Fox News Sunday gettin' tough on war 'happy talk'
Boy, it's a sad day for Conservatives when they get pinned to the mat on Fox News.
Here's Chris Wallace trying to get an answer from Sen. Lindsey Graham:
WALLACE: The New York Times reported this week — and let's put it up on the screen — in the first seven weeks of the surge, 116 U.S. soldiers were killed. That's actually up slightly from the 113 who were killed in the seven weeks preceding the surge.
And A.P. reports that the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed over these seven weeks is down in Baghdad, but actually up dramatically in the rest of the country. And of course, we've just seen more carnage this weekend, bombings in Karbala and again just today in Baghdad.
So, Senator Graham, where is the progress?
GRAHAM: The progress is on political, economic and military fronts.[..]
[Then he rattles on about what he thinks is progress .. you can read the transcript here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266210,00.html]
WALLACE: I'm going to let Senator Levin respond in a moment, but I want to ask you one more question, because you said, Senator Graham, that one of the keys is political progress, and I think everyone agrees ultimately that this is going to have to be won by political reconciliation. But let's look at the record.
GRAHAM: Right.
WALLACE: For all of President Bush's talk in January about Iraqi benchmarks, the government there still has not passed oil revenue sharing, not allowed members of Saddam's Baathist party into the government and army, not scheduled local elections and not started amending the constitution.
I guess I have to ask you again, Senator Graham, where's the progress?
GRAHAM: There's a lot of progress on the oil front. The council of ministers have passed an oil agreement. It needs to be ratified by the parliament. Here's where Senator Levin and I...
WALLACE: But it's been sitting in the parliament for weeks, Senator.
GRAHAM: Well, the parliament got bombed yesterday. It's pretty hard to be a democracy when people are shooting at you.
WALLACE: Well, wait a minute. It was sitting there for weeks before the parliament got bombed, sir.
GRAHAM: My point is that it took us 13 years to write our Constitution. [rattle rattle .. parrots all the same Rightie talking points]
Well, knock me over with a feather Chris Wallace .. I'm looking at you with new eyes.
So .. it seems that people are getting tired of this constant yammering by Bush, Cheney and John McCain that the press hasn't shown enough painted school stories to even out the blood-shed and violence.
The truth is that since Bush's 'surge', more of our kids are getting killed, more Iraqis are getting killed .. the violence has reached inside the Green Zone and has spread to the outer areas around Baghdad.
April is turning into a bad nightmare for our troops .. the old whack-a-mole strategy is back .. you whack them down in one area, they regroup and pop up in another.
Our military does its best work when fighting conventional battles .. it is almost impossible for them to successfully chase down and contain loose-knit, scattered networks of insurgents.
Look at the blood we shed in '04 to control Fallujah -- 100 Marines KIA and over 1,000 wounded -- and today, guess what? .. the bad guys are back. Why did all those kids die and get their limbs blown off?
Maybe Bush and Cheney don't want to leave until they get them to sign off on the oil concessions. Some people think the oil agreement is downright theft .. and the real reason for this war ..
But back to Rightie 'happy talk' about the war. Republicans are going to have to face American voters in 2008 .. the same frustrated Americans who rose up in 2006 and voted to end this awful war.
And if you think they were mad then .. just you wait until '08.
How long will Conservatives continue to stick their heads into the sand? How long will they back this war? Which isn't really a war .. it's an occupation of a country that's having a Civil War. And our troops are sitting ducks in the middle of it.
I get tired of hearing, "Well, get ready for the consequences of pulling out .. more Iraqi bloodshed." Give me a break! The Sunni and Shia fanatical factions would fight each other whether we're there or not .. period. So don't try to PIN that tail on OUR Donkey!
I like Murtha's Plan -- a man who DID serve his country -- to redeploy our troops to designated areas and begin to draw down. We need more troops in Afghanistan.
Oh .. when we left Vietnam in a similar manner in 75, the Viet Cong did NOT follow us home.
