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aside from my disagreement that Gore would have followed the same path, I generally agree with your analysis.

Which brings an interesting point - the antiwar left, in a strange and curious way, may have actually helped the effort in that their squawking helped AQ believe that they could win in Iraq and ought send a lot of their leadership there - right into our jaws. Without the left, there is a real possibility that they might have stayed hidden and chosen some other battlefield better suited to their type of warfare ... or avoided open battle altogether staying strictly with covert terrorist operations.

Still, it has always bothered me that we made Iraq the bait - in a way, deliberately putting the Iraqi people in the crossfire. That was, for me, the troubling part of "fight them there or fight them here" - when "fighting them there" necessarily meant significant "collateral damage" to Iraqis who were not otherwise part of our fight with AQ.

It's something of a dilemma since their lives were at least as tortured under Saddam, and without hope of better future as long as he was in power. Does giving the people a path to a better future absolve our placing them in danger of as a path to that future? Perhaps the answer is that we merely replaced the danger while simultaneously providing a path out - likely the only path out and, fortuitously, one that was also to our benefit.

I think Bush's moral 'genius' was to add the path to a free Iraq as the critical element which made it all morally justifiable.

Which is why I doubt, had Gore won in 2000, we would be in the same place we are today. Probably Saddam would have had to be removed given that he would have reconstituted his WMD capabilities even if he didn't have them then. However, we would have done so without the simultaneously goal of truly rebuilding the nation into a free self governing people as Bush insisted upon from the start. And, without that, it would truly have turned into a quagmire and moral morass with all parties in armed opposition to us.

nah. but I’m almost as handsome as Larry King.

to avoid FMP syndrome (Ft. Marcy Park) - I would ask the following:

1) What is your favorite color?

2) Will Chelsea be home for Thanksgiving and what is her favorite Thanksgiving dish?

3) Did you have a favorite childhood toy?

4)Can anyone stop Republicans from being so mean to you? and how do you remain so calm, positive and hopeful in the face of extremely vicious constant attacks?

5) I like your hairdo. Who does your hair?

that sort of thng has been happening forever.

My uncle was 'diagnosed' as 'retarded' as a boy and almost sent to 'special' school. He went on to become chairman of medicine at Northwestern - actually he was just extremely shy.

3 doctors in a row said I needed spinal surgery when I was young to 'correct' my inward pointing feet. The fourth realized that my shoes were just too tight.

Thank God I come from a family who didn't believe 'experts'

I have to wonder how Buffet is such an economic dolt. His 17% is because almost all his income is dividends or capital gains. But he ignores the "hidden" tax on his investment dollars in that his ROI would be much higher if the profits on those investments were not already taxed before he gets his return in the form of dividends.

Including those in his calculations would show that his money is in fact getting taxed at a much greater rate than he sees directly in his own tax bill.

talk about begrudging report of good news. The headline says " ... rare bright spot ..." ... but the article says nothing about it being rare at all.

whaaaat??? you spect the gummint to to anything for less than 10X what private industry could do???? where HAVE you been?? look at the cost of the border fence! he!! there were enough volunteers to have done it by now for a fraction of the gubmint cost.

Waxman ... complaining ....

gimmeabreak

There isn't a dem plan since the Manhattan project that was ever finished, didn't become a budget busting sink of ever more $, and wasn't a total disaster in every way.

maybe we should compare the embassy to the Big Dig in Boston, eh? where was the Waxman oversight on that fiasco?

That said, with the State Department in charge, I wouldn't bet on a stirling example of our construction expertise.

Waxman ... complaining ....

gimmeabreak

There isn't a dem plan since the Manhattan project that was ever finished, didn't become a budget busting sink of ever more $, and wasn't a total disaster in every way.

maybe we should compare the embassy to the Big Dig in Boston, eh? where was the Waxman oversight on that fiasco?

That said, with the State Department in charge, I wouldn't bet on a stirling example of our construction expertise.

Waxman ... complaining ....

gimmeabreak

There isn't a dem plan since the Manhattan project that was ever finished, didn't become a budget busting sink of ever more $, and wasn't a total disaster in every way.

maybe we should compare the embassy to the Big Dig in Boston, eh? where was the Waxman oversight on that fiasco?

That said, with the State Department in charge, I wouldn't bet on a stirling example of our construction expertise.

as an economic simpleton, i am curious about the "weak" dollar.

It strikes me that there are 2 reasons for something being cheap.

First is poor quality leading to low demand - hence the term "weak" applied to "cheap" currencies.

The other is greater productivity than the competition.

It strikes me, given our current economic conditions (as nearly perfect as have ever been), that the USD can hardly be considered poor quality. To the contrary, by all rights it is very high quality.

So if it is "cheap," is it not more likely that US economic productivity is going through the roof compared to our competition of other currencies?

That is, it strikes me that given a greatly increased worldwide market of "middle class" economies now able to buy American, coupled with our efficiency at "making money," it actually bodes extremely well for us.

No, there was no Army left. It is not disputed that they had "melted away" by the end of the initial invasion. Bremmer did make it official after the fact with his Disbandment order - recently made something of a controversy with all the "who did what" of early last month - but his only other option was to somehow reconstitute it - and the question then is how anyone could have done that?? Did anyone have some list? Should we have searched house to house for uniforms?

Nor is it obvious that reconstituting it would have been such a great idea knowing how corrupt it was, filled with Baathists, extremely resented by the Shiites, etc. etc.

Historically losing fewer than 4 U.S. soldiers per day in combat is not even a blip on the radar screen.

... from a coldly statistical viewpoint, our troops are actually safer in Iraq than in the US if you look purely at death rates of the populations.

I know ... the populations in question are not normalized for age and gender, but I can't get sufficient data to accomplish that - still ... it is telling

THAT is an incredible achievement - if a double edged sword in that it permits naif's to wail as though war ought be entirely bloodless.

what is obvious is that there was no Iraqi Army to have been kept whole - they disbanded themselves before we had a chance to ask them to "keep whole" - hardly the sign of a viable "army"

I suggest, if you intend to Monday morning quarterback, you get an accurate tape of the game.

Not only that, even had they not simply disbanded on their own accord, from the total lack of command and control exhibited by the IA, throughout the ranks, it might well have been a harder task to first undo all bad training they had before rebuilding it than to simply start afresh with properly motivated volunteers.

Why not 1,000 days ago

1000 days ago it probably would not have worked and likely would have made the situation worse:

(1) The Iraqis were not then sick of AQ. More troops would have fed the fear among many that we were there to occupy and take over.

(2) We had not then developed the current strategy. More troops under the old strategy would not have been effective.

The point is, we are still pursuing the old strategy which is not wrong - to train and stand up the Iraqi security forces (top level state building) and combined it with Petraeus' new ideas of standing up local security and rehabilitation (bottom up state building).

They both have their place, but the second part had to await the Iraqis having educated themselves as to the disaster of the alternatives they were sold by AQ and other sectarian factions.

Doug, I heard it myself. She said Jews needed to be perfected

I suggest you listen to it again (see post #124 for link). I just did and the transcript is accurate. Deutch said it - misquoting Ann; Ann did not.

Since you believe you "heard it myself", after listening again, you might discover that you were susceptible to a counterfactual suggestion and manipulated to "remember hearing" something that never occured. Actually, most people are amazingly susceptible to such psychological tricks and that is the danger we face in this struggle.

I think if you listen to it again, Ann was quite clear that both Jews and Christians had their own routes to salvation. Her "want" merely expressed that she believes Christianity is the easier/faster path. She repeatedly referred to the path to "obey" (the law of the Old Testament) in accordance with Judaism without denegration, pointing out it was another path to salvation, equally valid but just a more difficult one. There is nothing wrong with wanting one's friends to "walk across the bridge with you instead of climbing the banks of a chasm" to reach the same destination.

In this event she went way overboard ... Jews do not need to become Christians

I find it extremely discouraging that so many on this thread are following in the footsteps of the democrats - i.e. deliberately twisting words and extrapolating beyond all recognition in order to smear someone.

Ann never said "need to become Christians."

Her words were: " ... just want Jews to be perfected" which is entirely different.

You can want something to happen without in any way disparaging or implying something is wrong that it has not yet happened - let alone that you "hate" the object of your wishes for not fulfilling your wishes.

One would think those here at FR would be more atuned to the distortions libs apply in an attempt to divide us. It was Deutch who lied when he accused Ann of using the word "need" and far too many here bought the lie without reflecting on what the truth might be.

If the Dems were their own country they would be our weakest ally enemy

Is Al-Qaida’s Network in Iraq Doomed to the Fate of the GIA?

actually - all of Al-Qaida is for the simple reason: "live by chaos, die by chaos"

UBL thought that he could create something that would create an impulse toward chaos directed only outward - toward all others. But nothing can be so directed for long. The impulse for chaos will as easily and inevitably turn inward against itself at some point. Although any of myriad circumstances may trigger that self destruction, the trigger mechanism is not important. The underlying tendency is inherent in the premise of the purpose to create chaos.

The loose cell structure of AQ, while more resilient as a whole against targeted attacks - like a cancer - is also inherently weak against disruptive attacks severing communication - effectively cutting them apart and leaving them without resources to defend against antibodies. ... or better, any means to turn them into fratricidal agents at war with each other.

Dr. Dobson has taken a beating in the media for promising to vote only for a candidate who shares his basic values, even if that means supporting a third-party candidate

... problem is, he's going way beyond that ... he's saying he won't vote for someone who shares his basic values, but advocates a different way to achieve the shared goals.