My view is, look, we ought to set a time certain for beginning redeployment and a time in which it’s concluded to do it safely and securely. I would advocate between now and next April, to have two brigades a month, I’m told by planners, this can be achieved. This has to come to an end, in my view. You can argue about the statistics on the surge and create space, didn’t it create space.

The questions are twofold. One, are we safer today, vulnerable, less vulnerable? Are we going to get the Iraqis to come together and try to be a nation state? The answer to both those questions is, no, we’re not safer, we’re not more secure. And no matter what General Petraeus said yesterday and Ambassador Crocker, there’s no indication Iraqis are any closer to forming that kind of reconciliation necessary for them to survive.

So in my view, it’s time for us to pull our troops out of Iraq. That does not mean we disengage from the region. There are things that we can be doing there. The idea we’re going to stay around in perpetuity almost is very trouble to me and, therefore, I think we have to be clear about a date certain.

OLBERMANN: How do you do it? If you’re going to just discuss defense spending next week, why not take the plunge and say, other than to keep them safe and assure their safe conduct home, we’re not funding anything else for this war?

DODD: I’ll be proposing exactly that. I don’t know how many votes I’m going to get here and I suspect not going to be enough certainly to survive a presidential veto. But I think the absence of clarity, of trying to always find language here that will bring you 51 or 55 ends up inevitably sort of supporting the continuation of the mission.

And so I would much rather see us speak with clarity and certainty about this issue and offer the real opportunity, which I believe is the case, Keith, that if the Iraqis truly understand that our military presence in the middle of their civil war is coming to a close here, that may just be the incentive that’s been missing here for them to decide religiously and politically to get together. If it doesn’t, it can’t get much more chaotic in my view and, frankly, $10 billion a month, not to mention the lives lost, has to come to an end.

OLBERMANN: Does the Democratic Party at this point risk losing that vast majority now of Americans who want us out now? Do they—do you run collectively—I’m not saying you personally—but do you collectively run this idea that in some parallel to the way the White House is clearly stalling to stay there, that some Democrats at least want to stall so that this is part of the 2008 campaign at all costs?

DODD: It would be a tragic mistake. And I think you hit it on the head. What I suspected was going on yesterday and today that will happen tomorrow night is just to keep this going long enough for this president to leave office and hand off this problem to his successor here. That’s buying time here. That’s an awful price to pay for the people who lose their lives, come back permanently injured, not to mention draining our treasury.

I don’t know of anyone who believes that our military presence is going to resolve the civil conflict inside Iraq. And I come back to the fundamental question that every president must ask himself or herself, are we safer? Are we more secure? How vulnerable are we?

And I would argue that we’re less safe, less secure, and far more vulnerable. We’ve turned Iraq into a Petri dish for Jihadists as a result of our presence there militarily. I have great respect for the military and the job they’ve done under the circumstances. But until we Democrats speak with clarity on this issue, I think we’re going to hurt ourselves. I think we’re going to be, in a sense, enabling the situation to persist.

the vid is here

and Sporkovat – I have never found Sen Obama’s office here in Chicago very responsive – the same goes for the DC office. Constituent services seems not to be a strong suit (a bit shocking in the city that made “constituent services” – so to speak- the currency of party loyalty). And before he decided or at least announced his run, he was amazingly unwilling to take stands at a big public meeting … he just repeated “freshman senator, in minority” in the way the Ds now repeat “no veto proof majority.” It was no impressive when he had a packed auditorium just ready for some good progressive talk from their adored new Senator.

I’d love to see him live up to his community organizer, opponent of the war slogans – that would be a great campaign to back. Sadly, we aren’t getting that Obama it seems.

no answer is the sound of triangulation for me.

I remember prior to the MCA being enacted the (D)’s were all wobbly and noncommital, and I was all worked up about how terrible it was from reading FDL and other sites, I repeatedly called and wrote to Senator Obama, and his staff all said that ‘the Senator has no position yet’, or hasn’t read it, or some such bullshit.

Good luck trying to make them go on the record on tough subjects. They are waiting for their pollsters or consultants to decide what is safe to say on all of the dire crises we face, and that’s not leadership.

I’ve been reading the thread, but not commenting this eve. But, your posts are informative and thought-provoking.

I guess I’m old-fashioned too. I agree that it is very rude to start making OT comments near the beginning of comments on a thread. And disrespectful. And, especially on a serious post.

And, comments that are not only off-topic, but totally totally off topic. Course, it is a good way to learn where particular commenters’ priorities lie.

thanks for links.

Excuse me but I thought that an independent Iraq, determining their own fate, would be a good thing. They are going to want to sell their oil. Israel wants to buy it. What is wrong with that?

I suppose you would rather starve Israel to death. Sorry, I can’t join you on that.

The old Iraq has been destroyed. I opposed the war before it started. I think Bush, and Cheney should be impeached, and thrown into jail. The war and the occupation is illegal, uncivilized, ill-conceived, and poorly prosecuted. But we are where we are, and we have to get to peace. A necessary step towards where we want to be is for Iraqis to be getting oil revenues. Do you really have a problem with that? ‘Cause if you do, you are the imperialist, not I.

This is what you flippantly called a “win-win-win” @ 203, BigMitch, to which I was responding, as I made clear:

Ed Vuillamy in Washington
Sunday April 20, 2003
The Observer

Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad.

The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq’s northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.

Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel’s energy crisis at a stroke.

Is that (very out-dated article) discussing a state of affairs that you would describe as an “independent Iraq, determing their own fate”? Who’s “they” when you refer to Iraq? As I have noted above @ 115, there is an obvious and growing chasm between the Iraqi Arab & Kurdish people and their so-called government in the Green Zone. By choosing to overlook that vital fact, you join those in Washington who’d prefer to “win” (the black gold prize) without addressing justice in Iraq for those to whom that nation actually belongs by right and by international law. My comment didn’t have a blessed thing to do with Israel – any more than it had to do with any other nation on earth that will be purchasing oil in the future from those who are selling it (if ever given the chance as a free people and as an independent nation).

I responded to the concept that you seemingly endorsed with your comment @ 203. If you were too brief by not condemning an (obviously-implied) U.S.-established and dominated client state in Iraq as outlined in the article, I’m glad you clarified.

[JPL @ 277 - I must have missed the sarcasm - and I didn’t want that comment, if serious, to go unchallenged. That article’s subject and focus, as excerpted, pretty well encapsulates the Bush/Cheney approach to the world. So others apparently focused on the same end, never mind the means to that end, line right up with Bush and Cheney as far as I’m concerned, and if we join the Democrats in Washington in being cowed into silence when confronted by them, they’ll just keep on keeping on.]

Mabel’s Wig Shack @ 295

actually no. it doesn’t. but i dont think you’re trying to hear what I have said.

Plenty of proof that Israel via the I-lobby had plenty of influence (by no means the only) on the decision to invade Iraq.

The New Pentagon Papers
By Karen Kwiatkowski
Salon
Wednesday 10 March 2004

A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view
.cgi/7/3853

The Men from JINSA
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020902/vest

http://www.counterpunch.org/ch…..62004.html
Labor Day
September 6, 2004
Dual Loyalties
The Bush Neocons and Israel
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA political analysts

D

sounds about right!!!