As in foaming-at-the-mouth. I’m sure in your mind you’re calmly and rationally addressing your opponents’ statements, but in reality your attempted rebuttals come off as angry rants from someone on a major coffee jag.

Never call someone ‘wrong’ or ‘mistaken’ when you can call them ‘a fucking sub-human idiot’, eh CS?

You could make the same ‘point’ for Advice From The Losing Team thread as well. Or the Convenient Negro! thread. In fact, it would be funnier on the latter than this one

The first one is good but the second one just demonstrates what a racist you are.

No need to go on a rant just because you said something stupid.

Says Mr. “Wow, you are fucking stupid”. You are hilarious, I’ll give you that.

“Spittle-flecked”?

Secondly, I understood your point, and it is pathetic.

You could make the same ‘point’ for Advice From The Losing Team thread as well. Or the Convenient Negro! thread. In fact, it would be funnier on the latter than this one.

“Perhaps you will learn something.”

“Possibly from Quaker, Sean or Parthenon, to name just a few. Not from spittle-flecked, ranting, ego-centric douchebags like you.”

No need to go on a rant just because you said something stupid.

Wow, you are fucking stupid.

I know that reading comprehension is not your strong suit, CS, so I’ll try to explain using simple words that even you can grasp. I was pointing out what the text for this particular post said. I’m aware that the same format is used for every post. Idiot.

Perhaps you will learn something.

Possibly from Quaker, Sean or Parthenon, to name just a few. Not from spittle-flecked, ranting, ego-centric douchebags like you.

Truer words were never written.

You’re right: the disinformation machine IS much larger than Oliver Willis.

Nevertheless, Maliki did endorse Obama’s withdrawal plan… so Oliver is right, and you are wrong.

You just noticed that? The same format is used in every thread on this site, and you just noticed it.

Wow, you are fucking stupid.

Please, for your own sake, shut up and let the adults talk. Perhaps you will learn something.

The Disinformation Machine >> Oliver Willis

Truer words were never written.

I thought that was a weird typo on first pass. Thank god for the google or I might really be showing my age!

That just isn’t fair, because One Piece can be used to justify anything wrong with that country.

I hereby declare the above comment to have won the thread.

Though I would have picked “Boobobo Bobobobo”, or however it’s spelled.

All this time I thought they were Islamofascists Jihadi gay abortionists.

That just isn’t fair, because One Piece can be used to justify anything wrong with that country.

HA!

Actually, it’s only tough if your American allies/overseers are demanding things that run contrary to the will of the Iraqi people. Of course, if the goal of all this was to create a sovereign, democratic Iraq, one has to wonder why we’d be running so counter to the will of the Iraqi people in the first place.

Yes, but isn’t this the first time the PM has gotten behind it? The somewhat snarky/perhaps realistic conventional wisdom back in ‘07 was that the MPs were listening to their constiuents, while PM al-Maliki was playing the Iraqized role of Ngo Dinh Diem. It’s possible that political pressure on him is reaching critical mass. That has to be a tough game to play, trying to satisfy the people and one’s American allies/overseers.

it didn’t? Even the NYT says it has.

Wut?

Oliver, do you consider Europe a failure?

I know alot of conservatives that think so.

How about Japan, ditto.

That just isn’t fair, because One Piece can be used to justify anything wrong with that country.

What’s so amazing about this sentence is that you think we’ve put in place either a “self-sustaining government” or “internal security.”

Violence in Iraq is down but violence is still occurring at levels that should horrify any rational, sentient being. Seriously, you guys think that bringing violence down to 2004-2005 levels constitutes “internal security”? It’s a good thing but it ain’t “internal security.”

And not to repeat myself but what Maliki is saying is that if we want the Iraqi government to succeed, we need to set a timetable for withdrawal. He is definitely not saying that everything is cool, he’s got it under control, so we can go. The government, in other words, is hanging by a thread. Any political stability in Iraq is dependent on a US troop withdrawal, it is not the other way around.

Up until last week, talk of withdrawal from Iraq was met by conservatives with howls of retreat and defeat. Now all of a sudden withdrawal is evidence of victory? The only way you guys can maintain that position is if you disregard and distort the reasons why Maliki is now pushing the withdrawal position.

Maliki is not asking for a US troop withdrawal because he thinks the mission has been accomplished. He is asking for a troop withdrawal because it’s now the only way to accomplish the mission. Two different things. The Iraqi people want us out and that is the position of Maliki’s political opponents. Advocating a timeline for withdrawal is Maliki’s last chance to survive the upcoming elections and beyond.

Maliki has, in other words, accepted and vocalized what opponents of the occupation have always said: the US presence is more of an obstacle to political and social stability in Iraq than it is an agent of that stability.

As he told Der Spiegel: “Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic.”

Realistic because the longer US troops stay without a clear departure date, the harder and harder it will be for Maliki to forge the kind of political alliances he needs in order to hold the government, and the country, together. If we were to stay indefinitely, as conservatives were arguing just a week ago, whatever gains in security might have been accomplished by the surge would be washed away in renewed resistance to what Iraqi’s perceive as an occupying force.

The right simply cannot bring itself to accept that we have always been a part of the problem in Iraq. At every stage of this disaster we have done nothing but make it worse.

Even the much vaunted surge was founded not simply on increasing the number of US troops but by arming and supporting tribal chieftains in the country in direct contradiction to the goal of creating a unified, centralized Iraqi government. The tribes turned on al qaeda not because they love the US, but because they saw al qaeda as a more immediate threat to their traditional leadership in Iraq after years of turning a blind eye to the terrorists attacks on US forces. The US was willing to arm and pay these tribal leaders to suppress al qaeda even going so far as to create separate tribal security forces outside the authority of the central Iraqi Army for the sole purpose of short term expediency, without regard for the long term stability of the country. Now, for all that they’ve done to suppress al qaeda in their own provinces, those same chieftains are opposed to any lengthy US presence in Iraq and they are putting pressure on Maliki to press for withdrawal or lose the elections and legitimacy. The longer we stay, the greater chance that those tribal leaders will turn on us and the Maliki government.

As the left has said all along, the only way for Iraq to make any real political progress is for the US to leave. That’s it. Nothing has changed in the left’s assessment of and prescription for Iraq. It’s the right that is now, once again, flailing around in an attempt to spin reality in its favor.

But there might be a Ho Chi Minh.

Conservatives have shown themselves to not care about our national security as long as Republicans win re-election. Some of us think it might be a good idea to kill the bad guys and not occupy the wrong country for extended periods of time. Crazy, I know.

Iraq is going to have an internal crackdown of some sort, the tribal and historical tensions practically dictate that. There are no Jeffersons and Franklins there. The choice we have is a crackdown with U.S. casualties or without. I take the latter.

Hey, I was just going along with your claim that we’ve already reached an acceptable outcome. I even gave a caveat with regards to that point.

To clarify…

Even if you think the Iraq situation is ‘acceptable’ right now, it doesn’t necessarily mean the Iraq war was a success.

If you think a stable Iraq is what is needed to be acceptable, then we have not gotten there yet.

The military presence of the United States in Iraq is not helping the situation enough to be worth further deployment there. In fact, this has been true for a while now. Arguably from the very beginning.

Did I miss anything?

Because of the costs. An acceptable outcome at an unacceptably high price is still a failure.

It is simply a matter of cost / reward analysis, which is not a hard concept to grasp. But given your name and your action here, clearly out of reach for you.

“The final little chestnut ‘is not ensured’ is classic libtard…unless we have a guaranteed outcome, we shouldn’t even try….”

No, duh, ‘is not ensured’ means we do not have an acceptable outcome yet, and one shouldn’t assume we will get there. There is still a very high probability of complications.

However, the military has done all they can do. We have to leave it to the Iraqis to complete the job politically. If they can’t, the presence of American troops will not help.

Scratch: “And that suggests to me that you agree that an acceptable outcome may be at hand.”

No. We could get an acceptable outcome, but it is far from a sure thing. It is unlikely that the three ethnic groups in Iraq will work together, which still cause troubles in the region for a long, long time.

Additionally, ‘acceptable’ is a pretty low standard to have. Getting a C in school is acceptable, it is not a success.