Finally! It was with great relief that I read Blumenauer's call for withdrawal. Finally, after years of bungled oil profiteering, our Congressional represntative is outlining a simple withdrawal plan and urging its immediate implementation. It was kind of obvious it would happen before the 2006 elections, but the fact that there is now an end in sight is wonderful.

Earl's comments were right on target. We need to get out ASAP.

This is a civil war now and we are only providing additional targets. The two mosque bombings last Friday (killing 80 people at prayer) demonstrate that the civil war has already started.

We got into this war because of WMD that did not exist. We had no plan for keeping the peace and getting back out. We still have no plan.

It is now time for the Iraqis to solve their own problems -- no matter if the outcome is a stable government, three stable governments, or more civil war. It is their war now, not ours.

After hearing Dick Cheney's speech to the AEI this morning I am profoundly fearful that we are doomed to repeat the Vietnam War debacle.

http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.1202/transcript.asp

Except this time the stakes are much more serious. Cheney's speech could have been made in 1969 after the Tet offensive in the Spring of 1968. Like the Tet offensive we are faced with a growing insurgency and world wide questioning of our motives in Iraq. Cheney's speech with its dark and fearful recounting of all the bombing incidents and attacks on American interests harked back to the motives for the Vietnam War. America was fighting godless communism and if we did not stop it in Vietnam the rest of Asia would fall like dominos to communism. Compare that to todays speech by Cheney:

"The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia." Dick Cheney

One only needs to substitute communists with terrorists and Islam and you get the same speech that could have been given thirty years ago. Maybe Jack Murtha was right in his outrage that someone with five deferments for Vietnam shouldn't be leading our troops to their death. Maybe Cheney and Bush should read some George Santayana:

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

John, Do you have similar feelings about Afghanistan? Do we leave and turn it over to whichever force is the strongest?

Of course I agree with Earl on the fact that we should look for an orderly and structured withdrawl from Iraq - even though I disagree with his desires to bulldoze people's homes in the name of economic development (see related article).

The one problem democrats have with suing for peace in iraq and trying to withdraw our troops is that politically they are duplicitous and inconsistent. They do not oppose war in principle... but rather oppose it when it happens to be a republican waging it.

The wars they wage (vietnam, kosovo, et. all) are of course just and rightful in their minds. So who was it that created the war powers act that Bush has been using to levy war without a declaration of war by congress???

Until the democrats adopt a principled stance on war and that we should not meddle in the foreign affairs of other nations (rather then that we should only meddle when a democrat is president) they will lack the political currency and the conviction of middle america to back them up - and will continue to fall into traps set by Rove and his cronies.

It is nigh impossible to rise above political rhetoric when you have no solid principles.

Sincerely, Wes Wagner Publisher NW Meridian

Earl Blumenauer and John Murtha and Russ Feingold are right. It is time we begin our withdrawal. Our troops cannot solve the Iraqi's problem for them. They have to do it themselves and the sooner they realize we are on the way out the more serious they will become about doing it.

I agree with the Congressman...it is time to bring our troops home! Meantime, Cheney continues to blast away at those who oppose this horrid war, calling them revisionists for saying that the Bush Administration distorted intelligence to make the case for war. But I keep wondering: IF the administration really cared whether or not there were WMD before it commenced the war... WHY did they pull the UN weapons inspectors BEFORE they had finished their job? Another few months and the inspectors could have determined the truth: Hussein did NOT have the WMD arsenal nor did he have the plans that the Bushies claimed he had. He may have desired nuclear weapons but he had not the means to get them, nor did he have an active program to produce them. Does anyone else remember the hype about the "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud"...I think both Georgie and Condie misstated that one!? We were bulldozed into war and that is fact, not fiction. And now we live with the terrible consequences of a bankrupt, deficient, and failed policy. Idiots!

I agree with Rep. Blumenauer. Bringing home the Guard and the Reserve first is merited.

R. Konno writes: "One only needs to substitute communists with terrorists and Islam and you get the same speech that could have been given thirty years ago."

You're absolutely correct. To those of us around during that sad time, there is a certain sameness to the arguments. Yes, the South Vietnamese had elections too, and we had a duty to protect the fledgling government, etc., etc. The only significant difference is that the civil war started before we intervened, whereas in this case our intervention was the efficient cause of the civil war.

But we should not be surprised that the right wing reconstitutes the arguments of the 60s. If you look at the right-wing agenda, they are largely fighting the battles of the past, especially with the "culture wars." Take any right-wing hot button, and you'll typically find some underlying issue from the 60s. The right claims that we "liberals" don't have any new ideas. And maybe we don't. But at least we're not picking fights with issues from 40 years ago.

John, I agree that Afghanistan is different than Iraq.

You say, "However, I can, and I believe the overwhelming majority of Americans can, distinguish between defending against those who do attack us (think Japan at Pearl Harbor and Al Qaeda at New York) and those that don't, namely Sadaam."

But, it was Kennedy and Johnson who got us into Vietnam (we weren't attacked). And it was Clinton in Kosovo (we weren't attacked). I don't understand your point. Did you hammer the Clinton Administration on Kosovo?

Sounds like Earl has been talking to General Clark. Basically its the same as the plan Clark put forth months ago.

Got this in an email from Earl's office, it was not in the "In my opinion" piece.

The Blumenauer Plan for Iraq

· Immediately clarify, forcefully and plainly, our long-term intentions and intermediate objectives in Iraq so that a withdrawal would not be viewed as a retreat or lack of will and vision. Renounce any permanent designs on Iraq's territory or resources, and plans for permanent bases there.

· Return to the United States the approximately 46,000 Guard and Reserve forces in Iraq immediately following the December elections.

· Draw-down the rest of the U.S. forces over the next one to two years, based on a detailed plan for the transfer of security responsibility on a sector by sector basis. The vast majority of these troops should be brought home. Others should be redeployed to Afghanistan to create a larger security footprint and help prevent the reemergence of the Taliban. A small rapid-reaction force should be left in Kuwait that can protect against any destabilizing coups. Until the withdrawal is complete, the troops remaining in Iraq should focus on holding and stabilizing population centers, rather than hunting down and killing insurgents.

· Shift reconstruction aid to Iraq away from large projects undertaken by foreign contactors towards small, locally oriented projects run by Iraqis, we can help creating jobs, give Iraqis a greater investment in their success, and avoid corruption and price-gouging. Continued funding must be based on results.

· Increase support for the non-governmental organizations that provide much-needed training and assistance to Iraqi political leaders and the labor unions and civil society organizations which provide the backbone of any democracy.

· Seek a new U.N. resolution in favor of international efforts to support Iraq, including UN supervision of political and democratic development and training of civilian government capacity, a program to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militias, and responsibility for securing munitions and weapons.

· Work to bring other countries in to the training and stability force, under NATO control, if possible, and accept offers from Egypt, Jordan, France, and Germany to train Iraqi troops out of country.

· Diplomatically engage all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, to begin a regional security dialogue with an aim towards restricting their destabilizing interference in Iraqi affairs. .

· While we should not negotiate with terrorists, the US needs to make a renewed effort toward a political solution by diplomatically engaging nationalist, not radical Islamic, faction leaders who might be willing to support a stable Iraq without a U.S. presence, in an attempt to drive a wedge through the insurgency. This can be based on similar efforts to engage the IRA in Northern Ireland.

· Allow the Iraqi government to set its own economic course, rather than insisting on the quick privatization of government services, the reduction of government revenues, and the elimination of a social safety net which will lead to increased social disruption and instability.

· Refocus on the real war on terror and other national security threat, including preventing the reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, disrupting terror networks across the world, eliminating the social and political conditions that provide support to violent extremists, and developing real strategies to deal with nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran.

Eric Chambers

Office of Congressman Earl Blumenauer

Oregon's Third Congressional District

For updates on Blumenauer's work in Congress please visit www.house.gov/blumenauer

Wes: The one problem democrats have with suing for peace in iraq and trying to withdraw our troops is that politically they are duplicitous and inconsistent. They do not oppose war in principle... but rather oppose it when it happens to be a republican waging it

Huh?
1. Earl has been opposed to the Iraq War from the start. Where is the inconsistency or lie in this? 2. In for a penny, in for a pound? It seems to me that a person could follow the "just war" line of reasoning and decide that some wars are just while others are not. That's neither inconsistent nor a lie.

Personally, I find both the Republicans and the Democrats to be the party of war. Many Democrats did vote to give the president authority to act militarily against Iraq. To claim that they did so because they were misled by faulty or incomplete intelligence information is disingenuous at best and outright duplicitous (as you say) at worst. Earl, however, did no such thing.

Hmmm, I wonder, if we depart Iraq early, will Haliburton refund some of those no-bid billions? It may cause a panic sell off by all those trustees of blind trusts who hold stock in the company? Oh, well, "turn out the lights, the party's over" and don't forget to bring the oil on your way out. Dooooh!

Cheney makes a similar point namely that the other side went with them and authorized the war with Iraq. He seems to imply that Dems knew damn well that there was no real justification for it and for that reason calls present protestations dishonest. Serious accusation even when coming from old Dick.

The war with Iraq was a product of confluence of several things:

a) there was a general desire, itch really, to kick some ass,

b) neocons needed to establish new imperial rules for the 21th century,

c) the country was fully aware that days of cheap gas will end one day unless we started controlling things in the Middle East,

d) war would be good for the armament industry, McDonald-Douglas, Haliburton, etc.,

e) war would also be good for the Army, they've been sitting on their asses for decades, going soft while spending hundred of billions of taxpayer money every year with nothing to show for it,

and last but not least

f) George needed to avenge his Dad.

That was plenty enough, at a certain point the machinery in Washington was put on the war path, the only thing that was missing was a pretext, any pretext. The fact that they wanted some pretext is to their credit, after all old Bush invaded a sovereign country w/o bothering to justify it in any way. Just went in, removed their president and threw him in the US prison. No oil, no yellow cake, no incipient mushroom clouds invoked at any point.

Since they had nothing on Iraq their campaign to justify the war had to be based on lies. Whatever you think of them this they can be pretty good at, the campaign went into full gear in no time at all. The level of shrill was unprecedented, the inventiveness of their lies mind bogling. When you lie, lie boldly, I guess. With duplicitous media soon most of the country was convinced the war was the only option. They got Congress to pass the appropriate legislation -- helped by implying that a negative vote would be unpatriotic, and by couching it in a dishonestly muddy language.

Should Democrats be considered equally responsible for getting us into this mess? Don't think so. Those who were gullible enough to believe all that war propaganda had no choice, war it had to be. Those who stayed clear-headed enough to see through all those lies went with it on the assumption that the administration did proper risk-benefit ratio assessment and concluded that the chances were good enough to risk it. In both cases the responsibility lies squarely with the administration. Specifically with Cheney as the primary driving force behind all this. Dishonesty and incompetence here is solely on his side, imho.

-- Parenthetically, aren't you proud now of those tens of thousands of Portlanders who went to the streets to protest preparations for this war?

Earl may have been against the war from the beginning, but even if he was, he carries with him thw political baggage of his party, which is why he, and the dems at large, will be incapable of stopping the war in Iraq. It's the same problem with the UN - the minute you authorize the use of force for any purpose, you are no longer a peace keeping organization, you are a rubber stamp factory for international aggression. Oh and if someone doesn't like the way the UN decides, they can just claim the body is corrupt and go around them.

The minute you start rationalizing just wars, you open yourself up to political rhetoric from the other side claiming why their war is just as just as the one you fought. If a person (or political party) does not take a principled stand on the use of force, they will have no leg to stand on when they argue against another person's, party's, or nation's use of it.

Wes Wagner NW Meridian

wg shows his/her complete, unadulterated ignorance with the tired, old "Bush lied" mantra. He/she even goes far enough to exonerate the overwhelming amount of Dems who supported and voted for the war. Unbelievable.

News flash wg, before and during the war, leading Democrats (Clinton, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid et al) publicly justified and supported the war. Dems had the same access to intelligence as Bush. Dems made an informed decision as did the Bush administration. Like it or not, there was bi-partisan support for the war.

If this was not the case, as you stated, then congressional Democrats must be the most gullible and easily-influenced morons on the planet.

Be against the war if you wish, but actually believing Bush lied us into war is just plain idiocy.

Chris, you know this for a fact? Dems had the same access to intelligence as Bush.

One commentator pointed out yesterday that Cheney's language has changed recently from the previous White House claim of "Democrats saw the same intelligence.." to what you quote.

I recently read a guest opinion from Sen. Bob Graham saying that as chair of the Intelligence Comm. he saw information not all senators saw, and that is why he voted against the war.

But the real question is, when will Republicans quit trying to bash Democrats and start talking about a plan for the future? Of all the comments from the Iraqi leaders who just left that conference in another country (considered a victory because Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites all talked together ), which one will the White House and House Republicans support? Do they support the resolution that 79 Senators voted for?

Do they support what Sen Hagel (R-NE) has said about the future of Iraq?

Are they more likely to agree with the DeFazio proposal or the Blumenauer proposal or something else?

It is time for the GOP to quit saying "the Democrats don't have a plan" and talk about their own plans. Republicans are not speaking with one voice on Iraq, why should Democrats?

Or is this more about PR than about solving serious problems?

President Clinton and his Secretary of Defense, William Cohen had the same intelligence that President Bush had. They fully supported the Iraq engagement. They expressed the belief of WMDs on many occasions. I am guessing that those Democrats that might not have had full intelligence, took the lead from them and others who had the information. Whatever the reason, there was support from the top down on the Democrat side. This was/is considered a bigger situation than WMDs. When I was at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning in the 1970s there were specific presentations about the next conflicts of the Middle East.

The request for a specific "plan" is absurd for a war situation. There are constantly changing unforeseen variables. I never had a mission plan which projected accurate all of the way to the end. In most cases the plans diverted to contingent plans almost immediately. The call for a public "Iraq War Plan" is just another attempt at "gotcha" politics, which is the popular game right now. This is nothing more than a staging area for the next two elections. Hopefully the electorate will see through the ploy.

I recently read a guest opinion from Sen. Bob Graham saying that as chair of the Intelligence Comm. he saw information not all senators saw, and that is why he voted against the war.

Then why was he not more adamant about getting Dems on his side? Why did he not share his finding with other members of congress? It's silly to accuse bush of lying when there were informed congresscritters at the time.

It is time for the GOP to quit saying "the Democrats don't have a plan" and talk about their own plans. Republicans are not speaking with one voice on Iraq, why should Democrats?

Or is this more about PR than about solving serious problems?

I think the latter. Both Ds and Rs are playing politics here and it's really sad. Politicos have done a great job of focusing the public's interest on the fight between the far right and far left. Moderates (like me) should be united and working on the formation of a third party. The two-party system we currently have is just one small step away from Communism.

LT wrote "But the real question is, when will Republicans quit trying to bash Democrats and start talking about a plan for the future?"

Now that was real funny.

I can't help but think many Democrats hope things go poorly in Iraq just so they have good campaign fodder.

It won't be too good for ya'll if the Iraqi elections are stablizing, Iraqi security forces swell and our troops begin withdrawl before 06 and 08. God forbid?

Some people don't believe in the concept of updated intelligence: President Clinton and his Secretary of Defense, William Cohen had the same intelligence that President Bush had. They fully supported the Iraq engagement. Does that mean no one is allowed to use any knowledge we know now we didn't know when Clinton was in office? When did such a royal decree come down from on high?

And even if every person on the face of the earth believed there was WMD in Iraq before the invasion, that doesn't answer the "WHAT NOW?" question.

Or maybe this is all smokescreen so that public figures can put off the "What Now?" question for as long as they can.

Or maybe

Kari, you could replaced the word 'communism' with any single-party party system of your choice. I chose communism because I wanted to be melodramatic. :-)

It's actually a sound bite I gleaned from Jessie Ventura. He stated that we really don't have a true democracy (or representative republic, whatever you want to call it) because only two parties control the system. Furthermore, congressional Reps and Dems are pretty much of the same mold. All they really care about is getting reelected, expanding their power-base and placating constituents with vote-buying schemes. I think their public rancor is just to keep the masses taking a side and thinking the other is evil. When in truth, neither party has our best interest in mind.

Of course it's not all congresses' fault. Things aren't bad enough in the U.S. (yet) for the majority of Americans to become involved and foment real reform.

Chris, you're insane. Tin-foil hat territory.

Nice ad hominem. I can assure you I'm of sound mind and body.

Hopefully someday, you might realize that congress does nothing but try to placate a select group of constituents and special interest groups. They rarely consider what's good for the country as a whole. All they really care about is expanding their power-base and making the public dependent on them. Take a look at our current federal tax system as a launching point.

Chris,

You say, "Hopefully someday, you might realize that congress does nothing but try to placate a select group of constituents and special interest groups. They rarely consider what's good for the country as a whole."

<h2>Could you include the State of Oregon in this explanation, also? Sure seems to fit.</h2>