Recently, Governor and Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson could not restrain himself from sharing his plan for resolving the terrible “Crisis in Iraq” (cue CNN theme music). Certain that his brilliance would be displayed for all to see, Gov. Richardson dazzled us with this bold and innovative plan to resolve this ongoing “problem of our time:”
http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/page/petition/iraq
Which boils down to (my gentle musings following in italics):
- Set a hard timetable to withdraw in 2007, and make sure all factions of Iraq know we’ll be leaving whatever happens.
(Rise up in civil revolt? We’re leaving. Execute 10,000 Sunnis in a single a day? We’re leaving. Gas 100,000 Shias with Sarin during a festival? We’re leaving… After all, they’re only brown people. They don’t feel pain like we do, so the huge body counts won’t interfere with their rationally seeking a solution to the violence.) - Remove all troops.
(Including all those training the Iraqis. “Bye-bye, guys, and good luck—you’ll need it!”) - Since Bush won’t do 1-2 for some reason, use the War Powers Act to force him. Which of course the Administration will take to the Supreme Court.
(Perhaps that case will be resolved before 2008… In the meantime, since the only power Congress actually has is the purse, you can only “force” Bush by removing all funds for the troops, in the field, during a war. Good one, Bill, that’ll play well for you in 2008.) - Have a nice conference to get the Iraqis to iron everything out.
(I’m sure that will work. Especially because of #1! Tell me, Bill, just what incentives do the extremists and militias have to deal, given that the biggest barrier to more sectarian violence will be leaving by December? Oh, well, it’s only brown people!) - Trust Syria and Iran to do the right thing. Really.
(I’m sure we can trust them, because, well… Okay, I’m not really sure why Bill thinks that they will suddenly be overwhelmed with a desire not to meddle in Iraq. I mean, it’s not like Iran and Syria would be fighting over a hugely important country in a pivotal place in the region or anything. Oh, and perhaps the Turks will be happy to contribute to that peacekeeping force. Say, 500,000 “peacekeepers” for Iraqi Kurdistan. Of course they’ll have to forcibly disarm those pesky Kurds, but I’m sure dead Kurdish kids are a price he’s happy to pay for peace. I mean, heck, they’re only brown people…) - Yes, let’s a have a fund raiser for Iraqi reconstruction.
(Actually, this isn’t a bad idea. I’m sure lots of nations will promise billions, since they know they’ll never have to actually pay—since funds won’t be dispersed until Iraq stabilizes itself. So really, never, except perhaps a few billions to bury the 10 million dead when it’s all over.) - Redeploy to, ah, somewhere. Kuwait is mentioned, because, you know, that isn’t right next to Iraq and kinda on the Arabian peninsula (depending upon which wackjob you ask).
(I’m sure Al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria will be fine with a huge number of US troops permanently camped in Kuwait. You betcha! Also, Bill, what happened to “Bring the troops home. All of them.” Is it really a good idea to start breaking campaign promises at the start of the campaign?)
We risk being dazzled by the brilliance, of course, but Bill’s final summary deserves to be quoted verbatim:
We also must bring our National Guard home where they are needed for homeland security, and we must focus our energy and resources on real threats, such as nuclear proliferation, Al Qaeda, public health, and global warming.
If Bill had been running in 1952, I’m sure his platform would have been to get out of Korea, so that those nice Koreans could settle everything. We could relocate our troops to, oh, Japan, and concentrate on the real problems of the day. I’m sure that would have worked out really well, Bill!
I suppose Bill wanted to stake out the “unambiguous retreat in the face of hard struggle” position early. A good idea, really, given the general temperment of the Democrats these days. But not, I’m thinking, a sure-fire way to win the country in 2008. Somehow, I think this message will come off a bit inadequate in the face of a Giuliani or McCain. (I would have said “even in comparison to Her Dread Majesty”, but it looks like I would have been wrong about that.)
Tell me, Bill, whatever happened to “You broke it, you bought it” as the Dems liked to tell the Republicans after the 2003 invasion? Oh, yes, the Dems managed to get power in 2006 and no longer want a difficult war to worry about. Once again, I was thinking of the brown people as actually human and deserving decent lives. Stupid me.
Of course, persumably, Bill Richardson also believes that Iraqis shouldn’t be gunned down on the streets for taking the wrong position in a 1300 year old theological debate. Just not enough to think that they’re worth American lives. Or American time. Or American attention. Well, I’m sure that relying upon international consensus will work as well in Iraq as it has worked in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan. Bye-bye Iraqi liberals, feminists, and democrats—sorry you actually put faith in your liberal American brothers! Maybe, one day you’ll learn that the American New Left has only one word for their foreign brothers in the struggle when the going gets hard:
Corpses.
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
May 11, 2007 at 12:57 pm
what kind of messed up neo-con world do you live in?
iraq is alwready risen up in civil revolt. iraq is already in civil war. our leaving wont create that, it is already there.
all were doing by staying thetre is killing more “brown people” as you put it. americans sticking their noises in a hornets nest and creating terrorists. if we left maybe they would have a chance to live and elect as their own nonpuppet government instead of beaing an american toadstool.
wake up, bush hates america. bush hates the world. the iraq war is 1984 continuous war on terrorism. it is to make you ignore the fact that your own civil liberties are beign taking away slowly but surely by the government. one day you will wake up and find you have no rights left. then you will wish you had payed attention.
one day soon the government will censorship all comments against it. just wait and see, it is coming and probably sooner than you
May 11, 2007 at 2:13 pm
iraq is alwready risen up in civil revolt. iraq is already in civil war. our leaving wont create that, it is already there.
Civil revolt, perhaps. Civil disorder, sure. Civil war? Ah, my friend, no, that’s not civil war. Civil wars in the third world produce ethnic cleansing, elimination of entire villages, towns, and cities. Not always during the war, but always afterwards. Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola, those are civil wars.
all were doing by staying thetre is killing more “brown people” as you put it. americans sticking their noises in a hornets nest and creating terrorists.
No that’s not all we’re doing. We’re also preventing the worst excesses. Believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Some of the huge attacks target us, and those (of course) won’t happen once we leave. But most of the attacks target Iraqis loyal to the rule of law, or loyal to one faction or another. Those attacks will get much, much worse.
if we left maybe they would have a chance to live and elect as their own nonpuppet government instead of beaing an american toadstool.
Really? So when we leave the militias and death squads will just hang it up? Sectarian leaders eager for blood and conquest will suddenly negotiate with a much weaker government and much weaker opponents?
Could be. But I think not. I think you’ll get the aftermath of our departure in Vietnam, or the aftermath of the Cuban revolution, or the Iranian. Sure, they’ll sort it out, in time, after one faction or the other is pretty much butchered.
In other words, as I said, corpses piled so high that the current death rates seem mild and reasonable.
Maybe I’m just stupid. I mean, the number of places where occupying a country for years until it establishes a reasonable rule of law actually worked can be counted on one or two hands.
Of course, the number of places where walking away in the midst of civil unrest between warring factions led to peace and kindness can be counted on exactly zero hands.
But, heck, as the Dems know, they’re only brown people!
May 11, 2007 at 2:26 pm
wake up, bush hates america. bush hates the world. the iraq war is 1984 continuous war on terrorism. it is to make you ignore the fact that your own civil liberties are beign taking away slowly but surely by the government. one day you will wake up and find you have no rights left. then you will wish you had payed attention.
Oh, and because this always annoys me:
Just what civil liberties have been taken away from you? Clearly not the right to blather about the evils of Chimpy McHitlerBurton.
Has your mail been opened, read, and resealed? Have Americans of Middle-Eastern descent or Muslim faith been systematically rounded up? Have terrorist cells been subject to arrest and rapid execution as spies?
No?
So, basically, Bush is less guilty of taking away your rights than FDR was.
Wake up, yourself. There are millions (MILLIONS) of radical Muslims who hate us enough to kill themselves and their families to kill a handful of Americans. Many are outwardly decent, hard-working “good people” who blend in easily. Some of these people are smart, well-educated, well-financed, and very dedicated.
Eventually they will succeed in something spectacular again. These folks cannot be appeased, negotiated with, or ignored. Their faith and ideology demands that we cease being what we are. They demand that you cease being what you are and become an adherent to a religious system that makes American fundamentalism look like a crazy hippy love fest.
That’s the reality of the world we live in. And it will not get better quickly. Learn to deal with it. Or prepare yourself to die or submit.
May 11, 2007 at 2:47 pm
many civil liberties have been taken like habeus corpus and the right to a know what you are accused of. you want proof here you go
“In May 2004, Brandon Mayfield, an attorney in Portland, Ore., and a convert to Islam, was arrested in connection with the March 11, 2004, Madrid bombings that left 191 people dead. He was held for two weeks as a “material witness.”
Mayfield was released after the FBI admitted his fingerprint had been mistakenly matched with one found at the scene of the Madrid attacks. The FBI has described this as a rare mismatch of a fingerprint that reveals little about the Patriot Act.
But the government has admitted to Mayfield that his home was searched secretly under a special court order authorized for intelligence purposes. The American Civil Liberties Union says that the search amounts to an abuse of the Patriot Act: It was conducted as though it were an intelligence search, when in fact agents were looking for evidence to use in a criminal prosecution.”
and also more proof exists. numerous abuses the patrot act and other neo-con bush 1984 anti-freedom commie laws have stripped away our bill of rights and constitution.
bush likes to defecate on the constitution and to piss on american rights ebcause he hates america and hates freedom. bush probably worships mohammed in his backyard while murdering baby kittens. yes i am not making this up.
yes the muslims want to kill us, and yes they are evil and worship dark powers. but i would rather die with my bill of rights to a mohammedite jihadist than let the 1984 evil facist neocons kill me and take aaway my bill of rights.
May 11, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I will just note that the example you give actually disproves your point. The FBI committed errors, perhaps exceeded its authority (under the evil Act you hate), and ate crow about it. The man in question was unjustly arrested and confined, but only for two weeks. Far less that you (or I) can get, quite legally, for mouthing off to a judge in trial (as he can imprison us, without trial or appeal for days or months).
Remember, FDR is our standard here. So you have to find regular, systematic violations of civil liberties on par with the routine under FDR and Hoover. Good luck.
yes the muslims want to kill us, and yes they are evil and worship dark powers. but i would rather die with my bill of rights to a mohammedite jihadist than let the 1984 evil facist neocons kill me and take aaway my bill of rights.
Ah, now you’re letting the mask slip. A really good troll has to walk that fine line between anger and looniness. But a good effort up until the end! 🙂
May 11, 2007 at 4:20 pm
said like typocal neo-con. he was held without any charges being put against him without access to lawyer and utterly unlawfly. he had his constitutional rights completely broken and taken away. you cannot just say “oh they let him go” and make it all better. what if i quearter troops in your house then two days later say “all better, ill take them away now”. your constitutional rights are still broken. the us justice department admits to the abuses and removal of rights by neo-con led agenda:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2030542,00.html
many examples exist of govt abuse:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0611-05.htm
lets not forget:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220450/
you can try and dismiss but the facts speak for themselves bush hates the constitution and he hates america. neo-cons and republicans hate america.
future president richardson at least has the human decency for a plan and wants to not kill people but try and save lives.
May 11, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Whats so great about saving lives, last I checked the increase in world population is putting a tremendous strain on resources.
May 11, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Whats so great about saving lives, last I checked the increase in world population is putting a tremendous strain on resources.
Wow! For someone who claims to be a Libertarian, you sure seem to approach things from the view that people are human chattle. You sure you shouldn’t change your moniker to just “Angry Fascist”?
May 11, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Nah I just hate people.