Coleen finally answers questions from last week

Last week I pointed out how Coleen Rowley (Democrat candidate for Congress) was asked repeatedly for her solution to Iraq.

Finally, she sent out an e-mail to her supporter's list (which I happen to have an alias on--giving me 2 subscriptions there) with her answers to those questions. (Advice: you need to answer these important questions a lot quicker than 4 days as a Congressional Candidate.) I mentioned before that there was some interesting stuff in the e-mail that was removed before it was posted on the website.

Since we were trying to get an interview with her to ask about this very e-mail and the Hardball interview I delayed posting my thoughts on the e-mail. I think I have waited long enough and am now posting some of the e-mail and the response to the spin machine. This might give you an indication of how the interview might go as well.

"The following six points...could potentially contribute to a viable U.S. exit strategy. In no particular order..."

Well, if she used no particular order than I can attack them in whatever order I choose without affecting her message.

"An important element of any exit strategy is internal negotiations to stop the insurgency."

Exactly with whom do you propose "negotiating" with? To stop the insurgency/terrorism you would have to negotiate with the insurgents/terrorists. I'm sorry, no proper thinking American would even hint at America negotiating with the EVIL THAT IS OUR ENEMY. Worse than the suggestion of negotiating with the terrorists is the word "internal". Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like secret negotiations. In other words she is suggesting secret negotitations with the terrorists as an exit strategy.

[A] "good will measure" would be to put aside any U.S. or allied
claims to Iraq's oil and other natural resources (including water) outside
the normal commerce channels and to say so in public to be heard by those
millions of Iraqis who question our motives about their oil.

Excuse me for my ignorance, but are we importing any oil from Iraq? Where is there documentation of that claim? I cannot find these claims on Iraqi oil. But what I can find is the repeated pattern of intentionally false accussations by the left to confuse Americans and embolden the enemy. This entire point is based on one of those maliciously Counter-American claims by the left. Using facts and truth in place of her false premise, she is actually advocating for us to stay the course on the Iraqi oil. (And before you knee-jerkers comment about the oil were stealing please provide some credible sources or your comment will be dismissed.)

"Good will measures" would include the transfer of reconstruction contracts where possible to Iraqi national companies with full bidding as well as continued humanitarian actions to restore electricity and water supplies.

Just out of curiosity but do the Iraqis have any companies that can (a) do the jobs in those contracts you speak of, (b) do those jobs well, and (c) have the experience as the companies currently doing those jobs? I think not. So in other words Coleen advocates letting substandard companies do a half assed job in Iraq thus setting the country up for failure.

The borders of Iraq, especially with Iran, have never been secured and
they need to be. Border security -- nearly 3 years late -- will slow the
supply of weapons and sophisticated bombs to insurgents, and also slow the entry of terrorists and combatants who seek to join the Iraq insurgency in jihad against what they see as permanent American occupation.

How many people would it take to secure that border? My guess is more than it would take to secure the US-Mexico border (which the left is against) and more than it would take to secure the US-Canada border (which the left is against). It would take more troops to Iraq (which the left is against) and increasing the military budget (which the left is against). So what exactly is your plan to fulfill this point? The only solution you could possibly be advocating is a draft or an immense escalation of mobilization. I think the answer to securing the border is very simple: land mines, booby traps and snipers. Anyone or anything that crosses from Iran into Iraq get killed. You can ask the smoldering ashes or millions of scattered pieces what their business in Iraq was going to be. Sometimes the answers are very simple.

individual U.S. battalions "adopt" Iraqi battalions and bring them Stateside where they could be fully trained and then returned to Iraq.

This is actually a very good idea with only a couple of minor problems that I can think of. First, the risk of terrorists infiltrating the trainees and thus being able to conduct a strike in America is significantly higher. Second, I think the logistics of this (and the hugh rise in costs) could prove to be inhibitive to some degree. That aside, I like this idea.

"withdraw our forces from the already-existing bases"

The stupidity of this idea should be evident enough to not necessitate a comment. But here is the comment for those who missed the obvious. Ask the Vietnamese how our cut-and-run strategy made their country so much better after we left. They will tell you how much worse that country was without us.

U.S. troops would maintain security for the new government in the Baghdad Green Zone but should refrain from conducting further counter-insurgency operations

While the far-left has continuously tried to make Iraq synonomous to Vietnam in their shrill rhetoric they have advocated policies that mirror the failed policies of Vietname while attacking the policies that worked in the Gulf War and in every successful campaign of America. They (the left) want to limit the capabilities of the military while expanding their purpose. They (the left) want to prevent the one strategy that works: kill the enemy without question, hesitation or equivocation.

Prediction for Sunday's interview:Coleen will use the word quagmire at least once every 10 minutes.

The U.S. and allied withdrawal on a targeted timetable will take yet more wind out of the sails of insurgents by reducing our permanent presence to a minimum.

Let's review history. That strategy worked will in Beirut, right? We left in the 1980s and the Middle East got so much better, right? What this proposal actually points out is how stupid some very smart people can be. They refuse to understand the true nature of our enemy. They are evil people and will stop at nothing to kill us eventually. They are patient and calculating. But they are evil and we will lose to them unless we kill them. The left honestly does not understand that. They also do not understand that we cannot treat these monsters like "criminals". They do not get Constitutional rights when they are captured. They get, and are owed, nothing.

Back to Coleen's wrong-ness.
Coleen maintains that the people in Crawford represent the majority of Americans. First of all, they don't even represent all of the hate-all-things-Republican crowd.
American Entropy

The debate rages almost two years after we attacked Iraq in '03 (and a little in '02) and the country is divided, beyond partisan lines now. Some want us out now and some want to stay the course; I have dabbled with the 'get out now' view and feel that this approach still is unwise. We have a responsibility as a country to fix what we broke no matter how against the war we were or how ingnorant our leaders are.

For the record this blog has more hatred and vitriol than I could even muster.

Even the Democrats, according to the Washington Post on August 22nd, are split on Stay the Course vs Cut/Coward-and-Run.

the Democratic discord has provided solace for Bush advisers at a difficult time. Although Bush's approval ratings have sunk, the Democrats have gained no ground at his expense. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in June, just 42 percent of Americans approved of congressional Democrats, a figure even lower than Bush's.

Juan Cole, a leftist professor of History at the Univ of Michigan thinks we should stay in Iraq for among other things, the oil.

Personally, I think "US out now" as a simple mantra neglects to consider the full range of possible disasters that could ensue. For one thing, there would be an Iraq civil war. Iraq wasn't having a civil war in 2002. And although you could argue that what is going on now is a subterranean, unconventional civil war, it is not characterized by set piece battles and hundreds of people killed in a single battle, as was true in Lebanon in 1975-76, e.g. People often allege that the US military isn't doing any good in Iraq and there is already a civil war. These people have never actually seen a civil war and do not appreciate the lid the US military is keeping on what could be a volcano.
...
People on the left often don't like it when I bring this scenario up, because they dislike oil; they read it as a variant of the "war for oil" thesis and reject it. But working people, whom we on the left are supposed to be supporting, get to work on buses, and buses burn gasoline. If the bus ticket doubles or triples, people who make $10,000 a year feel it. Moreover, if there is a depression, the janitors and other workers will be the first to be fired. As for the poor of the global South, this scenario would mean they are stuck in dire poverty for an extra generation. Do you know how expensive everything would be for Jamaicans, who import much of what they use and therefore are sensitive to the price of shipping fuel? It would be highly irresponsible to walk away from Iraq and let it fall into a genocidal civil war that left the Oil Gulf in flames.

So, no Coleen, the Camp Cindy crowd did not even represent the left. Only the far left...the radical left...the uber-liberal.

Coleen keeps saying that the anti-war movement are not radicals or extremists. Well, I hate to think that those who post the following things cannot be thought of as extremists or radicals:
President Satan
Jenna Bush, Spawn of Satan
more 'healthy' debate from the left
more 'not necessarily radical' healthy discussion

It is not too hard to find this stuff. But the point is that these people SHOULD be classified as radicals and extremists. They offer nothing productive, they offer only hatred. They offer no discussion but claim to be shut out of the debate. They call people names with no justification, but call us the name-callers. They are extremists and to deny that tells us that you either do not understand reality, deny their true nature to protect your association with them or are trying to further the lie that they are mainstream.

So much more in her e-mail to comment on...so little time. Listen to the interview to see if we get any striaght answers or just the avoidance and spin that they got on Hardball and O'Reilly. September 4, 2005, Sunday, 1PM on NewsTalk 1450 KNSI or on the webstream.