Bush Regrets Decision to Invade?

Andrew Sullivan highlights a portion of the lame duck's chat with Charles Gibson of alphabet news. Mr. Sullivan highlights this quote:

I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

And then offers his analysis:

Observe the passive constructions. The description of others. "People in my administration." "Prior to my arrival." Everyone got it wrong but him, the one person ultimately responsible for getting it right.

But I look at the Bush quote and I see, in Bush-speak, an admission that the Iraq War was a mistake and that he regrets authorizing invasion. He wishes the intelligence had been different. He wishes it had all said that Iraq was not a threat, instead of just the parts he chose to ignore. So while he won't take ownership of his awful decision to invade, isn't he tacitly acknowledging that it was a bad decision with disastrous consequences?

If he didn't regret the Iraq war, he wouldn't have offered the intelligence failures as his biggest regret because they wouldn't, to him, make any difference as to whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified or smart.

He might have instead chosen to blame "people in my administration" for the failure to respond to -- I don't know -- Hurricane Katrina.

It's not as if he didn't have an easy 'out' to that question. He chose to go the War route.

The follow up exchange between Gibson and the duck is also illuminating:

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

In the past, Bush would have dutifully defended the decision with his other made-up justifications about democratization and fighting them there so we wouldn't have to fight them here. Or he would have gone on and on about how the surge is working and we're succeeding in Iraq. In this case, Bush doesn't evade the question with talking points. Instead, he barely musters the strength to punt it entirely.

It might be the closest thing to an admission of wrong-doing or confession as we'll ever get. If Gibson pressed here, even a little bit, Bush might have gone even further. He didn't. He immediately went to the next question:

"Greatest accomplishment? The one thing you're proudest of?"

I was hoping he'd say "not rigging the 2008 election." He didn't.

Iraq in Strategic Context

Panelists:

Matthew Yglesias

Ilan Goldenberg

AJ Rossmiller

Spencer Ackerman - not actually my cousin but I'm hoping he doesn't know that.

Lost in Translation

Why are we over there again?

The Iraqi government insists on a timetable for US withdrawal and Bush Administration officials claim that the quote wasn't translated properly.

In other news, Grand Ayatollah Dick Cheney translated a Center for Disease Control testimony that profiled the risks of greenhouse gases by removing large portions of it.

Why Can't Memorial Day Be More Like Veteran's Day?

Since we have to send our neighbors to fight in a poorly planned, unnecessary, and ultimately counterproductive war, I'd prefer to see an army of veterans return.

Instead, we're sacrificing too many veterans in exchange for memories we'd rather not have.

Some of it is because the Bush administration refused to provide the necessary body armor to our troops in harm's way:

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

At least partially because we don't provide decent health care to our wounded, some make the painful transformation from veteran to memory right here on home soil.

---

If it were up to me, we wouldn't even have a Memorial Day because we'd only have surviving veterans.

Unfortunately, a shockingly large collaboration of Bush administration policies and non-policies coldly indicate that they don't quite share my personal aversion to fallen soldiers.

Don't we read this story every day?

Don't overlook this article:

A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the United States military spent some $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash. The audit was released Thursday in tandem with a Congressional hearing on the payments.

I think a lot about how to 'be more green.' I've decided that the best way is to just liquidate my savings account and just light all my greenbacks on fire, spreading magic monetary vapors that reduce greenhouse gases. Ridiculous that people allege Bush doesn't have a responsible environmental policy.

Critical Viewing, At Your Leisure

Can't not post this incredible Keith Olbermann special commentary.

It's a classic.

You can't not watch this.

But do so at your leisure, perhaps after a fishing trip, a cricket game, a drum lesson, or a trivial decision to send American troops into a poorly planned war.


Amorphous Funk was the first down here to spread the word.

It's about the President's, er, golf game.

Amongst other things the President tells an interviewer that he gave up golf in the summer of 2003 out of deference to the sacrifice of our troops in Iraq. This is a slap in the face on so many different levels, as Mr. Olbermann captures eloquently. One thing Olbermann shows us is a press photo of President Bush playing golf after the date he claims he had given it up for the troops.

Another angle I thought Olbermann was going to take but didn't was to bring up all of the other fabulous leisure activities our President loves to pursue with no deference to the sacrifice of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He passed it up, but I won't:


Here's a picture of President Bush playing cricket from March, 2006:


That month, 33 coalition troops were killed in Iraq. That month 475 US soldiers were wounded.


Here is a picture of President Bush fishing while on vacation on his father's compound in Maine:


This one from August, 2004. That month, 75 coalition troops died in Iraq. There were 895 Americans wounded that month.


Here's another picture of George the Disaster fishing on his father's boat while on vacation:


That picture is from August, 2007. Eighty-eight coalition troops died in Iraq that month. It is estimated that over 2000 Iraqi civilians were killed.


Here's a video of George the Disaster playing drums and dancing in April of 2007:



That month, 117 coalition forces were killed in Iraq and 776 of our neighbors were wounded.

Tougher Than Hell

So I was watching the Daily Show the other day and caught an interesting interview with Fareed Zakaria, who writes for Newsweek. He'll also soon have a show on CNN. He's an interesting character politically. Some might say that he comes from a neoconservative background. He's a big supporter of free trade and globalization. Well, anyways, you can wikipedia him. Whether or not you disagree with some of the underlying ideological assumptions, he is incredibly learned and has a fascinating perspective.



Here, he discusses the decline of the United States as the world's sole economic superpower. Generally, Zakaria tends to paint a rosier picture of our overall outlook than that which seems to be depicted on the television but his characterization of our power sent chills down my spine.

We have the biggest military in the world, by far. One of the things I think has happened . . . is that we look at every problem now really through the prism of the military because we're so damn good at it. So you look at what's going on in Africa and you say 'there's Islamic extremism there.' So we say 'well, let's set up Africom. You know, a command center, US military, four-star general.'

Wait a minute, is the answer to the spread, the rise of Islamic fanaticism to set up a kind of US neocolonial military presence in these countries and start having American troops go around there beating people up? I'm not so sure.

*Note, Jon sort of gives the rub to Tulane University at the end of the interview

The biggest military in the world. Every problem through the prism of the military. A neocolonial military presence.

And Mr. Zakaria should know, because he was at least one meeting with Paul Wolfowitz in November of 2001.

Another person who should know is former Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who since leaving his post as commander of the coalition troops in Iraq, has roasted the Bush administration's reckless consideration of American and civilian lives and their constant nods to political considerations over military objectives:

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez joined the White House videoconference on the second day of house-to-house fighting between 2,000 Marines and entrenched guerrillas in Fallujah.

Crafted in Washington as a brass-knuckles response to the gruesome deaths of four Blackwater security guards killed the week before and strung up on a bridge, the battle had the full support of President Bush.

Sanchez, in a memoir to be released Tuesday, said Bush “launched into what I considered a kind of confused pep talk” about the battle for Fallujah and an upcoming campaign to kill or capture radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and cripple his militia.

“Kick ass!” Bush said. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!”

Fueled by images beamed by the Al-Jazeera television network, the administration quickly reversed course, stopping Operation Vigilant Resolve. Soon after, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer dropped plans to capture or kill al-Sadr, even though the president had said during the April 7, 2003, meeting, “It is essential he be wiped out,” according to the memoir.

Kick ass. If someone tries to stop the march to democracy we will seek them out and kill them. That's the mindset. Real classy. Never mind the fact that the President withdrew the orders because he thought it might hurt his reelection campaign.

Meanwhile, let us travel to the present, to Red Square in Moscow, where new Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and new Russian President Vladmir Putin put on a display of military might not seen since the days of the USSR.

The Kremlin’s decision to parade its military hardware has been a subject of competing interpretations, viewed variously as symbolic confirmation of Russia’s pride, or aggressiveness, as a marketing show of Russian arms, and as a nationalistic festival ordered by Mr. Putin, for Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin insisted earlier in the week that the parade should not be viewed as “saber rattling.” “It is not a warlike gesture,” he said. “Russia is not threatening anyone.”

But it followed a year during which the Kremlin asserted its case against what it regarded as reckless American foreign policies. Mr. Putin has strongly protested an American-led plan to install a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. As tensions rose, Russia’s aging strategic bombers conducted international patrols, entered British airspace and approached American carrier groups on the high seas.

The United States' response?

Let's just speculate for a moment before I share it with you.

Remember, President Bush was very close with President Putin, he explained that he trusted Mr. Putin not to entrench himself as an autocrat because he "looked the man in the eyes" and was able "to get a sense of the man's soul." So, though Bush likely doesn't appreciate Russia's opposition to the missile defense project or Russia's incursions into former Soviet republic elections, President Bush probably doesn't want to aggravate Russia further. The administration will probably want to through a wet blanket on media attempts to fan flames. The President's policy toward Mr. Putin already looks abominable, might as well minimize damage, play off the significance of the military demonstration by talking up US-Russian friendship.

Well, here is the US reaction:

“If they wish to take out their old equipment and take it for a spin and check it out,” said the spokesman, Geoff Morrell, “they’re more than welcome to do so.”

WOW!

So the official United States reaction to Soviet-style military escalation by the Russians is to backhand them in the face, insult their might, and challenge them to spend more money on their military.

You know, the Bush administration, for years, has insisted that we all have to adopt "a post-9/11 mindset." Reliance on diplomacy and the United Nations was naive in the face of the dangerous new world landscape. The United States needed to act more unilaterally to protect its interests, the argument was.

But, you know what, you know who never adopted a post-9/11 mindset?

The Bush administration.

Because they're still very clearly living in the midst of the Cold War.

We've dictated a foreign policy marinated in the same juices as the Domino Theory. If we can just use our guns and our planes to carve out spheres of influence in the Middle East, the terrorists and the unfriendly states will topple over in turn.

On the count of three, arms race: one.... two.....

Here General, These Bullet Points Won't Hurt A Bit

Read this fascinating and disturbing NYT piece revealing the intersection between the Pentagon and the mainstream media.


UPDATE:

Another thing that is fascinating and especially disturbing is that this NYT piece is not being picked up elsewhere in the mainstream media. Not at the Washington Post, not at CNN. Was it in your hometown paper today? Other than on progressive blogs, where else have you seen the story referenced?

(Scratch that on WaPo, Howard Kurtz wrote about it this morning)

The New York Times' David Barstow wrote an incredible piece of investigative journalism that essentially proves the Pentagon's willful and successful manipulation of the media.
How is that not the biggest story in every paper in America?

People on the internets agree that it's a big story. The article is the most emailed and most blogged about story on the New York Times website. I think that should be taken as an indicator that the story might be of interest to a wider audience that might not be entrenched in day-to-day online discourse.

Who is Parsons?

Parsons Corp. is one of two firms hired by the Louisiana Dept. of Education to develop the ten year facilities master plan for the Recovery School District of New Orleans.

This is a big deal master plan because it will essentially determine the capacity of the city's public schools to educate children in the immediate future.

So, who is Parsons?

It has already been pointed out, here and elsewhere on NOLA blogs, that Parsons has been in the news after coming under investigation for jobs not done in Iraq.

A California company, Parsons, had its contract terminated this year after it was found to have finished only six of more than 140 primary healthcare centres it was supposed to build, after two years work and $500m spent. However, the contract was ended "for convenience", meaning Parsons was paid in full.

It wasn't just healthcare 'centres,' but also the police academy:

Even in a $21 billion reconstruction effort that has been marred by cases of corruption and fraud, failures in training and housing Iraq's security forces are particularly significant because of their effect on what the U.S. military has called its primary mission here: to prepare Iraqi police and soldiers so that Americans can depart.

Federal investigators said the inspector general's findings raise serious questions about whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has failed to exercise effective oversight over the Baghdad Police College or reconstruction programs across Iraq, despite charging taxpayers management fees of at least 4.5 percent of total project costs. The Corps of Engineers said Wednesday that it has initiated a wide-ranging investigation of the police academy project.

The report serves as the latest indictment of Parsons Corp., the U.S. construction giant that was awarded about $1 billion for a variety of reconstruction projects across Iraq. After chronicling previous Parsons failures to properly build health clinics, prisons and hospitals, Bowen said he now plans to conduct an audit of every Parsons project.

"The truth needs to be told about what we didn't get for our dollar from Parsons," Bowen said.

A spokeswoman for Parsons said the company had not seen the inspector general's report.

Oops. Special Inspector General Bowen ticked off somebody. As news of his investigations undermined the Bush Administration, Bowen soon faced a series of challenges:

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

--

Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who followed the bill closely as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, says that she still does not know how the provision made its way into what is called the conference report, which reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.

Neither the House nor the Senate version contained such a termination clause before the conference, all involved agree.

“It’s truly a mystery to me,” Ms. Collins said. “I looked at what I thought was the final version of the conference report and that provision was not in at that time.”

“The one thing I can confirm is that this was a last-minute insertion,” she said.

--

“It appears to me that the administration wants to silence the messenger that is giving us information about waste and fraud in Iraq,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform.

“I just can’t see how one can look at this change without believing it’s political,” he said.

Well that strategy, attempted in November of 2006, didn't work. Whichever Bush administration ally in Congress slyly inserted Mr. Bowen's walking papers obviously didn't do so slyly enough. Both Democrats and Republicans were upset and suspicious.

Bowen still represented a problem, however.

He had been a loyal Bushie for so long. He was a special council to Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas. He worked under Alberto Gonzalez during the Florida recount. Was he straying from the flock? Was he more interested in exercising the powers of the office that the President had bestowed upon him than he was in using those powers to prove his loyalty?

Well, problem solved.

Enter the perfectly named integrity committee of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency.

They opened an investigation in May of 2007 after former employees of Mr. Bowen's office complained of the Inspector's work habits.

Boom, mission accomplished.

Bowen's office was ripped apart from top to bottom. By December of 2007, there were at least three separate investigations into Mr. Bowen's conduct. The Special Inspector General's office was, according to an official there, "gripped by paranoia."

Mr. Bowen clearly felt he was being undermined. One of the more serious allegations was that he and an aide had illegally read employee emails in order "to find out who was loyal and who was not."

It is currently unclear to me whether or not those investigations are ongoing or if they have been shelved. Stewart Bowen still holds his job as Special Inspector General. Nonetheless, the job was done. Mr. Bowen's audits into Iraqi reconstruction contracts were interrupted and the inspector's reputation had been sufficiently sullied as to ensure that future reports by his office were more easily discreditable.
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Back to Parsons.

It's amazing what a little old nobody can find out using the google.

They weren't just in Iraq to build shoddy health clinics and police academies. The breadth of their contracts there also extended to the restoration of...

...wait for it...

...oil fields, pipelines, and refineries - oh my!

The joint venture between Parsons and sister company Parsons E&C was one of two charged with restoring the flow of Iraqi oil. The other was Kellogg, Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Bowen's office has been able to audit some aspects of the oil flow restoration efforts. According to CorpWatch, a main concern is the inability of Halliburton and Parsons to provide simple repairs to the meters that measure the amount of oil flowing. Suspicions related to distribution of Iraqi oil revenues, a crucial political obstacle, hinge on Parsons and Halliburton's failure on this front. According to that site, Mr. Bowen is due to issue a report on this matter sometime this spring.

CorpWatch also reports that Halliburton was actually stripped of its oil work and their former responsibilities in Southern Iraq were given to Parsons.

Now, Parsons Corp. is a huge multinational corporation with lots of different offices and lots of different projects.

What could their stunning failures to complete the objectives laid out in the contracts they received from the Bush administration in Iraq possibly have to do with the new contract they received in New Orleans?

How Far We've Fallen

This story slipped through the cracks a little bit for me because of all the other things going on...

How sad is this?

The other day when I saw this headline:

Torture Chamber Found in Iraq,

I had to ask if it was ours.

National Reoccurring Nightmare

Iraq is a place where we are sending our young men and women to kill or be killed by other young men and women. I don't believe we are advancing any kind of freedom or democracy there. Instead, we are merely spending tax-payer money in order to prop up the profit forecasts of several well-connected corporations and industrial alliances. If we were truly concerned about fighting worldwide terrorism, we might have gone ahead and finished the job in Afghanistan, capturing that Osama guy when we had the chance. If we were truly concerned about the spread of Democracy, we might have kept a closer eye on our friends in Pakistan. If we were truly concerned about the sacrifices of our neighbors, we might be doing a better job taking care of them upon here at home.

Every day you can read a gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, or anger-inducing story about blatant incompetence and/or wanton unethical or even criminal behavior on the part of the United States government.

Here go some sparkling rays of sunshine in the news as we speak:

Let's start with blatant incompetence, although there is a lot of wanton criminal behavior involved as well...

Bernard Kerik, (a bff of Rudy Giuliani, former head of the NYPD, and nominee for head of the Dept. of Homeland Security) was indicted last week on a whole slate of charges that pretty much indicate that this guy had no regard for ethics and law. Today a former girlfriend and publisher under the Fox News Corp umbrella was told to lie to investigators about Kerik's behavior because Fox News wants Rudy to be the next President.

That's all just background information that seems to be relevant to me when also considering that Kerik WAS handed a job by the Bush administration before the whole Dept. of HL Security nomination debacle. Kerik was sent to Iraq in 2003 by Mr. The President The George W. Bush and charged with the task of training Iraqi police. Kerik (and Dick Polman does a great profile of this) did a heckuva job. Here's the good stuff from Mr. Polman:

...Kerik gets close scrutiny in Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran's 2006 book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. It's not a pretty picture. Kerik was barely off the plane, in that spring of 2003, when he told a State Department official that "the situation (in Iraq) is probably not as bad as people think it is."

The author recounts: "Kerik wasn't a details guy...Kerik's first order of business, less than a week after he arrived, was to give a slew of interviews saying the situation was improving. He told the Associated Press that security in Baghdad 'is not as bad as I thought. Are bad things going on? Yes. But is it out of control? No. Is it getting better? Yes.' He went on NBC's Today show to pronounce the situation 'better than I expected.'"

Kerik was so busy going out on late-night raids (which was not part of his job) that he couldn't function in daylight (when he was supposed to do his job). As the author writes, "the all nighters meant Kerik wasn't around to supervise the Interior Ministry during the day. He was sleeping."

More from the book: "Kerik held only two staff meetings while in Iraq, one when he arrived and the other when he was being shadowed by a New York Times reporter...Despite his White House connections, Kerik did not secure funding for the desperately needed police advisers...'He was the wrong guy at the wrong time,' (an American official) said later. 'Bernie didn't have the skills.'"

...By the way, there's a fitting epilogue to the Bernie adventure in Iraq. Upon his return to America after only three months, having done little to train anybody, he was warmly welcomed at the White House, on Oct. 3, 2003, with these words of presidential praise: "He showed up (in Iraq) at times of chaos and confusion. Because of his leadership, his knowledge, and his experience, he was able to stand up a police force in Baghdad in a very quick period of time...Bernie went there and made a big difference. And for that our nation is very grateful...We're making great progress...Bernie, you're a good man."

But of course, not only did Mr. Kerik get lauded for doing a terrible job, he was offered an extremely prestigious promotion.

Bush offers top law enforcement position to American Gangster

Now, let's move on to wanton criminal behavior (although there's a lot of incompetence involved)...

Blackwater, as if we didn't believe the other investigations and reports, has now been found to have killed civilians indiscriminately and without justification by our own FBI. Let us all take a moment to feel proud of ourselves that our tax money has gone to a private contract for these guys to act as a rogue agency answerable to nobody in particular.

Of course the murderers involved here may have blanket immunity for some reason. I heard from a little birdie that actually George Bush has decreed that Blackwater HQ be enshrined in gold for their service to Democracy...


----

Finally, remembering the accolades and benefits thrust upon men like Bernard Kerik, let us now move on to this story: (h/t: Attytood)

I don't feel comfortable chopping it up, here is a link to the full-text from the L.A. Times.

I implore you to read it.

Let's just say that guys like the man in this article are the only ones that have done what they were supposed to do over there. It's a shame that what they were supposed to do ultimately aided an asinine, unethical, and criminally naive foreign policy crafted and implemented by a serial rewarder of blatant incompetence (he's not just the founder of Incompetence Club for Men, he's a customer).

The most heartbreaking aspect of all this is that the real men and women making the real sacrifices get PTSD and a slap on the back while tough guys like Bernard Kerik got promotions, accolades, honors, power, respect, money, sex, and fame.

(Now, at least, he's going to rot in prison, I hope. Watch Bush pardon his ass and give him some candy. Next watch Giulini steal the election in 2008 and then give Bernard Kerik two tanks and the latest machine guns...)

Did We Buy It?

During last night's debate for the Republican nomination, one of the lines that seems to be generating a lot of attention was delivered by candidate Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas. Here is what happened: (the exchange is just past halfway down)

As the potential nominees were asked to weigh in on the War in Iraq, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas defended his position in favor of immediate withdrawal of all U.S.

"...The war has not gone well one bit. Yes, I would leave. I would leave completely. Why leave the troops in the region? It was the fact that we had troops in Saudi Arabia -- was one of the three reasons given for the attack on 9/11. So why leave them in the region? They don't want our troops on the Arabian Peninsula. We have no need for our national security to have troops on the Arabian Peninsula. And going into Iraq and Afghanistan and threatening Iran is the worst thing we can do for our national security. I am less safe, the American people are less safe for this..."

When it was Mike Huckabee's turn to answer a question on the topic, he responded directly to the comments of Congressman Paul, saying

"Congressman, whether or not we should have gone to Iraq is a discussion the historians can have, but we're there We bought it because we broke it. We've got a responsibility to the honor of this country..."

Congressman Paul answered back arguing that the war is the responsibility of the small neoconservative cadre that "hijacked our foreign policy" and that the American people should not be punished by remaining bogged down there.

Huckabee's moment came here, when he shot back:

"Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. We have to be one nation, under god. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single country: the United States of
America, not the divided states of America."

Now there can be no doubt that Huckabee came through with a snappy line there, maybe it'll make him famous.

At Dick Polman's American Debate, the Huckabee's "we bought it" position is contextualized as being emblematic of the Republicans' struggle with the Iraq issue as potential nominees dance between remaining true to the majority of Republican voters that remain steadfast behind the war effort and the opposing views of the populace at-large.

Congressman Paul, fueled by his libertarian political ideology, has been against the war for quite some time. His views on the conflict are more similar to those of many democrats and progressives.

While many today are discussing the political efficacy of Huckabee's sound-bite (will it play? will it play in the public? will Huckabee play?), what about the argument?

How do you classify personal and national responsibility?

Is the post-Sadaam wave of sectarian strife the fault of the United States government?

What is the moral obligation of the United States government to the Iraqi people?

As a progressive myself, I have always thought this war was misguided, imperial, unjust, botched, etc., and of course I want it to be over. I want American soldiers to stop dying and I want Iraqi civilians to stop dying. Yet I am curious as to how those out there that are fervently calling for immediate withdrawal feel about the limits of our moral obligation to the lives of Iraqi civilians. Are there imaginable post-withdrawal scenarios for Iraqi citizens that make you uncomfortable with leaving? What are we already responsible for and what else could be added to the list?