According to an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, the situation in Iraq is on the verge of complete meltdown. That is not the opinion of some liberal anti-war activists, but of the Iraq Study Group, which is preparing a range of policy alternatives for President Bush. Here's an excerpt:
With the violence in Iraq flaring dangerously, a national consensus is growing, even among senior Republicans, that the United States must consider a major change in strategy in the coming months.But in a sign of the growing sense of urgency, a member of a high-powered government advisory body that is developing options to prevent Iraq's chaotic collapse warns that the United States could have just weeks, not months, to avoid an all-out civil war.
"There's a sense among many people now that things in Iraq are slipping fast and there isn't a lot of time to reverse them," said Larry Diamond, one of a panel of experts advising the Iraq Study Group, which is preparing a range of policy alternatives for President Bush.
"The civil war is already well along. We have no way of knowing if it's too late until we try a radically different course," said Diamond, an expert on building democracies who is at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Message to all the "stay the course" people like George BushAllen - there's no "course" here that's worth "staying." It's time for a dramatic rethinking and reorientation of our entire policy in Iraq, and only a dramatic change of leadership in America is going to accomplish that goal. Which means, of course, that we have to replace clueless ideologues like George Allen with independent, hard-nosed realists like Jim Webb. And we had better do it fast...or else. Please vote on November 7 for a change - for Jim Webb!
Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.
But what do the A-Team and the paid hack want to talk about? The fact that Webb said the word "towel head". Yeah, that's an issue. **rolling eyes**
We lost ten, yes ten, servicemen yesterday alone. I'm generally not one to count casualties, but this number can't be ignored. These ten soldiers didn't die during a hard fought focused campaign like the battle in Fallujah. They were killed during "normal" operations. Meaning: Things are getting worse - much worse.
Staying the course, with the same incompetent Republican leadership that got us into it is simply not going to work. And no one in their right mind could possibly believe that the ones who got us into this mess can get us out with minimal further damage to our reputation, our budget, and the well being of our troops.
Yeah, the towel head remark had to do with societal and media "bad guy" stereotypes. He placed himself in the stereotyped group -- a "redneck"
I think the C+ Team realizes it's really slipping away from them.
But then they have nothing else to talk about. Their candidate has done nothing in the Senate, and the policies he's backed all, and I mean ALL have failed.
Time to downgrade the A-team from C+ to D. They're sucking enough wind to power a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
The real tragedy is the loss of all those young soldiers and marines within the last 24 hours, and all the losses going before and losses soon to come. Every one of them was loved and mourned by someone. Yep, let's keep them there until we're victorious, George. Great plan.
Keep in mind that Bush said God told him to invade Iraq. Watch Michele Bachmann, the Bob Marshall of Minnesota, as she explains her conversations with the Almighty.
(If Mark Kennedy loses to Klobucher, and Bachmann loses in her bid to replace Kennedy in Congress, Minnesota's two worst politicians will be out at the same time.)