Video: Maverick identifies minor flaw in super-keen Baker-Hamilton plan
posted at 4:47 pm on July 18, 2007 by Allahpundit
Yet another serving from BTN‘s video horn o’ plenty. He’s talking about the Reed-Levin resolution but this is also the easy critique of B-H, the one most Americans can instantly grasp: if, as the left rightly says, it’s often difficult to tell whether someone’s aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq or one of the native (especially Salafist) insurgent groups, what sense does it make to limit the mission of combat troops to targeting AQI? For every instance in which they end up targeting a genuine AQI jihadi, there’ll likely be another instance of them targeting some other group erroneously and still another instance of them having to sit by and let a massacre play out because they know it doesn’t involve anyone from AQI and hence is beyond the scope of their mission.
I doubt U.S. troops would tolerate that, so what you’ll end up seeing is U.S. troops intervening in sectarian clashes as they see fit and then attributing them to AQI afterwards to justify the intervention. Like Stephen Biddle says, if you’re not going to commit to victory, don’t half-ass it. Just get out.
Blowback
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There you go again, trying to apply logic to a political issue.
Those Dim ammendments are not supposed to pass analysis. They are only supposed to pass the Senate vote to show that Harry is on the
rightleft side.TunaTalon on July 18, 2007 at 4:57 PM
LOL…that Popeye pic of McCain is hilarious! Now what was the article about?
DCJeff on July 18, 2007 at 4:58 PM
Hey al Qaeda…the guys get shirts!
Drew on July 18, 2007 at 5:02 PM
That was awesome. If only he respected the first amendment and saw that homeland security = defending the border! I do hope that he continues his critical work in the senate. Rudy needs to take notes!
libertarianuberalles on July 18, 2007 at 5:03 PM
This is what John is best at. The war. John, get out of politics and team up with Ollie North.
csdeven on July 18, 2007 at 5:04 PM
There. Fixed that.
db on July 18, 2007 at 5:20 PM
Um, will anyone else report this? Will it sink in on the Dems? I’m not holding my breath.
And, yes, libertarianuberalles, Rudy does have to take notice.
Grantman on July 18, 2007 at 5:21 PM
John is 2 for 2 lately. This and slamming the Dems on the show put on with their PJ party. Keep it up John. If Bush will not show some nards, at least you can take up where he refuses to go.
On-my-soap-box on July 18, 2007 at 5:33 PM
The news today is that Iraq may be sitting atop the world’s second largest petroleum reserves.
I suppose the democrats would be just oh so happy to turn that over to Al Queda.
Labamigo on July 18, 2007 at 5:49 PM
How ’bout we fight em shirts against skins…
JWS on July 18, 2007 at 5:54 PM
That’s called “using your best judgment.”
And what else is there to do? The US is trying to identify, and in many cases even work with, those of questionable repute. So we have to assume that any group which is organized enough to put up a fight – but don’t identify themselves to us – must mean us ill.
The bottom line: If you can identify the agressors in an unauthorized attack, take them out. Otherwise, if we don’t know who either side is or why they’re fighting, then THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS.
logis on July 18, 2007 at 6:07 PM
We should know, at the instinctive level, that: we’re the ones fighting for the survival of the last best hope for human liberty in the world, and that the jihadis (of all stripes) are tyrannical retrograde lunatics using terrorism to try to set up a global gulag. A nightmare State for the fulfillment of their crapulous, theocratic jollies. (Beheadings on the hour every hour.)
Why we harass our own men and women -who have been thrown into the middle of a 1350 year old holy mafia clash- with ROE trivia, and do not just let them destroy any troublemakers who get in the way, shows the spineless diffidence of half of the nation and the weakness of half of our will.
Especially in the self-loathing defeatists in the political and media sphere.
Don’t these pols and pundits understand that their own heads would be lopped off first (as intimidating examples to cow their constituents) if their weak-kneed plan for confronting the Jihad were implemented?
In WW II the only guy tried and executed was for NOT fighting.
Now we try our people FOR fighting.
The luxury of the un-historical class.
profitsbeard on July 18, 2007 at 6:21 PM
McCain should use every second of his campaign pounding these points home. This is the guy I used to highly respect.
On a side note, the ROE over there are so messed up right now, when we’re going after all the bad guys. Can you imagine what it will be like if B-H goes through?
BadgerHawk on July 18, 2007 at 6:56 PM
I wish we had made him Sec-Def.
Spirit of 1776 on July 18, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Ya know what’s sad? He said what was obvious and everyone thinks he is real smart…or maybe we are just happy a politician said it.
boomer on July 18, 2007 at 8:33 PM
This isn’t rocket science. Politics isn’t about brains; it’s about conviction. That’s a commodity that’s rare on the right and unheard of on the left.
logis on July 18, 2007 at 8:43 PM
My God, McCain is so right and so awesome when it comes to the war. How sad he constantly swerves to the left with McCain Feingold, McCain Kennedy and other issues. I won’t be voting for him for President but I damned sure hope he stays in the Senate.
Buzzy on July 18, 2007 at 9:24 PM
LOL, been gone from this thread for some time and I come back and find how popular hitting the “a” and “s” key at the same time can be.
/snort
On-my-soap-box on July 18, 2007 at 9:53 PM
I know that we conservatives have been upset with John McCain over illegal immigration and campaign finance reform, but John McCain is also a pro-life fiscal conservative who committed himself at a Federalist Society dinner earlier this year to having judicial conservatives appointed to the federal judiciary and who very much has been and is a patriot. With respect to the war in Iraq and the war with the radical jihadists in general, John McCain is so superb that I wish there weren’t the problem issues. We really need his voice on the war in Iraq and the war with the radical jihadists in general. This is coming from the father of a U.S. Army First Lieutenant (with Ranger tab) serving in harm’s way as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq. My heart and soul are with our military guys in harm’s way; they are who matter most.
Phil Byler on July 18, 2007 at 10:37 PM
Since Democrats have just renewed their support for widespread abortions, and since lack of Democratic support is the major obstacle in achieving victory in Iraq, why doesn’t Bush just start calling terrorists “fetuses” and the surge a “late-term abortion”?
Dr. Charles G. Waugh on July 18, 2007 at 10:39 PM
When it comes to the war in Iraq, there is simply none better (in the Senate) than McCain. For all his warts on other issues, he is a pit-bull on this one. My hat is off to him.
sanantonian on July 18, 2007 at 10:46 PM
This is the McCain from 2000. This is the guy. Where’s he been?
PowWow on July 18, 2007 at 10:57 PM
Right. Just four days ago McCain said that were he elected, he would close Guantanamo upon inauguration, let the world know that America will never torture anyone again, and that he would make the Presidency “more humble”. To that, he added the clear-as-mud promise to “address the global warming issue” — code for more taxes to wreck property rights and big business. Just what we need, bigger, more regulatory cowards in Washington. He is a damned disgrace and a traitor. His years of hell in the tiger cage taught him to hate suffering out of context instead of judging and punishing animals for what they are. Thank God he will never get elected, because he would get us all killed.
Lazarus on July 19, 2007 at 2:16 AM
I just saw that tonight. I just kind of stared at the screen. I thought it must all be some kind of incredibly bad joke – especially when he made that crack about promising to be “humble.”
But, I guess not…
Personally, I haven’t been paying any attention to the guy. After his fifth-column campaign in 2000, I knew he had no chance at a Republican nomination. But it appears he’s completely gone off the deep end.
logis on July 19, 2007 at 2:37 AM