costs less for us to refine since we don't have to buy it from another country (read bring down the price of gas in the US)...

What good does it do to leave a sizeable deposit of oil in the ground when we know it's there and the infrastructure is in place to have it producing within the next decade?

The environmental argument is fragile at best, yeah there was a leak in the pipeline two years ago that was cleaned up, but the aside from that there has been little to no burdening impact on the north slope since the pipeline has gone in, the once endangered caribou herds are no longer considered threatened http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=1123

ANWR itself is nothing more than a mosquito infested marsh, I've worked on the slope and lived in Alaska for most of my life, there is no comparison between the beauty that you see in most of the state with the bareness of the North Slope.

But lets talk about the economic impact on the State of Alaska as a whole. More than half of the state's economy comes from the oil industry, what will happen to that state when production stops at Prudhoe Bay? I guarantee those citizens will be screaming for ANWR to be opened...


As far as drilling off the Florida Coast, China and India are doing it. Cuba is 90 miles from Florida so why do we insist on not drilling there? They care alot less about the environment than we do, so why are we allowing others to reap the benefits of our territory?http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm

The argument that we won't see the benefits of this drilling for some time are true, but the longer we wait, the more dire it will become for us to open these fields.

It's not a long-term solution, but companies and engineers are already being tasked with developing new energy sources and our dependence on oil won't disappear before those sources have been realized. When will that solution be discovered and actually implemented? It could be 10 years from now, but it could also be much further down the road. Why take that chance? Why not produce the reserves that are available to us while we continue our search for the energy messiah?

[Dan Wishengrad]

Sadly, many Democrats still root for the U.S. to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan because if we win, it terminates their raison d'être.

Utter hogwash, Jac. This is cute Republican spin, accusing everyone and anyone who disagrees with this Administration's (and John McCain's) Iraq policy as traitorous defeatists. It worked in 2003 to shove this disastrous war down our throats on false pretenses, but we will see if it works in this coming election.

For all the celebrating you and your brethren are doing over the "impending victory" you now see in Iraq, there has been virtually no satisfactory explanation of what actually defines that victory. We stand down when the Iraqis stand up? (Yeah, that will happen) Iraq becomes a shining example of a functioning democracy for the rest of the Middle East? (When pigs fly!) There has never been a democracy in the Arab world and there likely never will be. Ethnic and tribal differences and hatreds will not go away, and only the iron hand of a dictator like Saddam or the might of the strongest military on the planet (ours) backed by billions and billions of taxpayer dollars is preventing full-scale civil war in Iraq. The surge is simply unsustainable in both military and financial terms. Sure, the war has profited corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater and now the oil companies are getting their foot back in the door to hopefully increase their windfall profits, too. Why exactly are we building so many military bases there if we don't plan on staying for a hundred years (Thanks, Sen. McCain!) and occupying them? Is our role to be permanent peacekeepers between the Shia and the Sunnis and the Kurds?

Good luck selling our wonderful and blossoming success in Iraq to the American voters, my friend. Oh, and have a nice summer...

[DanGenck]

Drilling for oil in Alaska or off the U.S. coast is drug addict behavior. You are jonesing for your next fix... and then what?

Spend your time and money finding a permanent solution.

[KnoxVegas]

McCain on the Surge from the Today show two weeks ago:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbLbKfC9IE[/youtube]
It doesn't matter when the troops come home, as long as they are out of harms way, to paraphrase McCain. It's like having our troops in Korea or Germany? The last time I checked, (aside for the rare bombing by a fringe group) the people in those countries were not trying to kill us.

The goalposts have been changed more than a few times to define victory in Iraq and returning with honor. General Petraeus will once again make the trek to Capitol Hill in July to say what exactly that he hasn't said in his previous two trips? That the surge is working. That the Iraqi Army is still not ready (four years and counting). That victory is near. I love my country and I whole heartedly support the troops but Bush is playing for time with their lives, just like his father in Somalia 16 years ago. He is looking to pass this off to the next President and it looks like that is going to happen. The war in Iraq is now McCain or Obama problem. Bush is quickly washing his hands of his little excursion into nation building and relying on history to prove he was right. I do not see this happening.

From a White House briefing on 13 March 2002:

Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of --

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

This press conference was just six month after September 11. Thankfully, he does say that he care's about the troops and wanting to make sure they are well-supplied but his administration went on to delay the ordering of the MRAPs, didn't get them the requisite body armor, cut their pay, the Walter Reed crisis and failing to get returning soldiers much needed physical and mental health care and is against the latest GI bill. I believe that taking care of our soldiers should be a top priority for the government but apparently the Bush Administration does not.

But keep thinking that things are going well. They are, as long as you remember that everything is propped up by our government, our money and our troops. Where is the vaunted Coalition of the Willing when we need them most? The Iraqi government (and pushed by the Bush administration)that was elected cannot get their act together and as late as last year voted to take a summer recess, even though there is plenty of "nation building" to be done. Maybe Ahmed Chalabi would have been a better choice?

Funny he says he no longer thinks about ObL. It thought that getting him, to "smoke him out of his cave," to bring him in dead or alive was what we were trying to do. Instead we pull many of our troops out of Afghanistan that were on the trail of ObL and move them to invade Iraq. Sure Hussein was a dictator and was a threat to the region but his government did not possess WDM. Once that charade fell, Bush's goal was to bringing democracy to a region that has never had it, that is ruled by religion more than governments. And in some way, I am sure Bush got some satisfaction for bringing done the man that tried to kill his daddy.

There is no easy answer for Iraq but it seems more and more that staying there is a no win, unless you are the Iranis, Haliburton, KBR, Blackwater or an oil company.

As for our "addiction to oil," Thomas Friedman from the 6/22/08 edition of The New York Times sums everything up pretty well.

Mr. Bush, Lead or Leave

Of course, we’re going to need oil for years to come. That being the case, I’d prefer — for geopolitical reasons — that we get as much as possible from domestic wells. But our future is not in oil, and a real president wouldn’t be hectoring Congress about offshore drilling today. He’d be telling the country a much larger truth:

“Oil is poisoning our climate and our geopolitics, and here is how we’re going to break our addiction: We’re going to set a floor price of $4.50 a gallon for gasoline and $100 a barrel for oil. And that floor price is going to trigger massive investments in renewable energy — particularly wind, solar panels and solar thermal. And we’re also going to go on a crash program to dramatically increase energy efficiency, to drive conservation to a whole new level and to build more nuclear power. And I want every Democrat and every Republican to join me in this endeavor.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/opinion/22friedman.html?ex=1214798400&en=ce3c43a6dbde9418&ei=5070&emc=eta1

And then there is this Bush Administration endeavour that make Radio & TV Marti look like a great idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhurra
More of your tax dollars at work.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Martí[/url]

[Jac Coyne]

If you actually think that way, I just feel bad for you. It must be awful to think so poorly of your fellow human beings.

Nah, you actually get used to it after a while. And please, don't feel bad for me. I'll be just fine.

With the possibility of drawing another gem out of Danny-Dub like "hogwash," I'll expand on my first post.

The Democrat party apparatchiks -- including the presumptive nominee -- base all of their rhetoric around the failures of W. There are no substantive planks in Obama's platform (and no, "change" and "hope" aren't substantive); it is a case of Obama eyeing the electorate, pointing at Bush and saying, "I'll be like him, but opposite."

In the past it obviously has been an effective strategy. It led to the Dems ownership of both houses of Congress in '06. But when you hitch your success to another's failure, things get a little dicey when those supposed failures start turning the corner. And that's what we're seeing now. The entire Democratic infrastructure -- Congress, the MoveOn set, the media -- have rode the Iraq war from their high horses. Now that the momentum has swung, the schadenfraude that once had Dems sleeping with visions of blue states in their heads is now making them very uncomfortable.

Just reread Dan's post above. Dan is an eloquent, intelligent individual, but the desperation is palpable in his words as he clings to various reasons why "it'll never work" in the face of our troops' obvious success. Why? Because he's a Democrat, and he, like the rest of his party, is invested in the U.S.'s efforts in Iraq (read: Bush) failing. I don't think Dan, or any Democrat, wants our soldiers to get killed, etc., but they certainly don't want anything reflecting positively on our sitting president.

In part, that's why this thread quickly turned the corner from Iraq to drilling in Alaska. Democrats need any good news out of Iraq to be "hogwash" because anything else means they've spent the last five years rooting for the wrong team.

Good luck selling our wonderful and blossoming success in Iraq to the American voters, my friend.

See, that's the thing. Americans love winners. It's an easy sell.

Oh, and have a nice summer...

Thanks, Dan-o. I always do.

[Jac Coyne]

Oh, and can we stop referencing Wikipedia...

http://news.scotsman.com/education/Fall ... 4209408.jp

[Steno]

Flak -
I liked your post, it really laid it out how it is.

I have two arguments against drilling in ANWR.

1) Developing sites like ANWR will do nothing but fuel a pointless addiction to hydrocarbons. Like recycling, domestic development lets people feel better about their consumption rather than actually doing something about it. (Yes, here I am arguing that recycling creates more harm than it alleviates; just consume less).

2) My second argument is born from my liberal arts education. You indicate that the north slope is a mosquito-infested bog, but who are we to determine that bog can not exist as is? Is it really worth our priapic drive towards development to destroy something that is getting along fine without us? Let the open and wild places be just so they can be! As Wallace Stegner famously wrote in "Coda: A Wilderness Letter:"

We need to put into effect…some other principle than the principles of exploitation or ‘usefulness’ or even recreation. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.

I want ANWR to continue to be part of our geography of hope.


[/quote]

[Steno]

I like Reed Noss's take on the subject as well:

As currently conceived by government agencies, the sustainability notion is hopelessly anthropocentric. What are we sustaining? We hear a lot about sustaining “productive” ecosystems, but the products are unquestioningly assumed to be for human use

I love trolling old term papers for decent quotations.

[StrykerFSU]

The improving conditions in Iraq have been documented in at least two recent editorials in the Washington Post and is the subject of the cover story for this week's Economist magazine.

Cue ad hominem attacks on those sources...

[OAKS]

One of the few things I agree with McCain on is that he's called for something like 40 new nuclear reactors to be commissioned in the coming years.

This is definitely the best intermediate solution until we can get ultra efficient solar converters online. Drilling ANWR just prolongs the inevitable. But hey, at least drilling will line the pockets of Bush's & many of the Dem's friends. If there's one thing we need more of it's that.