RK ARCHIVE - VIDEO: Jon Soltz had another good debate with Neocon Pete Hegseth on Aug. 20!

Jon Soltz of Vote Vets.org had another good debate with Neocon Pete Hegseth of Vets for Freedom on Hardball on Monday, August 20 over this New York Times Op-Ed article that soldiers wrote about Iraq:

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Published: August 19, 2007

Here is the Hardball video link to watch this very interesting and informative dialogue:

Aug. 20: Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org, and Pete Hegseth, Executive Director of Vets for Freedom, debate whether the five Iraq war soldiers who recently penned a New York Times editorial speaking out against the Iraq war are speaking the truth or sending a message that is out of lies.
Right below is the complete Hardball transcript of this video. Jon Soltz summed up very well in this transcript the main military and political points about Iraq that I think need to be articulated to the entire country as soon as possible:

JON SOLTZ, CO-FOUNDER, VOTEVETS.ORG: "I think it's very powerful. And I think it sends a very strong point that the surge has not worked, that these guys on the ground are looking for political solutions.

They bring up some tremendous points about the conundrum that American face-America faces in this war, where, you know, cut a deal, sort of, with the Sunnis to fight the Wahhabi terrorists that have entered the country. We have armed them, because we have helped an Iraqi army and a Shia majority in the country gain control of it, and that what they are really looking for, I think, in this is a regional, diplomatic, and political strategy that picks a side.

I mean, what we have done here with the president is punted the football to hand this war to the Democrats, because, really, what he has tried to do with the surge is to create a domestic political space for him to show success, to-to salvage himself. And, in reality, our guys are dying for an Iraqi government that is on vacation.

So, I think what these soldiers want to see us do is pick a side. Are we going to support a Shia Arab state, or are we going to side with the Sunnis, or are we going to have a regional political strategy that incorporates our-our neighbors and allows us to protect the Sunni minority well-establish a Shia majority? We have not done the political work. And I think that is what they're saying...

What we have done is we have aligned ourselves militarily-we have given arms to the Sunni insurgents to turn against al Qaeda. We cut a political deal in Anbar. We did not surge our troops there.

We surged in Baghdad. There's six million people that live in Baghdad. We need 160,000 combat troops just for that area. I think these troops feel frustration. I think many of them are probably on their second tours. When I was in Baghdad in 2003, we controlled a lot of the terrain that we're fighting for today.

From a tactical standpoint, our troops kill what they shoot at. Our troops are professional military soldiers. They are the best in the world. They are trained to fight. They are trained to kill. They're trained to hold terrain. But how does that quantify political leverage to get a negotiating process to protect the Sunni minority and support a Shia majority. That's what this is about...

We have not done the political and diplomatic work required to support our troops on the ground..."

Jon Soltz in my opinion has been a champion for foreign policy truth in debates with Pete Hegseth and with other top Neocon representatives. He has also been "Swift-Boated" by many Neocon blogs because of his effectiveness:

I highly recommend forwarding on this post to people who you know because in my opinion Jon Soltz is effectively articulating the kind of debate about Iraq that needs to be in the national dialogue right now!

Supporting Jon Soltz and VoteVets.org is an excellent way I see how to help promote Gen. Wes Clark's and Sen. Jim Webb's message about foreign policy, how to help avoid an unnecessary war of choice with Iran, and also how to help bring more attention to Bush's arrogant Neocon foreign policy as the middle of September approaches when Gen. Petraeus gives his report about Iraq to Congress!

http://securingameri...
StopIranWar.com: "War is not the answer"
Submitted by Wes Clark on February 21, 2007 - 11:40am.

http://www.securinga...
Listen to Gen. Wes Clark fight for Dems on Sean Hannity's radio program: An excellent example for all of us to follow and what we all need to be doing to help fight back against extreme right wing Neocon smear propaganda!

'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for August 20
Read the transcript to the Monday show

Guests: Holly Bailey, Chris Cillizza, Jeffery Rank, Jeffery Rank, Nicole Rank, Jon Soltz, Pete Hegseth, Peter Baker, Chrystia Freeland

More and more soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are expressing their views about what's going on there and what needs to be done.

Now several current active-duty soldiers published a "New York Times" op-ed piece written in Baghdad saying the following-quote-"To believe that Americans can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere"-unquote.

Are the soldiers speaking truth to power or sending a message that is out of line? That's our HARDBALL debate tonight.

Jon Soltz is an Iraq war veteran and the chair of VoteVets.org. And Pete Hegseth also an Iraq war veteran and executive director of Vets For Freedom.

JON SOLTZ, CO-FOUNDER, VOTEVETS.ORG: I think it's very powerful. And I think it sends a very strong point that the surge has not worked, that these guys on the ground are looking for political solutions.

BARNICLE: Peter, there are so many powerful points raised in this piece in yesterday's "Times," "The War as We Saw It."

First of all, what do you figure is happening up the chain of command with regard to the guys whose names are on the piece?

PETE HEGSETH, VETS FOR FREEDOM: Well, it certainly depends on what kind of heads-up they gave their chain of command.

And that's a decision the chain of command will have to make, because, usually, you are not hearing from active-duty soldiers in a war zone. But it's also important to remember that these are seven soldiers in one unit in a particular neighborhood in Baghdad.

I respect their opinion. I think it was a well-written piece, but they are-the 82nd Airborne is responsible for a 10-by-10-kilometer section of Baghdad that has not yet been affected by the surge environment. So, they have been-they have been in an area dealing with and using policies and using a strategy that has not worked thus far, but they have yet to see the surge impact their neighborhood.

And I think they will see the kind of changes that we have seen elsewhere in the country so far.

HEGSETH: If you point to-if you look at Anbar Province, and you look at political reconciliation, it happens when we provide military security. You have to provide-and piece itself said, the Iraqis don't want food. They want security first.

HEGSETH: And that's what General Petraeus is trying to do. And that is what he has done in Anbar Province, he's doing in Diyala and Baghdad.

And, if you ask those people out in-in Anbar Province who the occupying force is, they will tell you straight out it is al Qaeda. They have seen the face of what that world view looks like, what it looks like when those people impose their world view on the population. They have rejected it.

And American soldiers and the security they provided helped them shed that occupation. And now they are living with peace on the streets. And there is true reconciliation with the tribes. And there are opportunities to do elsewhere, including in Sadr City, where the 82nd Airborne is.

HEGSETH: But I think it's too early to decide whether or not it has failed in that particular neighborhood.

But, Jon, again, off of what Peter said, and off of the piece itself, there-there is no doubt that there has been progress in-in Anbar Province, Fallujah, Ramadi, other cities in Anbar Province.

And, yet, the idea of security, the Iraqis seeking security, security, a certain form of it, is present in certain neighborhoods in Baghdad right now, a sprawling city. We certainly don't have enough soldiers to provide security for the entire city.

But the theme of the piece, one of the central themes of this piece, is that the security is there as long as we are there. We are not going to be there forever. What does that do to the mission?

SOLTZ: I want to address the Anbar situation. I think that's the most important. What we haven't surged in Anbar. What we have done is we have the Shia-Arab state that's involve with support from Iran inside of Iraq.

SOLTZ: Excuse me for a second. They want to consolidate their power. What we have done is we have aligned ourselves militarily-we have given arms to the Sunni insurgents to turn against al Qaeda. We cut a political deal in Anbar. We did not surge our troops there.

As the soldier said, if we don't support anybody, everybody will be against us. As the soldier said, they claim we are an occupying force.

BARNICLE: Let me read this to both of you and then, Pete, you jump in first after I read this. This is a paragraph from the piece yesterday in the Times, "The Was as we Saw It:" "A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi army check point and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the trigger men and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament. Had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families." That's not exactly a winnable situation. Peter?

HEGSETH: There no doubt there are Iraqi army soldiers and Iraqi policemen not within the law there. That is not necessarily indicative of the security situation. It's also indicative of an environment where Americans have not provided security.

I want to get back to what John talked about in Anbar province. If you look at what happened in Ramadi and the reasons the tribes rose up, it is because we cleared that city and committed to it with over 40 patrol bases on the ground, providing neighborhood security. And that allowed the tribal sheikhs to rise up and say we are going to push out al-Qaeda. It is our security that did that. And we are still holding Ramadi. And what's happening is Iraqi security forces, indigenous forces, are signing up for the police and the army in record numbers to provide security in their own neighborhoods.

Are they all going to be good? No, there are going to be bad apples in every single army. Because we have a few bad apples, should we step back and allow the entire whole country to implode and leave a haven for al Qaeda? We have seen progress happening in Anbar, and it's because Americans committed to security. We need the same kind of commitments throughout Baghdad and in Diyala. It's what's happening right now.

That neighborhood that these 82nd airborne soldiers are talking about, while unsafe, has the possibility to be secured. A Marine colonel said that Anbar province was lost seven months ago. Tell that to the guys there now. Tell that to the Iraqi that are there now and that have security in the streets.

SOLTZ: Success in Anbar is present because we cut a political deal with the Sunnis. They understand that-

SOLTZ: You have these Shia militias with Iranian that's consolidating power for the first Shia Arab state. The Sunnis understand that their only benefit, their only hope is now to cut a deal with the Americans, where we arm the Sunnis to fight the mystery al-Qaeda in Iraq. Essentially, what we are doing right now is we are fueling both sides of a civil war. We need a regional-

SOLTZ: We have not done the political and diplomatic work required to support our troops on the ground.

BARNICLE: We have to end it there Jon, Peter. Thank you very much and thank you for your service...

Comments

I am a very big fan of Jon Soltz, I appreciate all of the important work that he does, (Mitch Dworkin - 9/4/2007 12:36:05 AM)

and I like to post about the good things that I see him doing:

http://securingameri...

Jon Soltz goes after "Joementum" for being out of touch with soldiers in Iraq!

Submitted by Mitch Dworkin on June 6, 2007 - 2:21pm.

http://securingameri...

TRANSCRIPT & VIDEO: Jon Soltz on Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, Bush, and Cheney!

Submitted by Mitch Dworkin on April 25, 2007 - 2:00pm.

http://securingameri...

Video: Jon Soltz being interviewed by Keith Olbermann about Pat Tillman's Death

Submitted by Mitch Dworkin on March 26, 2007 - 10:34pm.

Supporting and promoting Jon Soltz and VoteVets.org is an excellent way in my opinion how to help avoid an unnecessary war of choice with Iran and how to help bring more attention to Bush's arrogant Neocon foreign policy which I think is responsible for messing up Iraq!