White House claims 'strong consensus' on Iraq pullout

Agence France Presse | November 27, 2005

[jveritas]

But those sheeple did not amount for 51% of the voters in the many elections that we won. Stop saying that the majoirty of voters are sheeple.

[reformedliberal]

Universally pervasive would be a bit scary. I am satisfied with a majority. The trend is in our favor, IMO.

BTW, during the last few months of the 2004 election, the AOL polls were going solidly for W. I recall at least one where AOL made the page unavailable because W was so far in front. People will also rely on what their children and friends in the military tell them. Since it so contradicts the media, they begin to discount what they hear/read/see. Economically, people are busy, business is good and this is well-known because we all see that we have more money at the end of the week/month/year than previously.

Soros and the other billionaires cynically thought they could buy this last election thru the media. So, they propped up the dying legacy media for another cycle. But in the end, both lost, big time.

I am not advocating complacency, but we can take some comfort in the fact that things are going our way and the truth has found outlets available to more and more citizens.

[Bombard]

All good points. US troop numbers have varied with the two elections that have been held. The same is true of the lead up to the Dec. 12th election. The number of 50,000 is about right for the reduction that will occur after the next election is over. Also given that the Iraqi army and police are growing in numbers and ability I would not be suprised if the number might be even more. The war is being won despite what the MSM says.

[Txsleuth]

Complacency would be disastrous...we need to push hard to make the congresscritters push to make sure people know what the consequences would be of pulling out prematurely...let alone right away...

President Bush, VP Cheney, Rummy and Condi have all come out and explained for the umpteenth time that the did NOT lie to get us to war...and that Saddam was a threat...

NOW it is time to repeat over and over that Iraq is NOT Vietnam, in that, if we cut and run from there---the terrorists WILL follow us here...the Vietnamese did NOT.

[Alia]

Even though President George W. Bush has never publicly issued his own withdrawal plan and criticized calls for an early exit, the White House said many of the ideas expressed by the senator were its own.

In the statement, which was released under the headline "Senator Biden Adopts Key Portions Of Administration's Plan For Victory In Iraq," McClellan said the Bush administration welcomed Biden's voice in the debate.

"Today, Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror," the spokesman went on to say.

He added that as Iraqi security forces gain strength and experience, "we can lessen our troop presence in the country without losing our capability to effectively defeat the terrorists."

Lesseee... plagiarism. Why, I believe SecDef Rumsfeld has been saying EXACTLY this.. for nearly a year.

[reformedliberal]

I agree.

We also need to donate directly to and work for conservative candidates, especially those challenging Democrats. My critter is Ron Kind and my opinions mean nothing to him. Pushing him would be futile. He will advocate whatever Hillary tells him to advocate on any given day.

[Retain Mike]

Your definition would work and my letter points to a problem of behavior and not principle. The first statements are consistent with the normal pattern of abandonment we follow.

[inquest]

My only problem with "Vietnamization" (or "Iraqification" or whatever you want to call it) is, How do we know the Iraqis will fight the terrorists with the same zeal we would? What if they decide to start making backroom deals with them instead?

[Retain Mike]

I think the key is to persist until they establish a broadly representative government. The first draft of a constitutional government was written by 24 different ethnic and religious groups. These groups, including women, who want to work together peacefully at this time seldom have positions of power in the dominant tribal elites that form the autoritarian rule for most Arab nations. Such elites could be expected to make deals with terrorists to retain or expand their power over a disenfranchised population, but become irrelavant in the model we hope Iraq fulfills. In reading our own history it is easy to conclude that Irish, Scot, and Germanic tribes to name just a few were incapable of ever forming broadly representative governments. The history of Japan before the end of WW II would also hold out no hope. I think T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) has a valuable incite here when he says Arabs can be swung on an idea as a cord. The mass of people can find the idea of human freedom for themselves, family, and tribe so compelling they wash away the Wahhabi/Salafi heresy which has put the few into power. A broadly representative government in Iraq can be a good infection throughout the Middle East. In guess I would identify that as the main reason Iraq is targeted as the primary front for a terrorist victory in the Zawahiri/Zaqawa letter (see Central Command website, What the Extremists Are Saying, archive of Oct. 11)

[inquest]

Even with a representative government, they still won't have the same incentive to go after the terrorists that we would. As long as the terrorists don't make trouble for Iraqi society after we leave, the Iraqis aren't going to be so likely to risk life and limb for the sake of keeping us safe from them.

And if the terrorists do continue to make trouble for the Iraqis, then I'd seriously have to wonder just how much of a free society they'll be able to remain. They'll be faced with something the Japanese never had to face when we finally ended occupation of their country after WWII. It takes a lot to maintain freedom even without that kind of immediate pressure. When a country without experience with political freedom has to face an internal terror war, it would be next to impossible for them to maintain it, even with the best written constitution available. Just look at how our own judges have been able to twist the plain meaning of our Constitution around all over the place.

[Retain Mike]

They would not confront the terrorists because of any feeling of compassion towards us, but because the Wahhabi/Salafi heresy has no principles allowing for accomdation and must continally seek violent dominance in a society. A hundred years ago it was one of the few factors T.E. Lawrence and Feisal could ignore as they formed a fluid coalition of tribes to fight the Turks for Arab freedom. However, now the ruling tribal elites of many Muslim countries have made power sharing agreements with this violent heresy. There positions of rulership are slowly eroded, but then they see it as better than immediate minority status in a broadky representative government. The House of Saud is probably the best known group of ruling elites currently riding this tiger. I agree it needs to be a truely representative government, and not one such as in Liberia, which is supposedly a mirror image of our constitutional republic. Such a genuine government would not have the structures for covert power sharing agreements and that is probably why the terrorists are so focused on preventing Iraq success. Success would mean a tremendous loss of prestige and coalescing human freedom into an Arab idea to which all Arabs would become susceptible. I think the most important country to influence in a new direction is Saudi Arabi, not because of its oil, but because it holds trusteeship over Medina and Mecca, which I believe are the two holiest sites of Islam.