Today’s Qs for O’s WH – 7/31/2009

So the short version: Nothing

Nephron:”For all of Bush’s faults,he recognized that Afganistan was NOT the place to win the GWOT.”
Yeah, just because Afghanistan is the known location that the 9/11 attacks were planned from, Afghanistan was the known location of terrorist training camps run by Al Quaida, and Afghanistan was the last confirmed location of the Saudi Arabian leader of the group that launched them, obviously the right thing to do was to attack Iraq. George Bush: Best Republican President EVER!

Wheres the pictures of flag draped coffins? Wheres the body count ticker at the bottom of the screen of CNN?
Oh that’s right, a Democrat is in office.

“Yeah, just because Afghanistan is the known location that the 9/11 attacks were planned from, Afghanistan was the known location of terrorist training camps run by Al Quaida, and Afghanistan was the last confirmed location of the Saudi Arabian leader of the group that launched them, obviously the right thing to do was to attack Iraq. George Bush: Best Republican President EVER!”
Then why are US forces still in Iraq?

KR:”Wheres the pictures of flag draped coffins? Wheres the body count ticker at the bottom of the screen of CNN? ”
Oh please, there was no body count ticker under Bush. The body count has dramatically dropped in Iraq, so it is not new any more. The body count has shot up in Afghanistan, so here it is in the news. See how that works?
And the biggest news about flag draped coffins was how the media was forbidden to show them. Now they can.

“Wheres the pictures of flag draped coffins?”
Obama lifted the ban on showing flag draped coffins leaving the decision to the families of the fallen.
Bush wanted to hide our dead.
“Wheres the body count ticker at the bottom of the screen of CNN?”
Roughly 120 American soldiers have given their lives.
While a body count ticker is a bit impersonal I am glad for things like the Washington Posts’s face of the fallen.
BTW where are the right wing websites and officials claiming that inner cities are more dangerous than the war zone?
Oh that’s right, a Democrat is in office.”
Thank god because this country could not take much more of having a Republican in office.

jhw539,do you know about the military history of Afghanistan,about the British and Soviet experiences there?The training camps for Bin Lauden have moved,as has most of the surviving leadership.Learn history!

“Then why are US forces still in Iraq?
Posted by: Waste | Jul 31, 2009 4:06:51 PM”
Because when we invaded we completely destroyed their infrastructure and social fabric and its likely gonna take them another decade before they reach normalcy.

“Or pointing out the hypocrisy of the left…
Posted by: Traffic Cop Timmy | Jul 31, 2009 4:28:23 PM”
From last week
” Obama: More Polished Than the Last Puppet
By Cindy Sheehan
Okay, so the United States of America has had a new puppet regime for six months now. I was never so much into giving Obama a “chance” and I think it’s way past time to call Obama and his supporters out, like we called Bush and his supporters out. Our Presidents are merely puppets for the Robber Class and Obama is no exception.”
But hey you go to dump on the mother of a dead soldier.

Posted by: Ryan C | Jul 31, 2009 4:32:02 PM
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So when WILL she be camping out and coming out to pray three times a day? The media reported her every move then. Why not now?

“Why was Japan literally the last place we attacked in World War II when the attack on us was planned from there?”
Japan was attacked during the Doolittle raid 5 months after Pearl Harbor
But I assume you mean a larger offensive…well there’s plenty of reasons why the home island was last.
First the Japanese military had launched simultaneous strikes across the Pacific with the goal of sweeping out the Americans and British. They nearly succeeded taking every major port in the Western Pacific even threatening Austrailia.
Our first offensives were literally retaking these key islands and securing waterways for our military and supply travel.
Another big part is the limitations of the military to conduct a war across a vast Ocean far from one’s supply chain. To say nothing of the fact that our bombers were not in range of Japan until later in the war as we island hopped closer to them.
Of course that makes little sense relating to Al Queda since they were not in Iraq at all.
To make your analogy work it would be like the United States invading Australia and screaming about the British burning down our White House while we claimed they were gonna give the Japanese the bomb.
“President Wilson invaded Mexico to track down Mexican bandits – bad move. Many many other historical examples including Iraq – tell us that tracking down a guerrilla enemy, ESPECIALLY the leader is counterproductive as the chief priority of a counter – insurgency campaign.”
Going after Osama Bin Laden is a bad move.
Man the chestnuts the right wing comes up with these days.

“What are you talking about? We first bombed Tokyo on 18 April 1942, the Doolittle raid, years before the end of the war. We didn’t invade because we did not the military assets to get there, but as soon as we could we attacked Tokyo. It’s embarrassing to see Americans so flat out ignorant of what I view as among America’s finest hours.”
It is quite embarrassing.
We did not even start bombing Japan on a regular basis until 1944.

“Posted by: Traffic Cop Timmy | Jul 31, 2009 4:48:58 PM”
So I should blame Cheney?

“If that’s all you managed to comprehend from the facts, yes, you should.
Posted by: Traffic Cop Timmy | Jul 31, 2009 5:02:54 PM”
What facts?
Bush did not want Americans to see our war dead.
Obama has left the option to the families of the fallen.
Those are the facts.

What facts?
Bush did not want Americans to see our war dead.
Obama has left the option to the families of the fallen.
Those are the facts.
Posted by: Ryan C | Jul 31, 2009 5:06:13 PM
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The “fact” that you purposely misrepresented the history behind the ban as being Bush only, when the facts clearly show several Presidents have used the ban – Democrat & Republican.
For someone who constantly accuses the right for cherry-picking and not providing full context or full quotes… well, it just seems a little hypocritical. It’s a cheap trick.

“The “fact” that you purposely misrepresented the history behind the ban as being Bush only, when the facts clearly show several Presidents have used the ban – Democrat & Republican.”
So Bush really wanted Americans to be able to see their fallen but somehow was prevented from doing so?

So Bush really wanted Americans to be able to see their fallen but somehow was prevented from doing so?
Posted by: Ryan C | Jul 31, 2009 5:32:21 PM
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I er, don’t uh, know “with any specificity” what uh, Bush really wanted. It’s uh, “beyond my pay grade.”

Has the Obama Administration released and the media covered these ‘benchmarks’ that Gibbs states we are supposedly using for our own performance and that of the Afghanistanies?
Posted by: And Atlas Shrugs Yet Again | Jul 31, 2009 5:37:36 PM
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And since the President doesn’t like to use the “win” term, what is the exit plan? Is that one of the benchmarks?
Maybe it will be like the libs teach on the playground. Some day, they will just announce that there are no winners or losers, and no one kept score, so we’ll just all have cookies and milk and then go home.

Nothing has changed other than the President. . . .THIS is the hypocrisy.
Posted by: Traffic Cop Timmy | Jul 31, 2009 5:30:44 PM
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I think the change you mention is actually very significant. The current president and vice president did not start the drumbeats of war against Iraq soon after 9/11, take their eyes–off the ball in Afghanistan, purposely mislead we the people by conflating 9/11, Iraq and al qaeda so that to this day some poor folks think Iraq had something to do with 9/11, brush off the UN and war protestors, act and speak embarassingly like bad imitations of John Wayne when talking about the war in public forums— President Obama inherited a hot mess- two wars and an economy on the brink of a major depression. While I am glad Jake asked the question, and I do want clarification, and I will protest if this goes on indefinitely and in the same manner Iraq did, I don’t believe it will.
It’s a huge difference. A big change. Hence, the charge of hypocrisy seems logically flawed to me.

“I don’t know where the heck you get that 120 American soldiers lost in Afghanistan number from.”
Since Obama has taken office.
“As to the inner city bit — you’ve got a problem with factual data? I’m NOT saying that has been the case every month, but I know it has been at least part of the time.”
Factual data?
The comparison of soldiers deaths (always leaving out civilians) and inner city murder rates is idiotic and demeans their sacrifice.
And of course it came from the right wing.

Has the Obama Administration released and the media covered these ‘benchmarks’ that Gibbs states we are supposedly using for our own performance and that of the Afghanistanies?
Posted by: And Atlas Shrugs Yet Again | Jul 31, 2009 5:37:36 PM
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Not in any specificity that I’m aware of.

Traffic Cop Timmy, you hit the nail on the head with the EXIT PLAN too. THAT one has been bugging me for some time now. Obama and others haranged about ‘there was no exit plan’ forever, and suddenly once Obama was in office, nary a peep.
What’s Obama’s Exit Plan pray tell?
What are these ‘benchmarks’ and who’s doing the ‘evaluating’ in terms of OUR military meeting those benchmarks, and who’s evaluating the Afghan side’s progress on the ‘benchmarks’ we’ve set for them?
Most transparent Administration?
Most transparent House (h/t Pelosi)?

I think the change you mention is actually very significant. The current president and vice president did not start the drumbeats of war against Iraq soon after 9/11, take their eyes–off the ball in Afghanistan, purposely mislead we the people by conflating 9/11, Iraq and al qaeda so that to this day some poor folks think Iraq had something to do with 9/11, brush off the UN and war protestors, act and speak embarassingly like bad imitations of John Wayne when talking about the war in public forums— President Obama inherited a hot mess- two wars and an economy on the brink of a major depression. While I am glad Jake asked the question, and I do want clarification, and I will protest if this goes on indefinitely and in the same manner Iraq did, I don’t believe it will.
It’s a huge difference. A big change. Hence, the charge of hypocrisy seems logically flawed to me.
Posted by: Alyson | Jul 31, 2009 6:01:56 PM
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Some of you desperately need to learn a bit of history, FACTUAL history, of what lead up to the invasion in Iraq. The above screed is grossly flawed. The ‘drumbeat’ for invasion of Iraq began BEFORE BUSH WAS ELECTED, and came from among others, the likes of Clinton, Kerry, Feinstein, Kennedy, etc. It was debated EXTENSIVELY over a long time period in congress, and passed. The UN Security Council vote would have required Russia, who had multi-BILLION dollar deals with Iraq, to vote in favor of invasion and that wasn’t going to happen. It later turned out that Billions were also being funneled thru the UN in the food for oil scam during that same time period.
Try learning some actual history and let the revisionist partisan stuff go, would you?

Try learning some actual history and let the revisionist partisan stuff go, would you?
***
Okay, let me put it this way: Obama didn’t bang the drums of war against Iraq after 9/11, purposely conflating al qaeda and Iraq to mislead the public Some semantics may have been off but I stand by my post. And Bush and Cheney did some pretty good banging on those drums. I don’t have the time to look up some of the quotes regarding the UN and the war protestors as it is Friday night and I have to places to be but I stand by my characterization of them as “brushoffs.” You can consider it revisionist history if you wish. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t agree on quite a few things. After all, I thought Atlas Shrugged dragged on and on and on, and the storytelling left much to be desired. To each their own. We do agree on the need for benchmarks and an exit plan.

Bush did not want Americans to see our war dead
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Bush didn’t want a split screen like the cable channels did to his father.
We’ll see if the cable channels do something like that with President Obama. I’m betting no.

“I don’t know where the heck you get that 120 American soldiers lost in Afghanistan number from.”
Since Obama has taken office.
Posted by Ryan C
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Oh, ok, its a more reasonable number if its since Obama took office. I didn’t realize that was what you meant. So far, however, in 2009, there have been 230 US Soldiers lost in Op. End. Freedom. 25 of those in Jan, and I’ve no idea what percentage of those before Obama was actually sworn in v after… even if you omit all of Jan AND all of this month, your number is still a bit short tho.

Ryan C, weren’t you the one who also claimed that we destroyed Iraq infrastructure and it would be a decade before things there returned to normalcy?
Do you have a CLUE what you are talking about? Are you meaning the “normalcy” that existed under Saddam? Where several hundred thousand citizens were slaughtered by their own leader? Where WMDs were used by the leader of the nation on his own subjects? How about you look up the benchmarks of the number of free press in the country and when that surpassed what existed under Saddam’s reign? Same for schools. Libraries. Personally owned cars. How about you check out what had been happening to the nation’s infrastructure during Saddam’s reign, and the state it was already in right before we invaded.

Try learning some actual history and let the revisionist partisan stuff go, would you?
***
Okay, let me put it this way: Obama didn’t bang the drums of war against Iraq after 9/11, purposely conflating al qaeda and Iraq to mislead the public Some semantics may have been off but I stand by my post. And Bush and Cheney did some pretty good banging on those drums. I don’t have the time to look up some of the quotes regarding the UN and the war protestors as it is Friday night and I have to places to be but I stand by my characterization of them as “brushoffs.” You can consider it revisionist history if you wish. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t agree on quite a few things. After all, I thought Atlas Shrugged dragged on and on and on, and the storytelling left much to be desired. To each their own. We do agree on the need for benchmarks and an exit plan.
Posted by: Alyson | Jul 31, 2009 7:38:45 PM
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Hi Alyson,
I’m sorry I came off as harshly as I did in that post. It wasn’t aimed just at you, but at others here and even in other blog topics who harp on the same issue time and again, so you got the brunt of my built up irritation about it and probably more than you warranted.
I agree, Atlas Shrugged dragged on and on, and the story telling could have been better! She’s also miserable in terms of the value of real/meaningful relationships. The thing that bothers me more and more as the years go by, however, is how much the major points of her story are proving out so blasted accurately. I’m referring here to the issues of big government, government meddling and loss of our civil liberties, redistribution of wealth, promotion based on who you know despite incompetence rather than how competent you are, etc.
But there are clearly aspects about the tale that you and I very much agree on!!
I would note that Obama wasn’t really in a position to ‘bang’ any drums right after 9/11, at least not that it would have matter, and not that’s comparable to the responsibilities of Bush and those high up in Gov at the time. I’d also note, yet again, that the drum banging began BEFORE BUSH WAS EVER ELECTED, at least as far back as 98′ that I know of, with quotes from the likes of Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, and so on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT saying that it was just Democrats. I AM saying that they were very vocal about it at the time and continued being so right into Bush’s administration. That specifically includes claims of Iraq having WMD. Given that, its really not reasonable to blame Bush for supposedly lying about WMD, or ‘lying’ us into war with Iraq. Thats just not consistent with the actual history, although it certainly has become a liberal rallying cry.
There were quite a few other reasons provided for going to war with Iraq, the majority of which had nothing to do with 9/11. WMD was one, 17 violated UN Sanctions another, the violation of the treaty with us that ended the first Gulf War another, them firing on our jets in the ‘No Fly Zone’ virtually daily another, the refusal to cooperate fully with WMD inspections, and so on….
The press seized on and screamed to high heavens about WMD, but then so were many in congress (including the afore mentioned liberals) who were pressuring the Administration to ‘do something’ about it, and other nations all quite concerned too…
Add to that the US public doesn’t like complicated answers, they like it simple, ‘just tell us one or two BIG reasons’, and Bush certainly wasn’t very good about communicating with the public although I’ve often wondered how much of that was him, and how much the press doing a lousy job of covering a pres they didn’t like? Probably a combination of both at least to some extent.
Ah well.
I was just floored to hear Gibbs bring up supposed benchmarks, since I hadn’t run across it before — and the hypocrisy of both benchmarks and exit plans as treated by both the Obama Admin (especially as they claim to be the ‘Most Transparent Ever Administration’) and the mainstream media has really irked me for some time now.

Robertb gave kudo’s to Ryan C re Japan WWII comments — I agree!
Ran across info just a few days ago that the only time US soil has been invaded and held was Japan taking some of the Aleutian Islands off Alaska during that same timeframe, in their efforts to hold the entire Pacific. For some time apparently we considered letting them keep those islands rather than take the losses that would have been involved in retaking them.
Alaska is surprising that way because it actually has great strategic value to this day — I suspect far more than the vast majority of us would dream.

the bff, a bit of a history buff, just showed up and reminded me that revision is the lifeblood of historical scholarship, and that so-called “factual” history usually refers to the status quo– the history you were told to believe so as to not upset the powers that be. so as an FYI a better dig than the whole revisionist crap thing is to accuse someone of being a denier of a body of irrefutable evidence. Of course, it would be helpful in that case to have evidence that was irrefutable.
happy weekend:)
Posted by: Alyson | Jul 31, 2009 8:55:53 PM
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Too true!! The victor writes history. The further back in time you go, the truer that becomes because it gets to be virtually impossible to find any evidence or stories that counter the accepted versions.
Its a bit easier (to say the least! ) with relatively current stuff, where you can find a lot of directly relevant info on the net. That’s why usually I’ll try to go back to actual facts, failing that then things like direct transcripts & quotes, corroborated by similar quotes from others, from what are generally regarded as reliable sources etc.

If I may, I think Ryan may have been referring to the multitudes of perfectly eligible military age Republicans who vote for and support the war and then conspicuously fail to volunteer to go and actually fight it.
Posted by: Skip | Jul 31, 2009 9:00:53 PM
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You have me at a loss Skip. You mean that all the multitudes of perfectly eligible military age Democrats who vote for and support the war then volunteer to go and actually fight it?
Or are you saying that no perfectly eligible military age Democrats vote for and support the war, even tho the Democratic Party controlled both House and Senate the last two years of Bush’s Administration and have overwhelming majorities now and we’re still in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

and the mainstream media has really irked me for some time now.
Posted by: And Atlas Shrugs Yet Again | Jul 31, 2009 8:59:12 PM
Me, too, as does much of the cable media:) No worries. I hope you have a good weekend. (And just so you know I purposely did NOT mention lying about WMD– and some of the other stuff– because I believe they– democrats, Republicans and Bush-Cheney– ALL believed they’d find them. But for whatever reason– I honestly can’t recall all the nuances of it now– I always, from the beginning, found the pre-Iraq war assessment of an alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda connection — an assessment that was contrary to US intelligence agency findings– highly suspect. So I do harp on that. We all have our “things.”)
Posted by: Alyson | Jul 31, 2009 9:29:32 PM
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Ya, the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection always did seem pretty speculative, who knows on that one? I always sort of blew it off as a minor bit in the much larger and more certain ‘bunch’ of reasons that were given, and so didn’t worry about it that much. You’re so right about us all having our pet peeves tho, for sure! :0)
Hope you have a great weekend too!

‘And that if we are soldiers, we shouldn’t be scared or worried, because we’re safer than being in our cars at home??”
No, we’re the ones saying that comparing homicides [or anything else] to war casualties demeans the soldiers, remember? The slaughter on US roadways can be largely attributed to various forms of carelessness and negligence.

“even tho the Democratic Party controlled both House and Senate the last two years of Bush’s Administration and have overwhelming majorities now and we’re still in both Iraq and Afghanistan?”
So what characterizations have you left the Democrats then? They must now either wholeheartedly support the war or they should have ‘cut and run’ as soon as they got control. I think you’re trying to rig the deck.
Posted by: Skip | Jul 31, 2009 10:23:50 PM
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Hardly. I’m pointing out that its pretty ridiculous for you to say that all Republicans support the war. I’m also pointing out that its pretty ridiculous for you to say that therefore every Republican who is eligible ought to therefore also immediately volunteer or be slammed by you. You are the one who stacked the deck in this game, not me.

p.s. re gun control, Skip — are you advocating a Constitutional amendment to remove our rights to bear arms?
Are you aware of the history of nations that disarmed their populace?

“treasure”?
A little awkward, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Thanks for asking some good questions, and bringing us useful information, Jake.

I can’t speak specifically for Ryan but to me it makes it seem like fighting in Iraq is much less dangerous than it really is. It’s the scale. There might be as many criminals in our cities shooting each other in drug deals with cheap and easily available guns as there are insurgents in Iraq.
Posted by: Skip | Jul 31, 2009 11:14:05 PM
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Yeah, it really would have to be both an equivalent time frame (which it was) and population density sort of comparison to be at all meaningful. I have no idea just how equivalent the population density would be…
I’d assume that it’s probably pretty equivalent in Bagdad and other major metro type areas, but beyond that…. and I don’t know how many of our casualties fall outside those high density areas either.
The one thing that the comparison does make pretty evident in that the comparison can even be made – even if its not the best way to do it – is that this war has been one of the LEAST costly in terms of casualties ever. I mean, if you compare our losses in Iraq to Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI, the Civil War…. in ANY of those I believe there were single DAYS where we lost as many men as we’ve lost altogether since the inception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Its a testament to our soldiers, our leaders, our technology, planning….
I’ve always been on the fence about whether we should ever even have started the Iraq war, but if we do manage to pull this off and have a free or reasonably free society in Iraq, then it just may wind up being worth it. I have several friends who have served over there, and have talked to a few others also, and every single one I’ve talked to have wholeheartedly felt that it has been very much worth it — they’ve surprised me with how strongly they’ve expressed that to me, and they’ve told me that the vast majority who’ve served or are serving over there that they know also feel that way.
Afghanistan, I suspect, is going to be far more difficult all the way around. Hope I’m wrong.

Skip, I take your point, but I think you’d have to agree that urban US city homicide rates are far more comparable to Iraq war fatality rates than the extreme example you’ve made.