I’ll be joining Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, Matt Stoller of Open Left and host Cenk Uygur on Meet the Bloggers this Friday at 10 AM Pacific. Darcy Burner will be Cenk’s guest this week, and our topic will be her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq. You can stream the show live (I’ll embed a player here on HA) and participate through the comment thread, or you can view an archive after it’s posted.
In the months since Darcy introduced the Responsible Plan and fifty-some House and Senate challengers signed on to it, many of the plan’s major talking points have been quietly adopted by Democratic leaders including Barack Obama. Of course, this really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering that one of the most powerful lessons I learned from Darcy’s effort is that bringing our troops home from Iraq really isn’t rocket science. We all know the way… what’s been missing thus far has been the will.
Indeed, one of the most common criticisms of the Plan was that much of it wasn’t all that original, merely drawing from existing legislation and the proposals of the Baker/Hamilton Commission. But that’s also the Plan’s greatest strength, as much of its proposals are both uncontroversial and eminently doable.
What Darcy produced was a comprehensive legislative agenda… a roadmap for what she and her fellow congress members can do to end this war responsibly, and prevent the same sort of mistakes from happening again. Of course, it will take leaders like Darcy to see this Plan through to fruition.
Well let’s see.
Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated and gone from Iraq.
The Mehdi army is laying down it’s arms, and will no longer oppose coalition forces.
The Iraqi govt. is moving steadily ahead meeting 15 of 18 benchmarks.
Surge total success
Surge troops out of Iraq.
deployments back to 12 months
Lowest monthly US causualties since war began.
Iraqi securtity forces taking and holding security in much of the country alone…
Looks to me like the responsible plan is a day late and dollar short. Of course I fully expect Darcy Burner to take credit for ending the war in Iraq. If not her, Then BO will certainly take credit, especially after his visit…
Looks like the US has achieved what the Democrats couldn’t fathom, victory.
Democrat leadership declared defeat long ago….Civil war, blah blah blah, We have lost the war blah blah blah, the surge won’t work blah blah blah…..
Well not so much.
Thankfully we did exactly the opposite of what Democrats wanted and surged troops instead of retreating out of Iraq…
Democrats on the wrong side of history…
Shouldn’t have hitched your wagon to defeat…
Legislation that so far has moved very little.
many of the plan’s major talking points have been quietly adopted by Democratic leaders including Barack Obama.
—————
This is an exaggeration. Obama has never even discussed the plan as a basis for his own. In addition, he has shifted his thinking (as he has on a number of issues) and now notes his own time table for withdrawal will be influenced by conditions. Finally, Obama will leave a residual force – he’s very vague on this point – something the RP is adamantly opposed to.
It’s worth note that much has changed since RP was penned. Some key RP objectives such as:
• An end to wide-scale civilian deaths in Iraq, and broader protection for human rights there.
• Reducing the threat posed to the rest of the world by an unstable Iraq, including the threat
posed by the use of Iraq as a terrorist training ground.
are much less of an issue than they were just a year ago (though this could still reverse).
In many respects events overtook the RP. The focus more and more is turning to Afghanistan, where body counts are being increasingly focused on. Huffington Post highlighted this NYTimes headline a few days back:
500: Deadly U.S. Milestone in Afghan War
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08.....ref=slogin
Perhaps a RP for that country including a timetable for the (corrupt) government there and a much clearer plan for how that mess will be addressed politically and economically?
Damn I’ve been looking everywhere for that letter Habbush wrote to Saddam about Mohammed Atta’s training in Iraq. It sort of came out just before Saddam was captured.
I found it!
http://assets.236.com/images/p.....iginal.jpg
Awesome!
Make sure there’s nothing shiny and distracting next to Ditzy’s, I mean Darcy’s tele-prompter. We couldn’t have her getting mesmerized and lose focus now, could we? How’s that Irresponsible Plan doing?
The CNN “poll of polls” shows Barack Obama with an average lead over John McCain of five percentage points. And for some strange reason they call this “squeaking by.”
Of course, the state-by-state numbers show Barack Obama easily exceeding 270 electoral votes for the election, squeak or no squeak. The counts are around 298-240 or 309-229.
Call it a squeak; it looks like a comfortable win to me.
3 mac
Sorry, mac, but getting the fuck out of Iraq is step 1 of any plan to address Afghanistan.
1 RS
AQI was always a small and minor component of the insurgency. The insurgency has always beeen and always will be a nationalistic opposition to a foreign invader. With a touch of sectarian payback and jockeying for power in post-occupation Iraq.
Wow, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. JAM has declared that it will not fight Iraqis, but has orgnaized a small militant cadre to attck Americans only. And since we’er the fucking whole “coalition force” and always have been, you’re just wrong.
Do the “benchmarks” include the election law that was just defeated again, or the oil law that has never been passed? Was one of the benchmarks the ehtnic partition of Baghdad? Because they did achieve that. Is one of the benchmarks that a majority of the parliament attend legislative seesions? ‘Cause they missed that one too. How about electricity and water? Seems kinda silly to leave them out, but apparently we did.
If by success you mean that it didn’t achieve its declared goals:
– protecting the Iraqis (800-800 dead per month still)
– creating “space for political progress” (no oil law, no election law, Kurds and Sunnis and JAM still withdrawn from Parliament)
– diversifying “political and economic efforts” (unless you mean that the misuse of US finds continues unabated, but it sure as fuck doesn’t mean electricity or clean water)-
– “situating the strategy in a regional approach,” unless by that you mean saber-rattling toward iran and continuing to blow off the Israeli-Palestinian question
Not yet. Pre-surge we were at 130K and we’re currently at 140K+
Announced as a plan but not yet implemented. I figure it’s just election-year bull.
One month. In the summer. With Iraqis fatalities averaging 800-900 a month still. But those are the ones we’re killling, so who cares, right?
Good one. Yeah, yeah I know, “13 of 17 provinces” or whatever. Well, Iraq is a desert country, adn the provinces they aren’t “holding” are where the cities are. Not too hard to “hold” sand and rock.
What makes you think the war is ending? When the surge troops finally leave, we’ll be back at 130K troops, just like we were in 2006 when we were going to stay forever.
Define “victory.” The Iraqi goverment has not achieved the basics of rule, we did not achieve the goals of the surge, and now they’re throwing us out (as they should, really). You can call it a lot of things, but I’d say calling it victory is a stretch. But do define it for us, specifcally and thoroughly.
1 RS
Oh, and RS?
This from a McCain supporter. Have ya taken a look at YOUR horse lately?
#1
Yep, it is mission accomplished….going on year six.
If you are so confident, plan your next vacation for Tikrit. I would love to see the pictures.
Especially the last one.
CNN’s “poll of polls” is a little problematic. Here are the four polls along with their results.
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation (July 27-29) +7 Obama rv
AP-IPSOS (July 31-August 4) +6 rv
USA Today/Gallup (July 25-27) -4 lv
Gallup tracking (August 2-4) +3 rv
The Gallup tracking has since been updated with a August 3-5 poll showing a tighter spread from the day before (2, Obama).
Some points:
1) The average of these four polls using the latest Gallup results is just 2.75. There are certainly more sophisticated statistical techniques for combining the results, but CNN doesn’t share their method.
2) The CNN poll ignores other polls like the very recent Rasmussen Tracking (08/04 – 08/06) which shows a spread of just 1 (which would bring the combined result down even more).
3) The CNN poll of polls combines RV polls with LV polls – how they adjust for this they don’t say.
Having said all of that, this race has a long ways to go.
@8
Thanks. As you pointed out, all the Surge did was get us further entrenched into a situation that we’re still going to have an extremely difficult time extricating ourselves from.
The Mahdi Army also did not lay down their weapons so much as they’ve done what Hamas and Hizbullah have done. They’ve begun to transition into becoming a real political party. Al Qaeda in Iraq was never more than a convenient strawman for the administration. The real problem here are Shiite extremists and the longer we stay, the more influence they’ll have over the future government of Iraq.
We created a mess that people like Right Stuff may never understand, but that we’ll be helping to clean up for a long time.
Wow. RS has declared victory!
That’s great news. I welcome the troops home even in time for the Republican convention.
And for some strange reason they call this “squeaking by.”
Yeah! That’s the so-called “liberal media” pundit class making that call. Strange, I don’t see too many liberals or lefties scoring high 6 or 7 figure incomes.
This just in!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26074685/
Just in time for November! Yeah Republicans!
Tis’ the season for declaring victory!
Prevent the chest-thumping militarists from starting another war? I’d love to see it, but I’m not optimistic. These rightwing fucks are never happy except when they’re killing someone. If we want peace, we’ll have to exterminate them.*
* Just kidding! I’m mocking rightwing humor! Get the irony? Peace … exterminate? Even Manassas Newt would laugh at that one! haha haha …
@15 “If we want peace, we’ll have to exterminate them.*”
We can first round them up and put them in camps where they’ll be waterboarded until they rat each other out as traitors. Heh, just joking. You all know that, of course.
Tacoma Aroma
I see Floyd Brown, creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad, is living and working in Tacoma.
And here I thought that damned smell was merely a combination of pulp mills and arsenic emissions from the lead smelter.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....wn07m.html
Tacoma Aroma
I see Floyd Brown, creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad, is now living and “working” in Tacoma.
And here I thought that damned smell was merely a combination of pulp mills and arsenic emissions from the lead smelter.
Does Brown have a NPDES permit for his computer? Maybe we can prosecute him under the Clean Air Act.
re 1: I can’t find a word of truth in your entire little tome. But I won’t waste my time talking to you about it.
Looks like you won’t have to join the Texas Air National Guard and do your patriotic duty after all!
re 17: If someone with tenacity, brains (Richard Pope), and the will can dig up some dirt on this guy, we could attack the attack-dog on his own turf.
He’s a Republican, so it won’t be hard to find something.
I’ve heard this is the best strategy for discrediting these monsters. Might want to start with his criminal record.
@20 He’s a Republican, so it won’t be hard to find something.
Show us . . .
The Iraqi government has a $79 billion surplus this year.
They should give it all to the richest 1% of Iraqis. That way, all Iraqi citizens will be able to enjoy the same sort of ‘trickle down’ benefits that we Americans currently enjoy!
re 21: If we can’t find anything, we’ll take a page from the RNC playbook and just lie about it.
But, I’m predicting that won’t be necessary. Criminal Records are Public Information, and someone as slimy as this guy can’t be clean.
re 21: I can see the headline: “McCain campaign hires felon to prepare attack-ads!” You guys are such whiners.
@22
That’s the best comment left on this site all week.
Here’s a good place to start to find information about local Republicans.
Should I remind the idiot @1 that “victory” isn’t in hand until the other side stops shooting at you? Or should we take up a collection to send him to Iraq to find out for himself?
@26 Here’s a good place to start to find information about local Republicans.
But you might be right (@20) – it may take brains and tenacity to dig it out.
@1: looks like the Wrong Stuff turned tail and ran – Daddy Love blasted his lies into oblivion and he has nothing left except to mimic that idiot McCain – the “surge” worked…..if it worked so well – where is the political progress it was supposed to allow for? Why can’t we withdraw the troops – oh yeah, it is fragile…but the whole point was to make a non-fragile Iraq (remember the political progress that Petreus talked about – that has NOT happened). They don’t even have electricity, 3 million refugees, there are few intefgrated areas anymore – by all accounts, things worked better under Sadaam – looks like the right wingnuts have a extremely low theshold of success.
Meanwhile Afghanistan gets worse and worse….because we could not spare the troops in Iraq – what a sordid little mess we have made.
@25 That’s the best comment left on this site all week.:
@22 The Iraqi government has a $79 billion surplus this year.
——————-
Perhaps if it were true. Since the year is not complete it’s only possible to estimate the surplus. The GAO report states:
“. . . we estimate that Iraq’s budget surplus for 2008 could range from $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion, based on the six scenarios we used to project export oil revenues by varying price and volume of export. (See app. III for the six scenarios projecting export oil revenues.) This estimate is based on the assumption that the expenditure ratio in 2008 will be the same as the average expenditure ratios from 2005 to 2007 except expenditures for war reparations (5 percent of estimated oil export revenues), which will vary with differing scenarios for oil exports . . .
“However, as previously noted, Iraq is considering a supplemental budget of $22 billion for 2008. If approved and then spent, the proposed budget supplemental would reduce the projected surplus.”
In other words, it’s possible the surplus could fall well below $38.2 billion depending on the oil revenue and supplemental budget.
See: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081031.pdf
The figure of $79 billion is an estimate of Iraq’s oil revenue’s for 2008 – the upper bound. The GAO writes:
“In 2008, Iraq will likely earn between $67 billion and $79 billion in oil sales . . “
@28 You must be new here, or you would know that Richard has plenty of both. He’s a dirt-digger par excellence. Why, just within the last year, he’s gotten a district court judge thrown off the bench and embarrassed a county council member.
re 28: …and a credit card.
re 31: Well, if that’s the case, it’s just peanuts. Might as well let Halliburton have it.
re 29: Don’t forget the victory of driving Al-Qaida from Iraq. That would mean that it’s like it was before we invaded.
That’s victory you can believe in! If you’re a halfwit.
Tell me, X-Stuff, how do you determine that Al Qaida is gone — satellite photos? No more tanks and divisions? Street canvassers? Telephone polls (no. not that kind)?
@35
The way they determine that Al-Qaida is gone from Iraq is very similar to how drug task forces determine that drugs have been pushed out of a community – by its PR value.