WaPo Op Ed piece:

The Real Iraq We Knew

By 12 former Army captains
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; 12:00 AM

. . . As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.
. . . [T]he U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions.

. . . There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

"Declare victory and get out." - Senator George Aiken (R-VT) on the Vietnam war.

WaPo:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq. But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved.

Umm, I am beginning to suspect these folks do not want us to leave Iraq. . . .

Ricardo Sanchez:

In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.” In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability. . . . “There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

Cue Rush. We got another Jesse Macbeth on our hands.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has sued Blackwater on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed when Blackwater contractors allegedly opened fire on innocent Iraqis in Nisoor Square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. The case is Estate of Himoud Saed Atban, et al. v. Blackwater USA, et al. (C.A. No. 07-1831.) A copy of the complaint is here(pdf).

Filed in Washington, D.C. federal court by Talib Mutlaq Deewan and the estates of the deceased men – Himoud Saed Atban, Usama Fadhil Abbass, and Oday Ismail Ibraheem – the lawsuit alleges that Blackwater and its affiliated companies violated U.S. law and “created and fostered a culture of lawlessness amongst its employees, encouraging them to act in the company’s financial interests at the expense of innocent human life.”

The complaint alleges that Blackwater violated the federal Alien Tort Statute in committing extrajudicial killing and war crimes, and that Blackwater should be liable for claims of assault and battery, wrongful death, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, training and supervision.

Both compensatory and punitive damages are being sought.

As always, I speak only for me.

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."

It captures virtually no attention from the Left blogs. Instead we get this:

The problem with liberal pundits is that they are capable of being overtaken by herd mentalities just like their conservative colleagues. On Iraq, the majority of liberal pundits have bought into the the patently false notion that the Congress has done "everything it can" to end the war while at the same time deciding Hillary Clinton is not pure on Iraq, notwithstanding the facts. Take Harold Meyerson for instance:

. . . Congressional Democrats have honorably tried and failed to scale back the war; the Senate's requirement of a 60-vote supermajority to alter policy requires supermajority support from the public for an altered Senate.

This is simply false. Meyerson can not be ignorant of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war. That in fact, FUNDING the war requires passage of a bill and not funding does not. Meyerson gives the Congress a free pass while taking shots at Hillary Clinton:

Aside from the ridiculous cost and a State Department report saying the U.S. will pay an additional $144 million because the workmanship done so far is shoddy, can someone explain why the U.S. is building the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq?

The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million. The core project was supposed to have been completed by last month, but the timetable has slipped so much that the State Department has sought and received permission from the Iraqi government to allow about 2,000 non-Iraqi construction employees to stay in the country until March.

Do we really need a $736 million, 21 building embassy in Iraq?

Ezra Klein wrote a great piece taking apart the very silly Roger Cohen's lament that "liberal hawks" like himself are misunderstood. They are NOT neocons Cohen insists. Ezra responded:

This shouldn't be necessary to say, but increasingly, it seems like the only point worth making to the commentariat. American politics isn't about you. It's not about your ideas, or your personal vision of the world, or your purity. . . . It is the impact of your ideas, and your commentary, that matters. . . . Here's why: Roger Cohen is not president. George W. Bush is. And until Roger Cohen's foreign policy vision integrates itself with an understanding of American power, and how ideas interact with the current administration, he is, effectively, a neoconservative, or, worse, an enabler of the neoconservatives who's able to advocate for their policy agenda without needing to answer for their failures.

(Emphasis supplied.) Great stuff. But it is worth asking this question - are progressive pundits, progressive blogs, and progressive activists considering how their "ideas interact with the current administration?" I think not. There is precious little discussion from most about the fact that the only way to stop the Bush Administration's Iraq Debacle is to not fund it after a date certain. So either they are of the view that NOTHING can stop the Iraq Debacle while Bush is President (and if they think so, they should say so), or they are just as guilty of the narcissism Klein accuses Cohen of. Moreover, while George Bush will not be President after January 2009, neither will Ezra Klein or any other progressive pundit, blogger or activist. More.

Via mcjoan.

In a recent post, I excoriated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her statement on not funding the Iraq Debacle. But as mcjoan notes, one has to wonder who is calling the shots in the House. After all, Pelosi voted against the war and championed John Murtha for the #2 slot in the House leadership. The question to ask - is Steny Hoyer the actual Dem leader in the House?

Internal tensions erupted yesterday among House Dem leaders over Rep. David Obey's threat to block war funding without withdrawal timetables and his suggestion of a war tax, The Hill reports. . . . “It’s hard to believe you could pick a worse time to do something to divide the caucus than the day Democrats and Republicans come together on both an Iraq bill and in sending the children’s health bill to the president,” a Democratic leadership aide told the paper. “The timing of this announcement made no sense.”

I'm told, however, that there's a bit more to these tensions than meet the eye. House insiders say they think that this anonymous dumping on Obey came from the office of House Dem leader Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is a big proponent of the new House Iraq bill being sponsored by Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie that was voted on yesterday and passed overwhelmingly. Because this measure lacks a binding withdrawal timetable, others in leadership -- like Pelosi -- are cool to the idea, insiders point out.

. . . "The dumping on Obey likely came from Hoyer, who was much more enthusiastic about the moderate -- read: toothless -- Ambercrombie legislation than the rest of leadership is," a House insider tells me.

Steny Hoyer, like Rahm Emanuel, has been awful on Iraq and obviously he seeks to torpedo the not funding without a timeline idea. It looks like he and Rahm Emanuel are the problem.

"I would be more than willing to report out a supplemental meeting the President's request if that request were made in support of a change in policy that would do three things.

-- "Establish as a goal the end of U.S. involvement in combat operations by January of 2009."

-- "Ensure that troops would have adequate time at home between deployments as outlined in the Murtha and Webb amendments."

-- "Demonstrate a determination to engage in an intensive, broad scale diplomatic offensive involving other countries in the region."

"But this policy does not do that. It simply borrows almost $200 billion to give to the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Justice with no change in sight.

"As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of Committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

Not funding after a date certain. Good idea Congressman.  Welcome to the fight. We "Idiot Liberals" have been waiting on you for the past seven months.

Ed Kilgore and Matt Yglesias discuss Iraq polling. Ed writes:

Pollsters need to figure out ways to (a) test the Iraq issues actually facing Congress; (b) include in questions a few basic facts about troop withdrawals (i.e., that Bush is only talking about withdrawing "surged" troops) and funding levels (i.e., how much money buys what strategy) . . .

This seems right and as a public service I write the actual question facing the Congress:

Given President Bush's declared statements and views, not funding the Iraq War after a date certain is the only way Congress can end US combat involvement in Iraq. Do you favor or disfavor the Congress exercising its Constitutional power over spending in order to end US combat involvement in Iraq?

I betcha you get 60-65% approval of not funding.

Yes, the Senate Democrats failed us again as they approved another $150 billion for the Iraq War and for Afghanistan:

The 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.

The developments underscored the difficulty facing Democrats in the Iraq debate: They lack the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home and are divided on whether to cut money for combat, despite a mandate by supporters to end the war.

Memo to Senate Dems: What's so tough about following your mandate? So what if you lose, at least take a stand on the major issue you were elected on. It's really quite simple. Set a timetable now for all troops to be gone from Iraq or vote to cut off the funding.