Jan 02 2008
Romney Self Destructs
Desperation is killing both Huckabee (see how good I am – I almost played this ad! Watch it and see how good I am!) and Romney – who is now trying to run as a version of Pelosi-Reid:
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Tuesday the Bush administration mismanaged the Iraq war, distancing himself from his party’s unpopular president two days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential contest.
“I think we did a less than effective job in managing the conflict following the collapse of Saddam Hussein,” the former Massachusetts governor said at a news conference. “I think we were under prepared for what occurred, understaffed, under planned, and, in some respects, under managed.”
Spineless BS! We did what we could in standing up a democratic Iraq and had huge success in getting Iraqis to the polls. The opening for al-Qaeda was offered by Sunnis who were enticed by al-Qaeda’s siren song of a modern caliphate headquartered in Ramadi, the capitol city of Anbar. It was the Sunnis who made the tragic and costly mistake in allowing al-Qaeda to come in and wreak havoc. And it is the Sunnis who are the first to admit their alliance with al-Qaeda was a costly and bloody mistake.
The Sunnis realized they screwed up and are now allied with us and whooping Bin Laden’s butt. And Bush had nocontrol over their initial decisions which led to all the bloodshed. We need people to grab this success and make it grow.
Romney just stomped on it to try and gain liberal votes. Dude, you aren’t going to get their votes (beside, independents are NOT liberals – figure that one out or else). But to trash our latest efforts by hand wringing over events that happened 5 years ago is ridiculous! Even if true (and they are not, they are just liberal media spin to get headlines) they are irrelevant to the situation today.
Romney just showed he doesn’t have the backbone to take over the White House from President Bush. If the war on terror is your prime issue, and if you are supporter of the war and want to see our current successes grow and Bin Laden crushed, then Romney is not the guy. Neither is Huckabee. It is McCain or Giuliani if you want to see al-Qaeda vanquished from this Earth. And with Giuliani’s commitment to Surge into Afghanistan next I still give him the edge overall. Since Romney has surrendered ground just to get votes in Iowa we can see he doesn’t have the guts to see the war through to a victory. He is not the answer to our nation’s needs. We need someone as strong and dedicated as Bush, who brought about the success Iraq is right now. 2008 is not the year to lose focus and destroy all our progress since 9-11.
AJ: You’re misinterpreting his comments. Romney supports Bush’s foreign policy. I do too. But what he said is completely true. We went into Iraq thinking we could get out of their in two months. To deny that is be delusional. It doesn’t mean he is weak on terror.
That is part of the reason I want to see Iowa and NH done away with as the King makers.
Candidates have to temper their message to get performance in that market and it misleads the vast majority of the country as it is reported.
Iowa is a 3 million people populist state and NH is well NH.
On the Republican side we will see based on past numbers about 85,000 people of which 45% are Evangelical Christians , a subset of all religious voters there.
The Dem’s are correct to point out the lack of diversity with both states well over 95% White populations.
In short newer politically balanced states need to be used to do the first cut evaluations, it’s time for us to say thanks for the memories and service to Iowa and NH and do it a better way.
Klint,
No one thought we would be out in 2 months – that is pure idiocy. I load out exactly why it took until now to achieve success. The Sunnis had to try al-Qaeda’s way before they learned the hard lesson that was the wrong choice.
Until that played out (and no amount of troops was going to change their initial plans to go with al-Qaeda) there would be no Awakening. No Awakening and The Surge would not produce any results.
It took as long as necessary for Iraq to pick the right course. Don’t blame Bush because reality doesn’t come with an “Easy” button.
One can say that the Surge was 2 years late as McCain says, but the Surge worked because at long last the Iraqi’s were ready to stand up too and did so through the Awakening. The Iraqi’s were not ready 2 years before the Awakening. Rummy and co. gave the Iraqi’s enough rope to hang themselves, they went to the brink and decided to fight instead. It takes time, Americans want instant success. Life usually doesn’t come in neatly tied packages.
Actually I believe the Awakening started about 4 months or more ahead of the surge and that was due to boots on the ground work by the Marines in Anbar province staying in touch with the local shieks and making their case.
AJ: The Iraq war was full of failures and mistakes from the beginning. It was chaos.
I always supported our troops and Bush since the invasion. But we never thought we would be there in 2008. And Bush, because he is our President, has to take responsibility for that (along with Congress). We have had a very successful year against al Qaeda but the Iraq government is still full of corruption. There is still going to be a lot of work to be done when al Qaeda is defeated. We can handle it. I agree with you on that.
Anyway, AJ, can you post more articles on Russia (and China). With Russian interference and complicating us in the Middle East, and with their goals of re-expansion, sometimes it’s hard not to imagine them as our next biggest threat in the future.
I knew we would be in Iraq for decades to come.
I didn’t expect Saddam to cave so quickly.
I know one of the reasons we’re there was to use it as a staging ground to eventually tackle the two bee hives.. Saudi Arabia and Iran.
We either transform the region there or Islam gets more powerful.
It may well be that Islam is goign to get more powerful despite our prescence.. I don’t blame us for that.. the historical momentum is obviouis… Islam is only going to get stronger until there’s transformative change in those countries.
There may not be any solution to this.. they may very well wreck the entire world.. but we had to do something.. doing nothing was a provacation.
Interesting post and comments, all.
I think both McCain and Romney support Bush, even though both have criticisms. Both argue we should have had a bigger footprint earlier on. There are good arguments on each side of this issue. Neither is accusing Bush of arrogance. Second guessing Paul Bremmer does not minimize our success in Iraq or the unpredictable terror of Al Qaida.
I don’t think the Iraq war was mismanaged. What the hell do people think war is anyway? They act as if no one is supposed to die, everyone is supposed to be home by Christmas blah blah blah.
It was almost 3 years after the fall of Hitler before the Marshall Plan even went into effect. They were rationing food in Britain for years after the war.
And yet today people are so naive that they believe there are two kinds of wars, well managed and orderly wars that are over in a couple months where no good guys ever die, and mismanaged wars where the enemy actually fights us.
Well said Terrye.
Well said Terrye.
I agree, Terrye. But it is possible to consider the effects of force size and election timing without bashing the President and our overall effort.
Terrye:
Before invasion it was supposed to be a well managed war. What we got was chaos, a guerrilla war, a corrupt government, and denial from Rumsfeld. There were too many assumptions, for example, that the Iraqi’s would embrace us and freedom, which they didn’t. Even with all that I would argue it was worth it just to remove the Saddam regime.
Iraq is looking much better today, but it is fragile and can’t be labeled a success and it’s 2008 with much more work ahead of us. I think the problem from the beginning was that none of this was expected or supposed to happen. Thankfully things are looking better because of Petraeus and Bush’s resolve.
Klimt,
• All wars bring chaos
• The guerrilla war was unavoidable
• “corrupt government”is an overstatement
• Many Iraqis did embrace us, especially the Kurds
• The huge voter turnout demonstrates their “embrace of freedom.”
Klimt:
War is chaos. That is just what it is. My Dad was in Nagasaki a week after it was nuked, that was chaos. Nothing we have seen in Iraq can compare to the kind of chaos and genocide that usually comes with war.
I thought we would lose 3,500 men before we even took Baghdad. If you had told me that after years in country with a force of at least 150,000 men we would have casualties under 4,000 soldiers I would not have believed it.
What kind of government did you think we would get after decades of tyranny from Saddam? Where did you think those people were even going to come from?
Really, people can not be this naive.
Romney’s defense of Bush after the Huckabee attacks, as well as his vision for the global struggle against Jihadism is the main reason I support him. I am disappointed AJ has decided Romney is not the guy. Romney supports the President, but is just pointing out managerial mistakes were made with Iraq. I check in at least twice a day on this blog and love the dedication of AJ to this great country and its great military. My preferences in order for POTUS Romney, Giuliani, McCain. Huckabee isn’t even a conservative and Thompson doesn’t care or doesn’t have the drive. McCain is right on the only issue that really matters, our global struggle against Jihadism.
It is beyond arrogant to act as if our enemies would all march in straight lines, ie would not adapt, no matter what we did. Sheesh!
This is a very shrewd enemy that uses major technology 24/7 to try to defeat us. The War on Terror is a 21st century war around the world. Period. No other like it in our history. To say that our military did not think of multiple scenarios BEFORE we went into Iraq is just plain insulting.And let’s not forget what a mess our military was when George Bush took office..cuts, cuts, cuts from clinton. So much had to be done to get us up and running for this horrendous war on the world’s deadliest thugs.
Iraq, among many reasons, was absolutely needed to establish our presence in the heart of the ME and to BURST THE BUBBLE of the terrorist’s thugs who, IN THEIR OWN WORDS, thought we were too fat and happy to fight for that which we love: Our America the Beautiful. Still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. And the best college football anywhere in the world. Take that you terrorist thugs! We’ve had fun this holiday…just as we always do. How are those caves workin’ for ya? 🙂
Right on AJ .Right on Kathie.Right on Terrye.
George Bush has “stayed the course” even after the phrase was banned by the MSM.
Carry on Mr. President.We’re behind you all the way.
You libs (and everyone else) should check out this speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EEDBMhVusk
This guy is right on about the threat we’re facing.
“A turning point in America, certain things said that would not have been acceptable to say a few years ago are received with thundering applause today. United American Committee’s Jim Horn addresses 1,800 people at the National Federation of Republican Women convention September 2007”