If Iraq is going well, and the 'surge' has been working...

[Paulie]

Then why the fuck was this the deadliest year for US troops?

Simple question.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Then why the fuck was this the deadliest year for US troops?

Simple question.

Because for the first months of the year we were still operating under an old plan that was not as good nor effective as the current plan. The switch to yearly numbers is a last desperate gasp by the left to deny the surge and its positive effective strategy.

When a yearly figure won't suffice they will change to some other date scheme to justify their claim we are losing.

Tell me why you can not accept the fact that over the last 6 months things have dramaticly improved in Iraq?

 

[DeadCanDance]

Because for the first months of the year we were still operating under an old plan that was not as good nor effective as the current plan. The switch to yearly numbers is a last desperate gasp by the left to deny the surge and its positive effective strategy.

When a yearly figure won't suffice they will change to some other date scheme to justify their claim we are losing.

Tell me why you can not accept the fact that over the last 6 months things have dramaticly improved in Iraq?

1) Because that's what you iraq war fans have been saying over and over, for the last four years

2) Because none of our original objectives will ever be met in iraq in our lifetime: finding WMD, establishing a jeffersonian democracy, having a strong pro-US ally in iraq

You're defining "victory" now, as a drop in violence to 2005 levels.

 

[maineman]

1) Because that's what you iraq war fans have been saying over and over, for the last four years

2) Because none of our original objectives will ever be met in iraq in our lifetime: finding WMD, establishing a jeffersonian democracy, having a strong pro-US ally in iraq

You're defining "victory" now, as a drop in violence to 2005 levels.

ya know.... the last five months HAVE been pretty good. The last time we had death rates that low was May-September 2003. Wasn't that the FIRST time that Dubya told us we had accomplished our mission?

But you are absolutely right DCD.... the original objectives have been so buried under the rhetoric and flagwaving from the right, we never even hear of them anymore, let alone have a snowball's chance in hell of achieving them.

But the surge is working!!!! Hooray!

The BEST case scenario at this point is an Iraq that is not embroiled in a civil war. That Iraq will undoubtedly develop significant and close ties and alliances with Iran, our real enemies will still be hanging out in the same caves they were when we abandoned the search for them to go get Saddam, we will have flushed the goodwill of the entire world down the toilet, spent a trillion dollars and lost 4K+ americans and the assholes on the right will call all of that a glorious victory!

 

[Shogun]

Because for the first months of the year we were still operating under an old plan that was not as good nor effective as the current plan. The switch to yearly numbers is a last desperate gasp by the left to deny the surge and its positive effective strategy.

When a yearly figure won't suffice they will change to some other date scheme to justify their claim we are losing.

Tell me why you can not accept the fact that over the last 6 months things have dramaticly improved in Iraq?

can you be a little more specific than "things have gotten better"?

better yet, would you like to make any predictions that I can bringup in 6 months outlining how SAFE and SECURE the area will be?

 

[indago]

MSNBC TV — COUNTDOWN — 8 November 2007

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Hard to imagine a congressional override of a veto of any kind in say 2002 particularly, of some kind of measure which might have outlawed CIA rendition programs that outsourced torture and in retrospect, just as hard to believe — Congress didn't do something about it then. If it had, one of the key pieces of evidence cited by the Bush administration for its war in Iraq, a purported link between Iraq and al Qaeda, would have been shown then to not only have been false but to have been obtained by in effect burying a prisoner alive. The prisoner's name - Ebil Al -sheik al-Ebi (ph) described by the former CIA director George Tenet, as you see here, as the highest ranking al Qaeda member in U.S. custody after 9/11, only he wasn't in U.S. custody, not all the time. The Bush administration having shipped him off to Egypt at one point for, quote, "Further debriefing." There, according to a stunning report from PBS show — FRONTLINE recounted last night at ABCNEWS.com, when he told his interrogators he knew nothing about al Qaeda's connections with Iraq they, quote, "Placed him in a small box approximately 20 inches by 20 inches for 17 hours. When he was let out and still couldn't provide interrogators with answers he did not have, al-Ebi (ph) claiming he was knocked to the ground and punched for 15 minutes and then miraculously he found a way to tell his handlers what they wanted, a story. Only problem, it was a story and it was a story that was not true. Let's turn now to Greg Miller, national security correspondent of the "Los Angeles Times" and a co-author of the book - "The Interrogators." He's also the only American journalist who've been granted access to U.S. interrogators at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Thank you for your time, sir.

GREG MILLER, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: This evidence obtained from al-Ebi, was used by Colin Powell at the U.N. in February, 2003 and the quote from the general then Secretary of State was - "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in the use — the chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda." But we now know there were no WMD and setting aside the ethics of torture is this the worst case scenario, you torture somebody, they tell you something to make the pain stop and then you use what he says to go to war?

MILLER: I think that is the worst case scenario in interrogations. Many interrogators that you talked to who practice this will tell you that torture just leads to bad information. In this case it led to bad information that led to a war. And this is just one example of a growing number of examples, where we're starting to learn about detainees who were subjected to the harshest interrogation methods whose claims and information is unraveling rapidly.

OLBERMANN: So do all — all of the information, all the supposed intelligence that was gained from people picked up on battle fields, people connected to al Qaeda, does all of it need to be re-examined? That this isn't a question of cherry picking administration or the information by the administration, it's a question of perhaps everything they think they got is suspect?

MILLER: Well, I think — I don't know if all of it needs to be examined. I mean, the CIA director, Michael Hayden has talked about that enhanced interrogation techniques as the CIA describes that were only used on a small percentage of the detainees who are held in the CIA's secret prisons overseas. But they in fact, already — many of the claims of these detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation methods are being re-examined. Some of these prisoners now are facing some sort of court proceedings and the FBI is investigating these claims to try to get to the bottom of what they really did and what was real behind what they said.

OLBERMANN: I suddenly found myself thinking as we're preparing for this interview of the John Le Carre novel "Tinker/Soldier/Spy" and fiction is always a bad barometer but in this — there's a wonderful lesson in this. The British Secret Service thinks it has a high placed spy in the Russian Secret Service but he's actually a plant, he's a phony double agent, he still works for the Russians and he gives the English terrible information, misdirects them, manipulates them, they keep believing him because of this aura that he is their secret agent inside the Russian infrastructure. Does that carry in this situation? Did the government believe the stuff they got from those they had used enhanced interrogation on because they had used that? Did torture provide credibility in any cases?

MILLER: Well, I think there is this natural inclination to think that harsh interrogation methods, torture is going to help you get to the bottom of the case, of a detainee's information. But I think we also have to keep in mind in this case, that there were government officials throughout this administration and throughout the CIA who were hearing what they wanted to hear from these prisoners as well. They were inclined to believe these prisoners' claims because this is what their preconceptions were before these prisoners were ever captured.

OLBERMANN: In an interrogation instructor, former instructor for the Navy went to Capitol Hill today, a man whose job it was to teach the sailors and marines how to survive torture if they were ever captured. He said that this last little island of now waterboarding is OK, that it was simulated drowning, he said it's not simulated drowning. It is drowning. The only difference is the prisoner doesn't die if you do it exactly right if you're very lucky. Your lungs actually fill up with massive amounts of water. If people understood that, would the cloudiness over waterboarding dissolve? Would it change the dynamics of this debate over this subject?

MILLER: I think if people did understand and had a clear understanding of what was involved in waterboarding it couldn't help but to change the dynamics of this debate. I mean, we read recently about a senior justice department official who's subjecting himself to this technique just so he would have some understanding of it and he came away with no — with no question in his mind that this was torture and this is what led to the sort of rapid unraveling of the initial memos that had authorized these sorts of techniques.

OLBERMANN: Now, to say nothing of the unraveling of his career. Greg Miller, "L.A. Times" national security correspondent, co-author of "The Interrogators" and witness to interrogation in Afghanistan, great thanks for your time and your insight, sir.

MILLER: Thank you, Keith.

 

[Diuretic]

Still there, still dying.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

MSNBC TV — COUNTDOWN — 8 November 2007

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Hard to imagine a congressional override of a veto of any kind in say 2002 particularly, of some kind of measure which might have outlawed CIA rendition programs that outsourced torture and in retrospect, just as hard to believe — Congress didn't do something about it then. If it had, one of the key pieces of evidence cited by the Bush administration for its war in Iraq, a purported link between Iraq and al Qaeda, would have been shown then to not only have been false but to have been obtained by in effect burying a prisoner alive. The prisoner's name - Ebil Al -sheik al-Ebi (ph) described by the former CIA director George Tenet, as you see here, as the highest ranking al Qaeda member in U.S. custody after 9/11, only he wasn't in U.S. custody, not all the time. The Bush administration having shipped him off to Egypt at one point for, quote, "Further debriefing." There, according to a stunning report from PBS show — FRONTLINE recounted last night at ABCNEWS.com, when he told his interrogators he knew nothing about al Qaeda's connections with Iraq they, quote, "Placed him in a small box approximately 20 inches by 20 inches for 17 hours. When he was let out and still couldn't provide interrogators with answers he did not have, al-Ebi (ph) claiming he was knocked to the ground and punched for 15 minutes and then miraculously he found a way to tell his handlers what they wanted, a story. Only problem, it was a story and it was a story that was not true. Let's turn now to Greg Miller, national security correspondent of the "Los Angeles Times" and a co-author of the book - "The Interrogators." He's also the only American journalist who've been granted access to U.S. interrogators at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Thank you for your time, sir.

GREG MILLER, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: This evidence obtained from al-Ebi, was used by Colin Powell at the U.N. in February, 2003 and the quote from the general then Secretary of State was - "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in the use — the chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda." But we now know there were no WMD and setting aside the ethics of torture is this the worst case scenario, you torture somebody, they tell you something to make the pain stop and then you use what he says to go to war?

MILLER: I think that is the worst case scenario in interrogations. Many interrogators that you talked to who practice this will tell you that torture just leads to bad information. In this case it led to bad information that led to a war. And this is just one example of a growing number of examples, where we're starting to learn about detainees who were subjected to the harshest interrogation methods whose claims and information is unraveling rapidly.

OLBERMANN: So do all — all of the information, all the supposed intelligence that was gained from people picked up on battle fields, people connected to al Qaeda, does all of it need to be re-examined? That this isn't a question of cherry picking administration or the information by the administration, it's a question of perhaps everything they think they got is suspect?

MILLER: Well, I think — I don't know if all of it needs to be examined. I mean, the CIA director, Michael Hayden has talked about that enhanced interrogation techniques as the CIA describes that were only used on a small percentage of the detainees who are held in the CIA's secret prisons overseas. But they in fact, already — many of the claims of these detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation methods are being re-examined. Some of these prisoners now are facing some sort of court proceedings and the FBI is investigating these claims to try to get to the bottom of what they really did and what was real behind what they said.

OLBERMANN: I suddenly found myself thinking as we're preparing for this interview of the John Le Carre novel "Tinker/Soldier/Spy" and fiction is always a bad barometer but in this — there's a wonderful lesson in this. The British Secret Service thinks it has a high placed spy in the Russian Secret Service but he's actually a plant, he's a phony double agent, he still works for the Russians and he gives the English terrible information, misdirects them, manipulates them, they keep believing him because of this aura that he is their secret agent inside the Russian infrastructure. Does that carry in this situation? Did the government believe the stuff they got from those they had used enhanced interrogation on because they had used that? Did torture provide credibility in any cases?

MILLER: Well, I think there is this natural inclination to think that harsh interrogation methods, torture is going to help you get to the bottom of the case, of a detainee's information. But I think we also have to keep in mind in this case, that there were government officials throughout this administration and throughout the CIA who were hearing what they wanted to hear from these prisoners as well. They were inclined to believe these prisoners' claims because this is what their preconceptions were before these prisoners were ever captured.

OLBERMANN: In an interrogation instructor, former instructor for the Navy went to Capitol Hill today, a man whose job it was to teach the sailors and marines how to survive torture if they were ever captured. He said that this last little island of now waterboarding is OK, that it was simulated drowning, he said it's not simulated drowning. It is drowning. The only difference is the prisoner doesn't die if you do it exactly right if you're very lucky. Your lungs actually fill up with massive amounts of water. If people understood that, would the cloudiness over waterboarding dissolve? Would it change the dynamics of this debate over this subject?

MILLER: I think if people did understand and had a clear understanding of what was involved in waterboarding it couldn't help but to change the dynamics of this debate. I mean, we read recently about a senior justice department official who's subjecting himself to this technique just so he would have some understanding of it and he came away with no — with no question in his mind that this was torture and this is what led to the sort of rapid unraveling of the initial memos that had authorized these sorts of techniques.

OLBERMANN: Now, to say nothing of the unraveling of his career. Greg Miller, "L.A. Times" national security correspondent, co-author of "The Interrogators" and witness to interrogation in Afghanistan, great thanks for your time and your insight, sir.

MILLER: Thank you, Keith.

And yet we have documents that prove what the Administration actually said, which was that Saddam Hussein was TRYING to get Al Queada to work with him. Documents obtained after the fall of Iraq. Iraqi Government documents that prove conclusively that Saddam tried on many occasions to talk Al Quaeda into working with him.

And again I ask, provide a quote where Bush said that they were known to be working together. All I find is where he said that Saddam was trying to get them to work with him, that he was shopping around for any terrorist organization to aid him.

More and repeated lies from the press and the left.

 

[eots]

And yet we have documents that prove what the Administration actually said, which was that Saddam Hussein was TRYING to get Al Queada to work with him. Documents obtained after the fall of Iraq. Iraqi Government documents that prove conclusively that Saddam tried on many occasions to talk Al Quaeda into working with him.

And again I ask, provide a quote where Bush said that they were known to be working together. All I find is where he said that Saddam was trying to get them to work with him, that he was shopping around for any terrorist organization to aid him.

More and repeated lies from the press and the left.

you just made that up off the top of your head you lunatic post one such document

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Here are some links for you...

http://www.nysun.com/article/39631

http://www.husseinandterror.com/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1868301/posts

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1352646,00.html

can post more if you insist.

 

[eots]

Here are some links for you...

http://www.nysun.com/article/39631

http://www.husseinandterror.com/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1868301/posts

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1352646,00.html

can post more if you insist.

A Kurdish politician who took his high school exams from inside a Baathist prison, Mr. Salih said he was the target of the alliance between jihadists, Baathists, and Al Qaeda in 2001, when a group known as Ansar al-Islam tried to assassinate him. In 2002, envoys of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two Kurdish parties sharing sovereignty over northern Iraq between the two Iraq wars, presented the CIA with evidence that the organization that tried to kill Mr. Salih had been in part funded and directed by Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.
Those words directly contradict a recent report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that declassified a 2005 CIA assessment of Iraq's pre-war ties to Al Qaeda and found that none existed. In an interview after the speech yesterday, Mr. Salih said he was unaware of the CIA assessment. But he added, "There were links between Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda. The information at time [in 2002] was quite different. Now, we could not prove this in a court of law,

WOW A KURDISH POLICEMEN SAID SO.... IT MUST BE TRUE THEN

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt wrote:

More and repeated lies from the press and the left.

Remember Baghdad Bob?

BaghdadBush

 

[Gunny]

1) Because that's what you iraq war fans have been saying over and over, for the last four years

2) Because none of our original objectives will ever be met in iraq in our lifetime: finding WMD, establishing a jeffersonian democracy, having a strong pro-US ally in iraq

You're defining "victory" now, as a drop in violence to 2005 levels.

Since when was establishing a JEFFERSONIAN democracy a goal? Those are YOUR words, not any I've ever heard from the administration.

"Finding" WMDs was never a goal. Stopping Saddam from producing, owning and/or using them was. I say it's safe to assume he's been "stopped."

We also have a pro-US ally in Iraq ... just because the Kurds are laying low doesn't mean they aren't still pro-US. They're just letting the Islamofascists kill each other off.

 

[DeadCanDance]

Since when was establishing a JEFFERSONIAN democracy a goal? Those are YOUR words, not any I've ever heard from the administration.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: "There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. (Applause) The nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people, is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom." (Applause)

"Finding" WMDs was never a goal.

OMG, you're delusional

We also have a pro-US ally in Iraq ... just because the Kurds are laying low doesn't mean they aren't still pro-US. They're just letting the Islamofascists kill each other off.

They're also killing our other allies, the turks.

Your war, was a bad bargain, if this is the best you've got. Having a few million kurdish allies, is not worth the price of the rest of disasters your war has cause.

And yes, I'm going to call it your war. Because as much as you claim to have been against invading, all you ever do is offer excuses, lies, and lame justifications to support Bush's War.

 

[eots]

Since when was establishing a JEFFERSONIAN democracy a goal? Those are YOUR words, not any I've ever heard from the administration.

"Finding" WMDs was never a goal. Stopping Saddam from producing, owning and/or using them was. I say it's safe to assume he's been "stopped."

We also have a pro-US ally in Iraq ... just because the Kurds are laying low doesn't mean they aren't still pro-US. They're just letting the Islamofascists kill each other off.

"ISLAMOFACSIST"......SOMEONES BEEN WATCHING GLEN BECK AGAIN

So in www2 was it germofacsist or japofascist..oh i got another one italofacsist

 

[Paulie]

Because for the first months of the year we were still operating under an old plan that was not as good nor effective as the current plan. The switch to yearly numbers is a last desperate gasp by the left to deny the surge and its positive effective strategy.

When a yearly figure won't suffice they will change to some other date scheme to justify their claim we are losing.

Tell me why you can not accept the fact that over the last 6 months things have dramaticly improved in Iraq?

RGS, we'll talk more about it as the months continue and deaths increase.

Regardless though, the only thing I'll accept as improvement in Iraq is the U.S. leaving.

Tell me why you love war so much..

 

[Paulie]

And yet we have documents that prove what the Administration actually said, which was that Saddam Hussein was TRYING to get Al Queada to work with him. Documents obtained after the fall of Iraq. Iraqi Government documents that prove conclusively that Saddam tried on many occasions to talk Al Quaeda into working with him.

And again I ask, provide a quote where Bush said that they were known to be working together. All I find is where he said that Saddam was trying to get them to work with him, that he was shopping around for any terrorist organization to aid him.

More and repeated lies from the press and the left.

The only thing I remember Bush and Cheney saying about a connection between Al-qaeda, and more importantly 9/11, with Iraq was THERE WAS NONE.

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[Paulie]

We stood up to the Soviets who had 40,000 OPERATIONAL nuclear missiles pointed at us, that could actually REACH us, without going to war.

These days, we're afraid of third world countries who barely have a capable army, let alone a navy. We're launching full scale invasions against them, threatening possible new ones, and talking about possibly pre-emptively using nuclear weapons.

I can't possibly think of a more fitting description of INSANITY.

 

[Gunny]

We stood up to the Soviets who had 40,000 OPERATIONAL nuclear missiles pointed at us, that could actually REACH us, without going to war.

These days, we're afraid of third world countries who barely have a capable army, let alone a navy. We're launching full scale invasions against them, threatening possible new ones, and talking about possibly pre-emptively using nuclear weapons.

I can't possibly think of a more fitting description of INSANITY.

The Soviet Union was not controlled by religious fanatics who are willing to kill themselves to take everyone else with them. The mutual desire to continue living kept the US and USSR at bay.

Such is not the case with people who will drive car bombs into markets just to kill as many infidels as possible.

 

[indago]

"Ya know, Son, you made the same mistake in Iraq I made with yer Mother...

I didn't pull out in time!"