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Tuesday, 08 April 2008
Graham tells veterans they're kicking a**
Thanks to Mike Cakora for pointing out to us this from Politico's The Crypt blog. It's from a Vets for Freedom rally outside the Capitol. John McCain stopped by with his buds Joe and Lindsey. An excerpt:
“Do not underestimate the contribution you have made on the political battlefield at home,” Lieberman said. “Do we want al Qaeda and Iran to win a victory in Iraq?”
“No!” the vets screamed.
Graham added, "More than anything else, we need you to win."
“You want to know who wants you to come home more than anybody?” Graham continued. “Al Qaeda because you’re kicking their ass.”
I expect bud, among others, will have some thoughts to share on this subject...
Posted by Brad Warthen at 01:49 PM in 2008 Presidential, Elections, The Nation, The World, UnParty, War and Peace
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Excellent provocation.
Posted by: bill | Apr 8, 2008 3:57:07 PM
Now you see, that's what I said over on that other post you thought was so provocative... This one's so much more so, don't you think?
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 8, 2008 4:06:51 PM
I guess when Lindsey was over there a couple weeks ago, the ass kicking wasn't happening as he couldn't do his normal photo op at the supposed secure market area due to all the rockets flying around.
Another day, another dose of propaganda.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 8, 2008 4:40:08 PM
And remember -- when violence is down in Iraq it is because the surge is working.
When violence increases it is because the surge is working also.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 8, 2008 4:42:12 PM
Bravo, Doug. Best summing-up of this lunacy I've heard recently.
Bill, I don't know if you're referring to Brad or Graham as to the "provocation" but in any case, Graham's words are not so much provocative as they are tragically blind. Anybody who continues to think that Al-Qaeda wishes we were NOT in Iraq is hopelessly stuck in two-dimensional, conventional warfare, football-metaphor (you're kicking a..") thinking.
Anyway, it's mostly fool politicians who speak like that. Whatever the positives and negatives he may ascribe to the surge, I doubt Petraeus talks like that.
Posted by: Phillip | Apr 8, 2008 5:17:23 PM
we are hauling *ss
Posted by: Heidi Peacock | Apr 8, 2008 5:29:26 PM
Phillip –
Hate to be two-dimensional on you, but do you really think al Qaeda wants us in Iraq?
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Apr 8, 2008 5:36:38 PM
>Hate to be two-dimensional on you, but do
>you really think al Qaeda wants us in Iraq?
What better way to ruin America than to have us spend a trillion dollars on a war against a few thousand terrorists?
We have met the enemy and they are us.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 8, 2008 5:52:27 PM
Al Qaeda is certainly patient, but their domain has shrunk to the resort area along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. al Qaeda’s primary strategy is to expel US military forces, from the area so that they can win control of land and people to, at a minimum, reestablish the Caliphate. They’ve learned that they can’t do so with military force, so they hope to do with us what happened with the Soviets in Afghanistan, win a PR battle and get US political leadership to withdraw its forces. So far that’s not worked.
Were the US to leave Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and other lands otherwise hospitable to al Qaeda, those areas could serve as training bases and logistics centers for their attacks not only in the immediate region, but also worldwide. The initial impact would be disruption of sea transport traffic, not just oil, but the other goods that zip through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean on their way to Charleston ports.
Yes, leaving Iraq would increase unemployment along our coast.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Apr 8, 2008 7:19:40 PM
The ass kicking I look forward to with much anticipation is the one I fervently hope Gramnesty receives this November. Now there is an ass kicking I intend to participate in. Don't know who is running against him, and don't care. Any opponent to Gramnesty will do, since that opponent will serve mostly as a blunt instrument by which the ass kicking is administered. I hope. David
Posted by: david | Apr 8, 2008 8:45:06 PM
South Carolinian's ought to work together to buy Senator Lindsey Graham, passage...one-way...to Baghdad. I'm not really sure about commercial service anywhere in Iraq...but it must be possible, especially based on the comforting words of Graham's good buddy, McCain, that life is coming very close to normal, there. Really,
let's all get together and buy Lindsey that one way ticket, because he sounds as though he thinks Iraq is paradise. If he'd take us up on our offer, we can go about finding a respectable U. S. Senator for S.C. and perhaps Lindsey can find a new career in Baghdad doing reconstruction work...maybe building closets; after all, he's spent his
life in one.
Posted by: DrewinCharleston | Apr 8, 2008 9:24:53 PM
He's too effeminate for construction work. David
Posted by: david | Apr 8, 2008 9:57:32 PM
Not to change the subject, but years ago when I was on active duty one Monday a friend -- Rich was his name -- related how he’d spent another night on the couch after yet another argument with his wife, a somewhat ill-tempered woman who knew she deserved better while not realizing that what she had was not bad at all. She’d attempted to end the argument with the charge “You know, my mother thinks you’re effeminate!”. He responded, “Well, compared to your mother, I am.” The sheets and a blanket were in the closet, as usual.
I’ve got my issues with our senior senator’s judgment and would select another more in line with my conservative views, but I acknowledge his service, courage, and consistency. I’m not above the smart quip or petty insult, but try to use them in context. We could do much worse than Lindsey Graham. His appearance this morning was of his own accord and much appreciated by the folks there. Enough said.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Apr 8, 2008 10:35:06 PM
Lindsey Graham is a chicken-hawk war monger, just like his former roommate in D.C., Mark Sanford. It is not out of context at all to mention how effeminate he is. He's likely over-compensating for the years in the schoolyard when he was surely the brunt of many jokes, not only for his feminine traits, but his Gomer Pyle-type way of speaking. And, when did Graham ever exhibit any courage?????
Posted by: DrewinCharleston | Apr 8, 2008 10:57:29 PM
Drewin – Graham was on active duty as a military lawyer 1982-1988 and went into the reserves thereafter. He was recalled to active duty to serve at McIntire Air National Guard Station during the Gulf War. And there’s this
Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for short periods during April and two weeks in August 2007, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues That makes him the only Iraq war veteran serving in the United States Senate.He did not have to go to Iraq, strap on a gun, and dress like a gherkin; that showed some courage, no? He’s no “chicken-hawk war monger” as you so quaintly put it, but just a war monger. You may not like him, but please be accurate in your accusations.
Sheesh, here I am defending Graham again!
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Apr 8, 2008 11:40:25 PM
Here are some informed comment on the Petraeus / Crocker testimony today that include links to the slides they use. I direct you attention to Slide 9.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Apr 9, 2008 12:37:43 AM
Mike, I stand by my "effeminate" comment. Yes, it was a sharp barb, but it was also true. The very last thing I can imagine is Lindsey Gramnesty doing construction work. You cite his military service, and I cannot disagree. He volunteered, and served his country.
As a lawyer.
'Nuff said indeed. David
Posted by: david | Apr 9, 2008 7:48:20 AM
By the way Mike, you and I do disagree on one point. You say that we could do much worse than Lindsey Gramnesty.
I don't believe that is true. I used to think that Ernest Hollings was absolutely the worst we could ever do as far as a U.S. senator from South Carolina. Oh how I wish we had him back and sitting in Gramnestys' senate seat right now. I hated essentially every liberal policy and doctrine Hollings stood for, but at least I could count on him to be predictable.
Not so snake-in-the-grass Graham. David
Posted by: david | Apr 9, 2008 7:59:21 AM
Interesting charts Mike. Slide number 3 is especially interesting. I don't know where they came up with those numbers for February and March but other sources show a siginificantly greater number of civilian deaths during those months, nearly 1,000 in fact. Granted, even at the higher total the violence does appear to be much lower. So why are we stopping the troop withdrawals? Is there any set of conditions that the administration will accept to justify bringing our troops home? This really is an endless occupation that will only resolve itself once we leave. Otherwise we're saddled with a huge financial burden for all eternity. And the long run security is ultimately the price we pay.
Posted by: bud | Apr 9, 2008 8:05:55 AM
Lindsey Graham has never been in harms way..at least in military service. (He's more likely to have been at risk with some of his personal activities.) Serving for two weeks as a lawyer in the Green Zone doesn't make him a noble fellow. Context is important. Keep in mind, that there have been few who have been greater champions of this war, than limp-wristed Lindsey. He's been in lock-step with Bush/Cheney through virtually this entire horror and he has blood on his hands, just as they do, along with Rumsfeld/Rice/Wolfowitz/Perle and the long list of mostly Republican war-profiteer's like Blackwater, Haliburton, etc.
Posted by: DrewinCharleston | Apr 9, 2008 9:48:25 AM
Mike, I'll answer your question first by flipping it on its head: do you really believe that Al Qaeda would have preferred an Iraq as it existed pre-2003, under the control of Saddam Hussein, to the current situation? I rather doubt it. Let's not even talk about Iran and which scenario they would prefer.
Yes, I absolutely do think that the decision to divert into the Iraq adventure a couple of years after 9/11 was one of several ways in which we've played into Al Qaeda's hands and answered their most fervent prayers, especially in the way we conducted the war for the first 4 years. I believed that the day we invaded Iraq, and I've seen very little to convince me otherwise.
Moreover, only in Al Qaeda's wildest dreams could they have envisioned that as a result of their horrible plot that September day we would have damaged our economy, undermined our own professed values, stretched our military capacity thus increasing our vulnerability in many ways, made ourselves more irrelevant on the big geopolitical stage, divided ourselves as a people as rarely before, and in general reacted as a clumsy elephant rather than a clever tiger.
Mike says "Al Qaeda is certainly patient, but their domain has shrunk to the resort area along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan." Wait, aren't we being told by all the fearmongers that they're in Iraq, too? Or everywhere, for that matter? Which is it?
To echo Doug's earlier comment, when it suits the fans of this war, Al-Qaeda is either shrunk to almost nothing and on the run; or it's what we're fighting in Iraq and they're everywhere on the globe, necessitating the latest dismantling of some essentially American value or other.
Posted by: Phillip | Apr 9, 2008 12:03:27 PM
There isn't a single moment of any day where I worry about Al Qaeda.
I'd like to understand the scenarios under which I should feel threatened by them. Whatever they plan to do will not be stopped as a result of 160,000 military on the ground in Iraq. They will be stopped by intelligence agencies and undercover operatives. All we do with 160,000 troops on the ground is create an environment that breeds hostility toward the United States. Al Qaeda's recruiting poster probably has the same Uncle Sam image on it as ours.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 9, 2008 12:43:23 PM
Good points Phillip. I would just add that whatever the security, political or economic situation in Iraq those supporting our stay-the-course policy will not be detered. Why is the real question.
Posted by: bud | Apr 9, 2008 12:46:01 PM
That's easy Bud...because you are wrong about it and we're right. And as long as our guys are in the majority, "stay the course" it will be.
Get used to it. If your mob gains the majority in November, I expect the tables will turn. Until then, man up and ~ again ~ get used to it. David
Posted by: david | Apr 9, 2008 10:14:26 PM
Psst...David...
Get used to it. Or at least get new batteries for your calculator.
Posted by: Phillip | Apr 10, 2008 3:39:59 AM
