Hey, I heard somewhere that the mission had already been accomplished in Irak.

But realistically, there ain't gonna be a serious debate about Irak until after the two party conventions this summer.

Maybe earlier if Hills bails out.

Or maybe earlier if Obama bails out.

@ Commander Guy:
You heard correctly, the mission to depose Saddam Hussein was accomplished. During any war there are hundred, nay, thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of missions. That one was accomplished. I guess some people don't understand nuance. Liberals like to pretend their "nuanced" but in reality they are intellectually dishonest about anything related to the Bush presidency. Not accusing you of being liberal but your comment gave me a whiff of liberal-think. Have a great day.

COmmanderGuy

There's less talk about Iraq because Obama's position has shifted greatly to the right. First, he'd be out entirely by THIS month. Now he's hedging his bet and saying he'll decide after talking to his generals. Meanwhile, he wimped out in the congressional hearings.

Don't know why his followers can't see that Obama is abandoning them. Change? Doesn't look very likely.

Obama never said he would be out of Iraq in a month, He said two brigades at a time per month ,with possible withdrawal in 16 months,according to asssesments. Hillary said definately six months. His position as never changed he was right this was and is a stupid war,which hillary clinton voted for by the way.

Obama 08!

OBAMA IS UNELECTABLE IN NOVEMBER.
HE MAY WIN THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION,BUT HE CANNOT WIN IN NOVEMBER.
THE PICTURE WITH THE ANTI-AMERICAN PASTOR WRIGHT WILL BE ON TV 24/7.
THE REASON HE GOT MORE DELEGATES IS BECAUSE THE ACTIVISTS CONTROL THE AGENDA.
GENERAL ELECTIONS ARE ANOTHER BALLGAME.
STAY TUNE.......

If it were 1863 and Reid was shooting his mouth off like he is today, Lincoln would have put him up against the wall and had him shot. Reid is the face face of today's Democrat party - the party of sedition.

Face the facts, people, the United States lost the war in Iraq the day Bush started it. He played right into Osama Bin Laden's hands as Bin Laden wanted nothing more than to get the United States involved in a war in the Middle East. Remember way back when Bush and Cheney were telling us the war would last approximately 90 days (as evidenced by Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" flight onto the deck of an aircraft carrier). Remember way back when Bush and Cheney told us that the people of Iraq would welcome American Soldiers with open arms, throwing flowers onto the paths of their "liberators". Now, fast forward to today after five years of unabashed lies and deceits foisted on us by the Bush Administration. I truly believe that Bush is a "pathological liar" incapable of telling the truth. Well, anyone with a little common sense can discern that the war of choice in Iraq is not only lost, but has bought our great country to the brink of financial disaster. Only a moron would cut taxes and start a war at the same time. Need I say more? We need a landslide election in November to hand the Democrats the White House and super majorities in Congress. Such an occurrence will also relegate the GOP to its proper position of a meaningless bunch of fringe elements.

merle7

You are wrong. Obama originally said that, if he were president, he would have the troops out of Iraq in April 2007. You can look it up!

Let see, civilian deaths, gee about the same as Sadam and his brats killed alone, they now have an elected government in place and building. The fighting that is going on is not directed at US troops, the US troops are supporting the Iraqi troops, not fight the battle for them. The war was timed wrong and mis-managed, but it was needed. All you liberal sheep who believe Clinton and Reid ned to wake up. They had their own messages supporting the beleif ov biological and chemical weapon capabilities of Iraq, why do you think Bill launched missles while he was still in charge. Wake up, the Iraqi government was very ant American. An if you want to believe Reid, you are really lost. He commntd aboutno withdrawls with violence and n with drawls with no violence. Ge we have been redeploying for thelast 5 or 6 months, what rock is he hiding under. Bun Ladens robes I guess. Even Sen. Biden came back and said the Dem need to acknowledge progress.

There was justification to enter into WW II. There was NO justification to wage war in Iraq and in fact, every single reason that was proposed by this Administration was a lie. Iraq never attacked us, they were not a threat to our national security, they did not possess a Navy that could threaten our soil, their airforce could not attack our soil, and they had no WMDs to give to other nations that could attack us. It will go down at one of the largest military blunders in the history of the world.

The concept that the US illegal invasion of Iraq is to prevent Syria and Iran engaging was in Iraq is quite unreasonable. The war is a war of aggression and, therefor, illegal internationally and, through treaty, illegal by way of the Constitution.

America is committing continued war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq on a daily basis and the Bush administration is culpable for all these crimes.

The journalists, for the most part, have been embedded and have become a proxy of the US military. Basically, this is an unreported war. Still, some brave journalists have gotten some of the story out and we are able to see some of the cruelty of America.

US troops have been sniping innocent and wounded Iraqis, they have been strafing unknowns on the streets, they have been dropping White Phosphorous on civilian targets, they have been carpet bombing civilian targets. This type of crime has been going on from day one. It is most cruel and horrible and the people in charge must be punished.

It's certainly not the liberals who are sheep in America.

Rick is correct. One more thing to note, per the Constitution, Congress should declare war, not the President. This was a horrible mistake and should never be allowed to happen again. You debate before you go to war, not 4 years afterwards. This is a sad story indeed.

TCG,

1. If you don't know by now that Hillary is not bailing then you need to fold up all blog efforts and start playing tinkertoys.

2. If you think the alternatives are going to get us out of Iraq, then you need to fold up all blog efforts and start playing tinkertoys.

Good luck with the tinkertoys.

be kind to senator reid. it's not well known but the man? was born without a spine...
(with all the intelligent, hard working men and women in this country, we end up with a man like reid leading this once great body of our government..

Jarhead

I don't do nuance. So maybe you have a point. But if you do, I'm not gonna get it.

Westie

What's all this about tinkertoys now? This is all nonsense.

But seriously, Bill42 NOW says if Hills can't get it done in North Carolina, its ovah.

So since Bill42 says what he means, and means what he says, North Carolina must be a make or break State.

You know which way I'm leaning on this one. BTW you still got Hills winning PA by 30 points?

Harry Reid is stuck in a twilight zone called "stupid" as are most America-hating liberals who think we're the bad guys here and we deserved 9-11.

McCain is a concrete-head who will never admit the Iraq invasion was a colossal blunder. If elected, he will continue to squander our limited resources for no appreciable lasting benefit. McCain’ refusal to change course, something which thinking people customarily do all the time in every military conflict from the beginning of time, will make us weaker not safer. Stubbornly continuing to apply our military resources inefficiently will further stop loss our troops to death and make it harder to recruit in the future, further strain our economy which makes our strong military possible, and continue to prevent us from effectively dealing with al Qaida and Taliban in Afghanistan (i.e. the folks who were actually as opposed to fictionally responsible for 9/11). Obama has the intelligence and the guts to redeploy to the established al Qaida strongholds in western Pakistan, and get the bad guys with or without Pakistani governmental permission. McCain actually criticized Obama for this position. McCain would therefore by his own admission let the bad guys keep their base in Pakistan to make WMDs, just like Bush has through his ill-advised allocation of military force for the last six years. Even worse, letting al Qaida keep their base and not going in to kill the bad guys so as to not offend our "ally" will also completely negate the deterrent effect of Bush's promise to henceforth hold accountable not just those who attack us but also those who give them aid and comfort. McCain's terrorism defense policy is, frankly, stupid. Vote Obama--he has a brain and is not afraid to use it.

The reasons we decided to take action in Iraq were misguided. I felt so at the time, and voted so in the last election.

But that is totally irrelevant to the question of what to do now. Once you undertake a mission like this, you have to work with the situation you have.

The man currently entrusted with this mission has made much progress. He has been right about so much on how to make this work. Congress, and specifically Senator Reid, are obliged to listen to Gen. Patraeus, and to carefully consider his recommendations.

To undermine the general's remarks the way Sen. Reid did is at least foolish, and could well be considered treason in a different time.

How do we win this "war"? I agree that it is nearly impossible to define victory in its normal sense. But this is not a war in the normal sense. We are not at war with a country, so there is no one to "surrender". We are at "war" against "terrorism". There will probably never be an end to this "war". So I submit that the question of "winning the war" is moot. The question of when to bring the troops home depends on circumstances, just as it did in Germany, Korea, Japan, etc.

Commander Guy - I don't believe you were ever a commander. Redneck Bob - you make me ashamed to be a Texan.

The reasons we decided to take action in Iraq were misguided. I felt so at the time, and voted so in the last election.

But that is totally irrelevant to the question of what to do now. Once you undertake a mission like this, you have to work with the situation you have.

The man currently entrusted with this mission has made much progress. He has been right about so much on how to make this work. Congress, and specifically Senator Reid, are obliged to listen to Gen. Patraeus, and to carefully consider his recommendations.

To undermine the general's remarks the way Sen. Reid did is at least foolish, and could well be considered treason in a different time.

How do we win this "war"? I agree that it is nearly impossible to define victory in its normal sense. But this is not a war in the normal sense. We are not at war with a country, so there is no one to "surrender". We are at "war" against "terrorism". There will probably never be an end to this "war". So I submit that the question of "winning the war" is moot. The question of when to bring the troops home depends on circumstances, just as it did in Germany, Korea, Japan, etc.

Commander Guy - I don't believe you were ever a commander. Redneck Bob - you make me ashamed to be a Texan.

Connertown friend

The guy entrusted with determining the Mission is somebody from texas. We'll call him GWB.

The Good General is to do the best he can under the circumstances. Nobody says he ain't doing his best.

But here is the Rub....the rest of us get to question the judgment of the guy in charge of the mission. We labeled this guy as GWB.

We gotta wait a while till the folk who want our votes, tell us what they wanna do or what they think we wanna hear. Then we judge.

So there you go.

Harry Reid has been in the
"Twilight Zone" regarding Iraq for
quite some time!
He told us last year that the war was
lost! It wasn't! He recognizes no
military or political gains in Iraq
since last September and their have been
significant gains in both areas!
I think he's related to Rip Van Winkle!

jdawg: Awesome Post! Nuff Said!