William Kristol (NYT): Iraq is a massive Bush success!

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/opinion/14kristol.html?ref=opinionJanuary 14, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Democrats’ Fairy Tale
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
“Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” Thus spoke Bill Clinton last Monday night, exasperated by Barack Obama’s claim that he — unlike Hillary Clinton — had been consistently right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) on the Iraq war.

Now in fact, Obama has been pretty consistent in his opposition to the war. But Bill Clinton is right in this respect: Obama’s view of the current situation in Iraq is out of touch with reality. In this, however, Obama is at one with Hillary Clinton and the entire leadership of the Democratic Party.

When President Bush announced the surge of troops in support of a new counterinsurgency strategy a year ago, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democratic Congressional leaders predicted failure. Obama, for example, told Larry King that he didn’t believe additional U.S. troops would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” Then in April, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, asserted that “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.” In September, Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus that his claims of progress in Iraq required a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

The Democrats were wrong in their assessments of the surge. Attacks per week on American troops are now down about 60 percent from June. Civilian deaths are down approximately 75 percent from a year ago. December 2007 saw the second-lowest number of U.S. troops killed in action since March 2003. And according to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, last month’s overall number of deaths, which includes Iraqi security forces and civilian casualties as well as U.S. and coalition losses, may well have been the lowest since the war began.

Do Obama and Clinton and Reid now acknowledge that they were wrong? Are they willing to say the surge worked?

. . .

Yesterday, on “Meet the Press,” Hillary Clinton claimed that the Iraqis are changing their ways in part because of the Democratic candidates’ “commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009.” So the Democratic Party, having proclaimed that the war is lost and having sought to withdraw U.S. troops, deserves credit for any progress that may have been achieved in Iraq.

That is truly a fairy tale. And it is driven by a refusal to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of ... George W. Bush. The horror!

[Bicoastal]

1. Hooray! Let's move you there post haste, William!

[Skittles]

3. in which branch of the military did Mr. Kristol serve?

do we even need to ask? :puke:

[wtmusic]

2. Why is the NYT printing this amateurish drivel?

Politics aside, that is some of the worst NYT writing in recent memory.

[Skittles]

4. it is pathetic

I hear Kristol has a year-long trial run - let's hope he gets the boot. I will have nothing to do with the NYT until they dump him.

[Stephanie]

13. Because David Brooks as neocon spokesman is not enough.

They needed a second neocon to get catapult the propaganda on Iran.

[Rageneau]

5. As Bush successes go, that is.

[candymarl]

6. He's right

Everything is going great in Iraq. if you don't count dead/maimed Iraqis and GIs. If you don't count Iraqi refugees. If you don't count the ruined infrastructure. If you don't count the torture and murder. If you don't count families selling their children to survive. If you don't count Iraqi women and girls selling their bodies to survive. Best of all, let's not count the underground child slavery/sex industry that's positively booming. :puke:

[Stephanie]

12. please read >

that was the PLAN all along >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2665314#2673085

[deacon]

7. Great, bring all the soldiers home! n/t

[annabanana]

8. "The operation was a success, but the patient died". ..

The "purge" (escalation) was a dismal failure. The Shia & Sunni are getting ready to go at each other in earnest, the country has self-segregated as violence moves from neighborhood to neighborhood, hundreds of thousands have left the Iraq altogether (everyone who could afford to go).. There has been NO movement to reconcile these factions..

And this meal-faced sop gets in our "paper of record" and spouts this horrible lie.

[Ganja Ninja]

9. So about that $3 Billion a week we're spending.

Think maybe we could cut that back to around $50 Million a month and start pulling out our troops? Guess not.

[Wednesdays]

10. Breaking: Kristol is a Massive Kool-Aid Drinker!

:crazy:

[Stephanie]

14. Nah. Kristol MIXES the Kool-Aid.

He mixes it up and passes it around the neo-con camp, making sure they've drunk it all down. As head of PNAC it's HIS own personal recipe!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=110&topic_id=80

[Stephanie]

11. Here's your "success" Mr. PNAC

You broke it, you bought it, and that was the plan all along.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2665314#2673085

[NewJeffCT]

15. This will be the media meme that comes out over the next month

I'm afraid to say.

Nobody in the media has the platform to forcefully contradict, Kristol, Brooks, Fox News, CNN, Limbaugh, Savage, Beck, etc, and tell the truth on Iraq.

Then, when the shit hits the fan in a few months, the Neocons will then fire back and say, "See, this is what happens when you withdraw troops - we need another surge!"

[Justpat]

16. If anyone should know about fairy tales,

it is Mr. Kristol. His band of neo cons brought us this fantasy where we could preemptively
attack a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, lie their way into this invasion and
declare mission accomplished when the level of civilian casualties drops because huge
numbers of the population have fled the country. Not to mention their belief that Bush is
a successful president - which is a fairy tale if ever there was one.

I sent a letter to the editior saying pretty much the above. We'll see if they use it.

[Javaman]

17. The best part about giving kristolballs a column, is the world can

really see how much of a raving lunatic he really is.