I didn’t call anyone heartless. I believe the word I used was “realistic”, which the Republican Party is eminently being about Darfur. As much as the left seems to want boots on the ground and regime change there (we’ll save their hypocrisy for another time), the GOP and the President are resisting that call. Granted, they’re tossing around the word “genocide” as a sop to the lazy among us who are happy to take moral outrage as long as there’s no cost to us (both parties have a monopoly on this one, although conservative bloggers have really set a new standard), but I can live with that. American soldiers aren’t dying for a quixotic crusade in Darfur and they didn’t die for one in Kosovo either.

The security and breathing room is not quite there yet for the Iraqi government to do what it needs to do, but for anyone to think this will ever be achieved if we pull out of here they are deluding themselves. The situation in the city of Baghdad itself is improving. You still wouldn’t want to take a long walk on the wrong side of the river by yourself, but it is getting better.

Our idiots in the congress and the mainstream media need to get off this kick that they have it all figured out and all we need to do to make the bad guys go away is to simply close our eyes and sing happy songs. Might make you feel better for a few days but it won’t make anyone safer.

Yep, we’re heartless bastards, all right…

GCB: For three years, the President has mismanaged and mangled this war at every opportunity. At best he’s naive and incompetent; at worst he’s completely deranged (see Ross Douthat’s recent discussion of his messiah complex for some perspective). I see no reason to trust Plans B, C, or D at this point. The Iraqi government has failed to meet its objectives, we have failed to secure the country or provide any incentive for the government to do its job, and we’re already standing in the middle of a civil war. On top of that, George Bush isn’t president of Iraq – he’s president of the US. And his duty is to keep Americans – including American soldiers – alive. Iraq is severely frustrating that objective.

Also, while we’re on the topic of Republican hypocrisy, I don’t remember Republicans caring so much about the suffering of others in Kosovo or Darfur. People are dying all over the world and it’s terrible, but we’re supposed to be the realistic ones. It’s time to end this Wilsonian lunacy.

It’s not ‘unfair’, it’s how the system was purposely set up…

The numbers that show 14% approval for Congress are based on polls that ask people their opinion of Congress at large. Everyone has a dismal opinion of Congress at large, but many people don’t have that negative an opinion of their own Congressmen. As Ryan noted, Democrats are pissed because the Congress hasn’t ended the war, and Republicans are pissed because Congress is trying to end the war. As Ryan also said, the Republicans have been stonewalling everything.

2) The stated purpose of the surge was to provide enough breathing room for the Iraqi government to do the things it was asked to do. Few (if any) of these things have been done: in fact, they are going on vacation next month. Even if the surge has shown military success — which is at best uncertain — the complete lack of progress from the Iraqis shows that the policy behind it is flawed. I’m not sure what Patreus’s report can do to avoid this central fact, or why we ought to wait any further before scaling down our involvement in this sorry mess.

3) “The question is, how are we best going to extricate ourselves from this situation?” Absolutely correct. The House voted on a bill which answers that question. It’s regrettable that the Senate Republicans prevented an up-or-down vote on the same bill. If they truly believe that we ought to continue our involvement in Iraq, they ought to have the courage to stand up and be counted.

And the Levin-Reed amendment that they were talk-a-thoning the other night would lead to a precipitous withdrawal such that the UN Sec-Gen (and don’t ask when I started listening to the Secretary-General, it was about the time the other side started ignoring him) warned against it… and just how many people would that kill? Dropping an entire country into chaos would be funny if it weren’t for the people getting killed.

Bush lied, people died. Maybe. But at this point, how we got into Iraq is irrelevant. It’s not like we want people to die. Everybody wants to get out of Iraq. Nobody wants indefinite occupation. The question is, how are we best going to extricate ourselves from this situation?

We have a strategy. It’s called the surge. We’re going to hear from General Petraeus in September, a general who was unanimously approved by the Senate to take over in Iraq, about whether or not this surge is working. If it’s not working, then we can re-evaluate the situation.

But for the love of everything remotely strategic, why in the hell are the Democrats attempting to undermine a strategy just implemented 2 months ago?

It would be funny if it wouldn’t lead to getting people killed.

My guess is that’s not going to work. That’s politics: truth is no match for spin. And as long as the Republicans can continue this perverse charade everyone suffers for it. It would be funny if it weren’t getting people killed. I hope we remember this next time Republicans say ANYTHING deserves an “up or down” vote.