Let's try this one.
By election time Iraq will be Obama’s loss. All our effort to get US bases there is lost. He should be impeached for incompetence.
the democrats finally figured out a way to really really really make sure that Bush’s war was lost ....
Next, Afghanistan.
And, as unpopular as it is to say here, it's not all Obama's fault. Angelo Codevilla has a great article in CRB called The Lost Decade that is must reading.
Don't know if a subscription is needed, but if it is, you should get one anyway.
We could stay there another eight years or even 80 years and the Iraqis could still not go at it alone.
It is time for them to man-up and run there own damn country which was won by the blood of our sons and almost a trillion of our tax dollars.
That misunderstands the lines Newt is drawing.
War one was liberating Kuwait in 1991.
War two was the removal of Saddam in 2003.
War three was against the sectarian violence / Iraqi insurgency over these past eight post-Saddam years.
Those calling the Iraq war a failure should imagine what things would be like with Saddam still in power, and all those terrorists who flew there to be killed still around.
Shockingly, it was not a perfectly-run war. It was also, some on the right and Chrissy Matthews notwithstanding, a necessary war.
Obama’s combination of incompetence and political selfishness have made his choice an easy one—pull out now, as was decided long ago, instead of doing a serious analysis of the on-the-ground situation, and then campaign saying he kept a promise. That’s all this is to him, another thing he can add to his stunt with Stimulus 2 to give him SOMETHING to run on.
His administration will have one long-lasting legacy—any idiot will think he, too, can be president if this dope could pull it off.
Obama failed to negotiate US bases in Iraq.
We have bases in every other nation that we brought to liberty through our blood and treasure.
Iraq should be no different.
Now, Iraq will fall to the islamists like Egypt, Libya, etc.
Those who support our withdrawl are short-sighted and forget the lessons of history.
The war of which Newt is talking is not a war that we could ever have won with military force. It is a war that we might, over time, win through economic relations.
It would have been better if our military forces were immediately replace by the blue helmets of the U.N., following our overthrow of Saddam. But, the various criminal, terrorist and foreign elements in the country did not allow that.
It would have been better if we had the capability of putting overwhelming force on the ground. But, we had a downsized military and it was oriented to a different mission than occupation.
Therefore, when Plan A failed, and Plan B was not an option, we went to Plan C, which was mostly a holding action while we reconstructed Iraq’s ability to defend itself.
We succeeded in Plan C, and Newt is wrong to call what we did a defeat. What other country in the world could continue to recruit soldiers while involved in combat halfway around the world, for a decade? Our soldiers are truly undefeated.
But, Plan C involved Iraq taking its place as a sovereign nation in the world. And, we do not control what will be the outcome of that. It is now for the Iraqi people to use well the opportunity we have given them.
With that falsehood as a major philosophical component of the WOT, it should not be a surprise that many other political blunders would follow--trying to move the Muslim world out of the 8th century--but instead putting our troops in that time machine and transporting them back to 1968...
I would like to hope that this has taught everyone that "nation building" cannot happen without first completely crushing the old order--Islam still being present made the task impossible IMO...
Saw this on C Spam late last night.
Newt Knocked It Out of the Park!!!!
(even more than Pujols)
Hey Newt - The surge worked.
I’m getting so I really don’t care about Newt’s ‘baggage’ or sitting on the couch with Nancy. We really need someone who can see the ‘big picture’ and put it in historical context or we will be doomed to repeat it.
My only concern with Newt is wondering if he has the 24/7/365 self-discipline needed in a POTUS. We can hope that’s come with maturity.