Comments on: SUPPORT THE TROOPS: OPPOSE THE BIDEN RESOLUTION

By: Joe Helgerson

Joe Helgerson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:20:06 +0000

Does our military control whether we win in Iraq, or are their other factors that we don’t control that will determine this conflict? I do know this war is tearing this country (USA) apart. Don’t the Iraqis have to work out a political process? I was against this war but now that we’ve broken it we have to restore some kind of stability to the country.What do we do if the surge doesn’t work, and before anybody rips me for being negative, there must be a contingency plan in place.

By: zaq

zaq — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 06:06:00 +0000

I took the pledge and was proud to so. I wrote to many of the Senators in a vain attempt to influence them to ditch the CYA resolution. Victory in Iraq is the only choice.

By: badger

badger — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:02:00 +0000

Rick:

What do you mean by “Breathing Room” exactly? Bush has made clear that he’s going to do this regardless of how popular it is as long as the armed forces still take orders from him and Democrats wuss out on cutting funding. I think that the SOTU had little effect on either, so why do you believe that the SOTU and it’s supposed effect on public opinion makes Bush any more or less likely to pursue escalation?

By: Rick Moran

Rick Moran — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:17:03 +0000

Clearly most of the people who watched SOTU were Bush diehards. But I think the speech may have given Bush some breathing room - not much but enough. A window of six months to turn things around.

By summer, the ‘08 race will have begun in earnest and we’ll see how things are.

By: badger

badger — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:03:55 +0000

Rick:

You never addressed my point. Do you consider the CNN poll to be representative of a turnaround in public opinion to the war? Do you agree or disagree with my claim of a selection bias in the way the you are interpreting the findings of the poll?

By: Gregdn

Gregdn — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:29:24 +0000

I think you’re missing the point: if those who opposed continuing this war really wanted to they could’ve cut off funding.
By not doing so, they are in effect supporting the ’surge’ but also sending a message that this support cannot be counted on much longer.

By: Rick Moran

Rick Moran — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:11:57 +0000

MM:

You sure live in an empty universe. One person to a household? Neilson makes it 2.1 ppl per household which adds up to around 55 million ppl.

Super Bowl’s get a 40 share or better - advertisers like it because 80+ million ppl are sitting in one place at the same time watching.

BTW - radio Neilson’s are figured differently.

By: Drongo

Drongo — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:25:21 +0000

“The anti-war people are spoiled brats who cannot face reality. Whether you like the way we entered the war or not is of no consequence.”

Neither are protestations of “We have to win” or “Losing will be a disaster, so we must fight on”.

Al that maters is the US military’s ability to impose stability on Iraq. The evidence seems to show that they have almost no ability to achieve stability, and that any operations to improve stability result in the opposite.

Sorry to say it but this surge is a pointless gesture.

What is more the “Support the generals” thing is getting a little old. The generals were saying “No surge please” until they were fired and replaced by someone who would say “Sir, yes sir”.

By: Martin Morgan

Martin Morgan — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 04:15:04 +0000

Actually a single national ratings point represents 1%, or 1,114,000 households for the 2006-07 season, so a 24 share is 24 million households, i.e. Rush Limbaugh’s audience plus 4-6 million people with nothing better to do.

By: Johnny Tremaine

Johnny Tremaine — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:45:35 +0000

Rick,
I’m with you in supporting this troop surge, although I don’t think it’ll stave off the inevitable Shia-on-Sunni-on-Kurd-on-Turkomen civil war. What it CAN do is give cover to Iraqi civilians who are fleeing to safe zones away from the violence.
David Brooks in today’s NY Times pretty much says the same thing and goes on to advocate a partition of Iraq, which he thinks is also inevitable and already beginning to occur on its own.

If you want to get a good look at why post conflict Iraq has pretty much slid off a cliff, read: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. It isn’t a liberal screed against Bush; it’s an inside look by a Washington Post correspondent who had full access to Garner and then Paul Bremer and their plans and execution of those plans for Iraq. It looked like amateur hour.