1st- Islamism is NOT even a real word. Islamic fundamentalism is what you are talking about. 2nd- Islam does NOT teach hate, some skew it that way, just like the KKK skewed the teachings of Christianity. 3rd- Howard Dean is obviously correct. It's not wonder that right wingers never argue with the merit of what Howard Dean says, just whether he should have said it or not, or how we said it. A CNN poll now shows 62 % of Americans agree we can't win the war in Iraq. www.cnn.com. Check it out. The truth hurts, but we have to face up to it and move forward. It's not defeatism, it's supporting the troops to take them OUT of harm way, it isn't patriotic to keep them in danger without body gear and armed vehicles and no benefits when they come home.

"...it isn't patriotic to keep them in danger without body gear and armed vehicles and no benefits when they come home..."

I read that three times and still it doesn't make any sense.

We're being invaded! The Chinese have landed in Florida! Should we fight? Heck no! Our benefit program is not adequate yet. We could also use color-coordinated shower curtains.

Scott,
the value of your comment is certified by your use of the CNN "poll".

Howard Dean wants to surrender to Al Qaeda, and turn over central Iraq to bin Laden.

Heck he posed with Code Pink and accepted some award from them. You may recall Code Pink, part of the Workers World Party (Stalinist Communists) and the group that sent $600,000 to the "brave freedom fighters" in Fallujah to help them fight the Marines.

Howard Dean, the proof if needed that Democrats advocate unilateral surrender to bin Laden.

Get your burkas and chadors ready.

If only more advocates of cutting and running were as ill-informed (no such word as "Islamism"?), poorly read (nothing in the article states that Islam is a religion of hate) and illogical (did Scott Goldstein whole heartedly support the war when the polls were favorable?)

"It's not defeatism, it's supporting the troops to take them OUT of harm way, it isn't patriotic to keep them in danger without body gear and armed vehicles and no benefits when they come home."

Another case of 2004 talking points not getting updated. Very sad. For the record:

-humvees are all uparmored and body army is standard and modern.
-having their safety as the primary goal (the Kerry defense doctrine) is an odd and dangerous standard for our military.

Scott, you are incorrect that there is no such thing as Islamism. It began in Egypt in the early 1920s as a revival of strict Islamic devotion in reaction to the creeping westernization that its adherents saw happening there. Islamism's goal was the institution of strict Islamic law, sharia, in Muslim countries and the rooting out of all non-Muslim influences in the ordering of societies.

According to Khaled Abou El Fadl (Islam and the Theology of Power in Islam for Today), by the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Islamism "defined Islam as the exact antithesis of the West, under the guise of reclaiming the true and real Islam. Whatever the West was perceived to be, Islam was understood to be the exact opposite."

Gilles Kepel, head of the post-graduate program on the Arab and Muslim worlds at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, wrote an excellent summary of Islamism wich he defined as "political Islam."

As for your assertion that "Islamic fundamentalism" is what I am really talking about, you may be interested to know that the very term "fundamentalist" is rejected by Muslims because of its Chrisitan roots and because the tenets of what most Westerners consider fundamentalist (i.e., textual literalism) are universal beliefs for all Muslims.

Another thing, Scott. You also wrote, "it isn't patriotic to keep them in danger without body gear and armed vehicles and no benefits when they come home."

Are you questioning my patriotism?

My son is a Marine in Iraq right now.

1. He has ample body armor. So do all his comrades.

2. Their vehicles are heavily armed - and armored, too.

3. He has outstanding benefits - I know a lot more about this than you do.

First, I am questioning no one's patriotism that has someone serving in Iraq. I honor their service. Daniel, I don't know why you don't understand my statement. I said that it isn't patriotic to send our troops into war without proper body armor, which they certaily didn't have-even FOX NEWS says so- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101061,00.html . They also lack other essentials- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/31/60minutes/main652491.shtml . Here is a story backing up my claim about armed vehicles- http://www.dailypress.com/news/la-fg-armor11dec11,0,2967234.story . Because 1 person has armor, doesn't dispute the overall facts Congress and the DOD have admitted. When it comes to veterans benefits- "a $350 million reduction in veterans home funding, which wipes out at least 5,000 veterans' nursing home beds."

"If the president's proposed budget cuts are enacted, nearly 60 percent of the 1,600 veterans will lose their daily stipend that allows them to stay in our state's nursing homes, literally forcing them out into the cold."

And finally, and once again, STOP debating whether he should say the things he does and debate the merits- most Americans now support withdrawl from Iraq in a year or less according to polls. This isn't fringe, it's the mainstream opinion. Now have at it...debate the MERITS.

Scott, a two year old story about body armor does not support your false claim: "it isn't patriotic to keep them in danger without body gear ".

You've been caught out inventing. Take your lumps from Mr. Sensing like a man.

Just so. How the state of the military was 2 years ago should affect our policy today is questionable. Care to spin that one Scott? Or will you bow to the first rule of holes?

I'd tend to agree with Dean, but I guess it depends partly on how you define winning. If by winning we mean furthering US strategic interests (in the region & worldwide), increasing US influence in the Middle East, reducing Al Qaeda's ability to pursue its goals, making Iraq stable/prosperous, eliminating dangerous WMD, reducing terrorism, eroding religious fundamentalism....I'd have to say Dean's right.
Or maybe the bar has been lowered....maybe winning is now defined as there not being open civil war once troops leave. So maybe the question should be what would constitute a victory?

Durruti.

You are spot on. The question IS what constitutes a victory. Some in here think we are doomed to failure, some think we have a long struggle ahead of us. Personally, I think we have already won the battle for Iraq. The strategic campaign? Well strategic campaigns have ups and downs. Iraq is now settling down and we're repositioning. Call it what you want. I prefer victory.

Scott.

Here is what I do not understand. It is (perhaps) unpatriotic to provision the troops one way or antoher with body armor, tanks, shower curtains, etc. But sending troops into battle? When the flag goes up, you show up and fight. End of story. That's the deal. Is there something about this concept that I've missed? Did McArthur come back home and give a speech about duty, honor, country, and proper equipment? Did Lincoln call off the Civil War because we weren't ready yet? Did Chesty Puller stay home from Korea because the army was undertrained and equipped (even though his marines were not)?

Hi Daniel.
I'm glad we agree on the question and its a crucially important one. But if we take the Bush administration's pre-war claims and expectations of what victory would bring, Dean is right. If we take any strategic objective other than the removal of the Baath regime, Dean is right. I'd certainly take issue with your claim that "Iraq is now settling down and we're repositioning." By any strategic assessment, I think you'd have to call the Iraq occupation a tragic f**k up of monumental proportions, not a victory.

I tend to agree with Rahul Mahajan that the longer the occupation persists, the less chance there is to avert long-term instability in Iraq because sectarianism conflict is becoming more and more entrenched. http://www.empirenotes.org/december05.html#05dec051.

And although he's overly pessimistic on democratisation for my liking, I think Robert Dreyfus is also right about this occupation planting the seeds for serious problems in the future:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL01Ak01.html

Hi Duruti:

If we take the Bush administration's pre-war claims? From what I remember, Saddam was a brutal dictator in violation of dozens of binding security council resolutions. He sent money to terrorists, his intentions were to build nuclear weapons, and he gassed his own people. I could go on with the list. So Saddam had to go. The mission was "replace Saddam" Mission accomplished.

But that's not good enough for us. Then there was the Powell doctrine -- if you break it, you own it. So we bought into THAT definiton of victory. But what does "fixing it" mean? A constitution? Elected officials? Sounds good to me. Mission accomplished again.

But even that is not good enough it seems. Now we're concerned about whetehr Iraq will enter civil war. A 20% minority is never going to be able to start any kind of civil war, the math doesn't work out. They can use terrorism to destabilize the country, but between writing checks and providing training that can be handled. Mission accomplished again.

Hey. We can move the goalposts so that every Iraqi has a chicken in the pot, healthcare, free cable TV for all I care (in terms of this discussion). But let's at least acknowledge we've won, for goodness sake, not keep making the mission tougher and tougher.

Sure. Some people promised roses and daisies. Life is rarely like that. Surely people are big enough to know that by now? Even our own country (the US) had a bloody civil war. Let the Iraqis grow and learn as well. We are their liberators, not their parents.

So perhaps I would suggest we define "strategic". Crazy people have always been with us, but various conflicts and lack of technology have kept the crazy muslim people from causing world problems. That is not true anymore. Strategically we cannot kill all the crazy people. What we can do is work diplomatically with most countries and militarily with some to make sure countries do their job. In the middle east, it is looking to me like we will eventually end up using nuclear weapons on some of these countries if they do not control their crazies. Because of this belief, and regardless of how some future democratic governement might or might not work out, we have a moral obligation to let these people vote in their government before such force is used. That's my opinion, anyway.

People like Dean who truly believe the US went to Iraq to seize the oil or plant the flag of imperialism dont get to say if we are winning or losing according to the Bush goals. Dean is correct, in a sense. To his mind the goal was imperial rule and stealing oil. We are indeed failing at those things... because we arent and never have been trying to do them. Those who have shown willful inability to accept that Bush had rational and even noble goals in Iraq dont get to judge how well he is achieving same.

"called Islamism, else he never would have said, "Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad." "

Tom Paine was quite aware of, and quite opposed to, religious oppression instituted by Christian regimes in Europe, and yet he said what he said. I suspect he might well have said the same thing of Islam. (BTW, given the prominence of the Ottoman Empire, do we have proof he didnt know of Islam?)I suspect he would have distinguished Islam from Islamism, and said the same thing.

Er....I seem to recall most pre-war claims by the Bush administration were about the urgent need to stop Saddam's massive threatening stocks of WMD (including his nuclear programme) from being a threat to the region. The rest were about how the Iraqi people would greet US troops as liberators, how Saddam had an operational alliance with Al Qaeda, how the occupation would be self-financing, about how democracy would flourish, the press would be free, human rights & the rule of law respected etc etc.

Mission accomplished? Nope. Not even close. The justifications for a classic war of aggresion were false, the optimistic scenarios painted for post-invasion were totally wrong, and mismanagement (especially in reconstruction) has been endemic. Many areas of Iraq are devastated, public health has deteriorated, violence is sky-high....and you talk about chickens and cable TV!

As for your justifications, none of the UN resolutions authorised invasion, Saddam's use of chemical weapons was in the 80s (& given the nod by the Reagan administration who vetoes UNSC condemnation), as were most human rights abuses, operational links with foreign terrorists were negligible. Now Iraq has been broken...and then broken some more. Even the direct elections weren't planned...they were forced on the Bush administration by Sistani.

As for denying civil war, there are numerous problems you ignore. Firstly the Sunni minority, while only about 20%, includes many highly trained former intelligence, special forces and military, including most of the officer class. Shia (religious) and Kurdish militias now control the new military/intelligence/police. They are running death squads and torturing/killing without fear of accountability. There are also sub-conflicts (eg. Kurd vs Turkomen) festering away.

"We" are their occupiers, not their liberators. "We" have re-energised Al Qaeda, caused tens of thousands of innocent deaths and made the world a more dangerous place.

But hey...easier for some to declare victory and dream of curing terrorism with nukes I guess.

Hi Durruti:

Dream of curing terrorism with nukes? Wow. That's some kind of rhetoric. I just said that was where I thought it was leading. And because of that I believe we have moral choices to make.

I'm not going to re-argue the Iraq war again. Been there, done that. I'm making the same claims and arguments I did before the invasion, so I have nothing to explain or defend. I will point out that it was the opposition party which prodded Bush into picking "just one topic" to push because, I guess, a complicated argument didn't wash so well with their base in the polls.

As for Mission Accomplished? Is Saddam in power now or not? Yes or no question. Surely you can work through answering that without a lot of verbiage.

And I am not denying civil war. Something like that may very well happen, although the term "civil war" is overstated in my opinion. I am suggesting that Iraqis fight for and determine what their government should look like.

Feel free to continue pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. Saddam's on trial, there's a new constitution and people are about to vote for elected officials. Our actions could have been better in a lot of ways. Ho hum. This is really boring -- it's the same old Chicken Little stuff regurgitated every day. Certainly you have to get tired of this at some point? The election is a year away. Give it a rest for a while.

Er....I seem to recall most pre-war claims by the Bush administration were about the urgent need to stop Saddam's massive threatening stocks of WMD (including his nuclear programme) from being a threat to the region."

That threat certainly doesnt keep me up at night anymore. Mission accomplished.

"The rest were about how the Iraqi people would greet US troops as liberators,"

In many places, they were. Lest we forget 2/3rds of Iraq is quite tranquil right now. Plus I dont recall one of the goals stated to be a parade down Baghdad boulevard. A Roman general may have schemed for a Triumph, but US strategy rarely revolves around self-agrandizement.

"how Saddam had an operational alliance with Al Qaeda"

Whether he did or he did not, he certainly had strong ties to terrorism. That threat does not now exist. Mission Accomplished.

"how the occupation would be self-financing,"
A presidential advisor said that- not the adminsitration itself. Furthermore if the goal of the invasion was to pay for itself, simply not going would have done a much simpler job. Again, this was not a goal.

"about how democracy would flourish,"

Ah, here was a stated goal. Democracy is flourishing. Mission Accomplished.

"the press would be free,"

Part of freedom, of course. Mission Accomplished.

"human rights & the rule of law respected etc etc."
Certainly these things are under construction and have had some real black eyes, but when you compare to the Hussein level baseline- Mission certainly Accomplished.

'A 20% minority is never going to be able to start any kind of civil war, the math doesn't work out'
The certainly can prevent a functional goverment from accomplishing anything though (of course, our goverment can't accomplish anything and we have no violent minority).

'We can move the goalposts so that every Iraqi has a chicken in the pot, healthcare, free cable TV for all I care (in terms of this discussion). But let's at least acknowledge we've won, for goodness sake, not keep making the mission tougher and tougher.'
I was awful pissed when several administration officials (I can't remember who) said something along the lines of... "Our job was not to bring peace to Afghanistan, just to remove the Taliban'. And I'd be pissed if we didn't need feel the need to bring peace to Iraq as well. The problem is that at this point of uterly destabilized Iraq. If Iraq breaks apart into religous war (Sunni v. Shia v. Kurds) you will see atrocities that rival the scale of Saddam (since there's 3 different groups fighting). That's not really the legacy I want to leave behind. But it may be too late for that.

'he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.'
There are probably alot of insurgents who would agree with this claim and that's part of the problem. 'Right' is subjective, and many feel it is 'right' to bring Islamic law to the people.

'He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.'
So, do you pick a man up by the hand as he shoots you? That doesn't help anybody....

"...I was awful pissed when several administration officials.."

Well good for you. You have additional goals for our forces. I believe you want "to bring peace" to Afghanistan and Iraq. This sounds like a laudable goal indeed.

Pray tell, how do you define this goal? There is not a war in either country currently. So peace cannot simply mean "lack of war". There are suicide and terrorist attacks, and there is kidnapping. Would you want this all eliminated? Just as an outside observer, I see suicide bombings in Israel, the US, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya... I could go on. Perhaps only a bombing every week or so? Give me a better definition of what you mean by "bring peace" and I'd love to discuss it. Maybe it is a goal I would support as well.

As for helping somebody up who later hurts you? If you help somebody up, help them up. That doesn't mean you run their life for them. Sometimes we help people who later hurt us. That's the way life works -- no guarantees. We are freeing a people, not controlling them.

Dean and the rest of the Donks are behaving like absolute traitors!

The day of US cities being baporized and burkas required of all is aided by the likes of these cowards.

Dean and the rest of the Donks are behaving like absolute traitors!

The day of US cities being vaporized and burkas required of all is aided and sped up by the likes of these cowards.

All Things Beautiful TrackBack 'The D Stands For Defeat':

"The Democratic leadership has decided to elevate surrender to a party platform for the upcoming elections, with their national chairman, House leader, and last presidential nominee all running up the white flag as the Democratic war banner."