Quotes on the flip:
GS: Senator Allen seemed to say that you were part of the 'I told you so' caucus on Iraq.JW: Well, I think there are a lot of people who don't want to be reminded that they were warned. I think it's relevant, when you talk about how you build national strategy, and how you use the military -- to talk about how these decisions should be made. There should be some sort of accountability.
That's a key point, to me. Discussing how we got involved in Iraq isn't simply Monday morning quarterbacking (to mock George Felix Allen with a football analogy), but rather goes to the broader point of an overall doctrine for using military force. The fact that Jim Webb thinks about these broader ideas of national security strategy, and saw how invading Iraq would damage our national interests back in September 2002, was a large part of what initially got me interested in him as a candidate, back when the buzz started circulating last fall.
Some other choice quoteables:
JW: I think what we need is a clear endpoint. And the difficulty with the positions that have been taken by this administration is that they have never articulated a clear endpoint. But I think what we need to be focusing on right now is when does the occupation end. Because there are a lot of the people who got us into Iraq who want to to stay for the next 30 to 50 years.JW: ... Here's something to focus on: We keep hearing about these four large bases, permanent bases, that are being built in the interior of Iraq. And if we're going to have, by the administration's count, four huge bases in Iraq, for a long period of time, that's a totally different thing than what they are implying by saying that the Iraqis are going to take over.
JW: Here's what the administration is not saying, and they should be encouraged to clarify this. Are they saying that we're going to draw down, and move back into these bases, so that the Iraqis are controlling the cities like Baghdad and Ramadi, but that we're still going to be there for the next 30 years as an occupying power? President Bush has said future presidents -- plural -- will be dealing with the Iraq situation. I think we can be out of Iraq in two years.
Here's what George Felix Allen had to say when Stephanopoulos asked him about Bush's ambitions for a long-term presence in Iraq:
GA: In the case that they [the Iraqi "government"] say gosh we still need the Americans there in some presence, I think we should accommodate them.
Gosh!!! Felix just more or less admitted Webb was right...
Webb on war profiteering and tax cuts for the rich:
JW: There's plenty of people making an awful lot of money on this war.GS: Like?
JW: Have you looked at Haliburton's stock? I think it was 9 when the war began. I was in the dentist's chair a couple of weeks ago, with the CNN screen -- no offense -- and it was at 82. So there are a lot of people who have made a lot of money off of this war.
GS: So you'd roll back some of President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy?
JW: I don't really understand how you can have a tax cut and be spending $500 billion on a war.
GS: So you would?
JW: Yeah, I would.
Damn straight...
Here's George Felix Allen commenting on his political mentor:
GA: The President is always welcome in Virginia. We have the same philisophy... Most of the time, I'm proud of the President, and the stands he takes. Sometimes I disagree. I generally disagree privately.
So even on those rare occasions when he disagrees with the Preznit, he feels he has to keep it to himself -- can't share those opinions with his consituents or find an independent voice of his own. Why? Probably because he wants to be Bush's annointed successor.
Anyway, go over and watch the interview yourself if you missed it, and if you have friends and relatives in Virginia who aren't familiar with Jim Webb, forwarding them the link to this interview would be a good way to introduce them. (There is a "forward video" link in the lower right corner of the video page on ABCNews.)
Just a brief reminder, it would be a good idea -- as we used to say back in the Draft Clark days -- to send this video link to "10,000 of your closest friends."
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2170032
It's a great way to introduce Jim Webb to folks who don't know anything about him yet.
How much rationale did Al Zarqawi provide for the US going to Iraq? I read that leading up to the war or maybe it was early in the war, Bush chose not to hit him for that very reason. I also read that prior to the invasion Al Zarqawi was responsible for having Laurence Foley killed in Amman, and other than that he had failed missions and he was characterized as a "street thug."
I don't mean to minimize Foley's death and I was relieved when Al Zarqawi was killed, but the way I see it is that most of Al Zarqawi's terrorist acts were enabled or made possible by the destabilization and bungling in this war.
Is this totally off base? Is it a reasonable question to ask doesn't this administration have some responsibility in the fact that Al Zarqawi was "running loose" as long as he did?
I guess I'll watch the video again, because I got the feeling that Allen did not really believe what he was saying about that.
The other big irony, which many people may have missed, was Allen's mention of Zarqawi. Zarqawi was in Iraq prior to the war, but in an area controlled by the Kurds, not harbored by Saddam. The Bush administration knew he was there, but passed up the chance to go after him so they could use his presence "in Iraq" as part of the sales pitch for the war.
NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
Go read the story -- it's very interesting.
It is all a charade. Iraq was a valuable piece of land because it contains oil AND water, water that will be piped to Israel.
The people from the village has showed up at the Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) headquarters and demanded that they do something about it, which is why the US knew -- since the CIA had liason officers there with the Kurdish leaders. The Peshmerga didn't want to take a lot of their fighters off the southern front, where they defended against Saddam's army, to go after Ansar al-Islam and Zarqawi, which led them to raise the idea with the US of bombing Zarqawi et al.
The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,†Cressey added.
Will people fall for these tricks this time as they have so many times in the past? It's not inconceivable, which is why we need to keep on exposing this man as the phony dime-store cowboy that he is.
Um...has George Allen ever read the definition of the word martyr? If he hasn't, then here it is:
"One who makes a great show of suffering in order to arouse sympathy."
I wasn't aware, Senator Allen, that we wanted to arouse sympathy in Iraq for Al-Zarqawi. I thought we were trying to make him the villain and the dangerous criminal, not something to inspire more terrorist attacks. Remember, radicals die, and their beliefs die with them. But when a martyr dies, 1000 more come to take up his cause.
Just more evidence that George Allen isn't completely there.
Also, the fact that Secretary Webb's (rightfully) nuanced positions don't lend themselves to soundbytes is even more reason to put the spotlight on Allen as much as possible.
