Biden in Iraq
[Guest post by DRJ]
Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq to offer diplomacy:
“Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. landed here on Saturday evening for a visit that signaled a desire by the United States to step deeper into a four-month political stalemate that has become a backdrop to the drawdown of American forces this summer.”
The Administration needs a way to show it supports the military this Independence Day weekend, and Iraq is a good choice. They can thank President Bush and General Petraeus for that.
— DRJ
I remain, as I have been from the beginning, extremely optimistic about the government being formed here
except for you’re the genius what wanted to split Iraq into three heavily armed countries, no?
happyfeet (19c1da) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:14 pmI hope Bite Me doesn’t ask a soldier a question and get back an answer he doesn’t like – just call him a smartass or something.
Dmac (93e7cb) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:16 pmMr. Feet, I’m sure that the Vice President and Plagiarism Czar was just quoting someone else.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:24 pmYes, Peter Galbraith, who made a fortune on oil concessions in post war Kurdistan, while undermining
ian cormac (93d17d) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:32 pmthe main effort
If I were Obama I’d send him halfway around the world into potential harm’s way as well.
Icy Texan (6fb9f7) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:33 pmI am curious to see if Mrs. Biden is still favoring the slinky black leather clothing she wore at Davos a few years back. That would go over big in Iraq.
Galbraith should be seeing jail time for what he pulled.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/3/2010 @ 1:36 pmI used to have an editorial cartoon on my wall, entitled “Great Moments of The Carter Administration’s Foreign Policy.” There was a picture of Ted Kennedy and Frank Church. Under it the cation read, “He sent Ted Kennedy and Frank Church to Cuba.” In small letters it continued “but they came back.”
Maybe the Iraqis would keep VP Bite Me.
arch (24f4f2) — 7/3/2010 @ 2:55 pmThey can thank President Bush and General Petraeus for that.
They can…..but they won’t.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (cf2f34) — 7/3/2010 @ 2:56 pmI could be mistaken, but I don’t recall any mention of Lynn Cheney accompanying her husband when he was VP on his several trips to Iraq?
AD - RtR/OS! (712fff) — 7/3/2010 @ 3:01 pmWhat is the complete itinerary of the Biden overseas tour?
Does Joe think he’s still in the Senate taking junkets?
…..That’s a nice alternative reality you live in Joe….
….more Biden “consistency”…
Biden Vows To Stop Iraq Troop Surge
Posted Dec 26th 2006 8:50PM by NixGuy
Biden: Iraq surge success a ‘fantasy’
Posted November 28, 2007 1:32 PM
….and more”consistency”
Biden vows to fight any Iraq troop boost
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
…..and of course before Biden was against the Iraq war…..he was For it:
Hard Choices for America’s Future: Strategic Opportunities for a New Century
– Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in Remarks On Saddam Hussein At The Center For Strategic And International Studies Forum, Washington, D.C., February 4, 2002
Biden Called Saddam Hussein “An Extreme Danger To The World.”
In July 2003, Amid Questions Concerning A Lack Of Stockpiles Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Iraq, Biden Defended The War As “Justified” And Said
(Sen. Joe Biden, “Statement Of Senator Joe Biden On The White House’s Acknowledgment That Iraq-Uranium Assertion Was Wrong,” Press Release, biden.senate.gov, 7/8/03)
And of course Mr. Biden voted for the War in Iraq.
Baxter Greene (af5030) — 7/3/2010 @ 4:37 pm…….The only thing Joe “jobs is a three letter word” Biden has been consistent on is being 100% full-of-sh!t……
Yes, because an unnecessary invasion that destabilized the entire Middle East was such a good idea. I’m sure the families of all those dead soldiers are really grateful to Bush.
JEA (14b413) — 7/3/2010 @ 7:21 pmWe honor all who have served their country and we owe those who made the ultimate sacrifice a debt that cannot be fully paid.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/3/2010 @ 7:34 pmJEA, as usual you make no mention of the situation prior to the invasion. None of the critics do. Bush had a tough choice. Bin Laden attacked us because we had troops in Saudi Arabia, “holy ground” for Muslims. They were there to keep Saddam “in a box.” The French and Russians were getting rich, along with UN staffers, by supplying Saddam with the material he wanted. At the same time, the leftist press was screaming about starving children. The sanctions were a joke.
We could have left with him in power.
We could have invaded, smashed everything and left. That’s what General Tommy Franks wanted to do.
Or we could do what Bush did. The army mucked it up for a while. We have turned the country over to the Iraqis like General Jay Garner wanted to do. The guy responsible for a lot of the insurgency was Bremer.
Anyway, the other choices weren’t very good either but most of you don’t know enough or won’t admit that.
Mike K (82f374) — 7/3/2010 @ 7:38 pmJEA, as usual you are an idiotic jackass.
Are you really going to try to sell the idea that the Middle East was stable before we deposed Saddam Hussein? Or that jihadists attempting their Islamic version of world conquest would have been content to confine it to the Middle East?
On reflection, you’re not an idiotic jackass, you are an idiot and a jackass.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/3/2010 @ 7:53 pmEW1(SG), liberals like JEA love “stability”, and it does not matter how much mass murder and genocide they are complicit in to keep it.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/3/2010 @ 7:57 pm#15 SPQR:
Maybe it’s my military experience getting the better of me, but I fail to see how a state of constant warfare can be described as ‘stable.’ Seems to me that even changing the facts on the ground to an occasional intermission is an improvement. And ‘constant warfare’ is not, despite the phrasing, some stable state where the good guys and the bad guys are going to the rifle range every morning, popping off a few rounds, and then calling it a day…constant warfare means men, women and children are being chewed up and spit out by a very ugly death that knows no mercy.
And I never understood guys like Friedman, carrying so much water for Arafat. Doesn’t that make him complicit in more Middle Eastern deaths than Bush, Cheney and Rove could ever hope for? Assuming that was even their goal, of course. And why am I the only one crying for Friedman to be tried for war crimes?
And JEA, the more I think about how stupid the shit you say is, the madder I get and the more I think you need a good kick in the ass to see if that’ll fire off a neuron or two.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 7/3/2010 @ 8:08 pmJEA is just another progressive hindsight hero.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 7/3/2010 @ 8:14 pmfreedom liberty
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 7/3/2010 @ 8:27 pmwere part of grand liberal
tradition… so sad
All of JEA’s neurons were burned off long ago.
AD - RtR/OS! (712fff) — 7/3/2010 @ 10:02 pmToo much recreational pharmacology.
Unless there’s a photo of him carrying a plastic turkey, it didn’t happen.
htom (412a17) — 7/4/2010 @ 12:01 am#
….Yes, because all those “Save Tibet” and “Save Darfur” bumper stickers you and your liberal friends parade around with have accomplished so much.
… I bet JEA is part of that anti-war crowd that protested while Bush was President about how “war is not the answer” …..but now that Obama is waging war using Bush’s same policies, they are all in the coffee shops patting each other on the back calling it “smart power”.
….nothing exposes the true ignorance of liberals better than watching sheep like JEA complain about the fact that genocidal madmen like Saddam
are not still in power to start more wars and kill hundreds of thousands of more people.
…I would bet those families are as grateful to Bush as the military families that are losing their loved ones now are as grateful to Obama.
….military families tend to not use the difficulties of war to score political points like the liberal anti-war crowd does.
Baxter Greene (af5030) — 7/4/2010 @ 12:44 amLOL
Bush did that? Wow. I didn’t know it was Bush’s fault that the Middle East is unstable. I had this impression they were unstable when Saddam and the Khomeni killed over two million people. Or that embassy thing, or those Israel things, or the Soviet Afghanistan thing (which also killed well over a million people).
Oh, and there was this thing in New York at that World Trade Center. Was that destroyed because Bush destabilized the Middle East?
Face it: The Middle East is more stable because of the Iraq we have now. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lives, net saved. It’s a screwy ugly democracy, much like ours was the day after Washington retired.
Bush did the world a huge good in Iraq. Only the most partisan would blame that for the Middle East’s millenia old instability.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/4/2010 @ 12:55 am“…Only the most
partisanpathological would blame (him) for the Middle East’s millenia old instability.”I think it reads better this way.
AD - RtR/OS! (712fff) — 7/4/2010 @ 12:59 amSh!theads like JEA and “Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.” remind us all that just as Obama, according to WaPo columnist Kathleen Parker, is our first female POTUS, Biden also may be our first girlie Veep. Joe the Smartass hater reminds us of Napoleon’s old observation about Italy, “which never ends up a war on the same side it started on, except on those occasions when Italy changes sides twice.” Joe “Smartass hater” Biden was for the war before he was against it and now is for the war again, making him either a female or an Italian.
JEA is probably more consistent, in that he is always an A**hole.
daveinboca (d0db99) — 7/4/2010 @ 3:01 amApparently, the invasion of Kuwait, the Iran-Iraq war, the Palestinian crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the shouting match over Kashmir, the Iranian revolution, the Six-Day War, etc. are all examples of how “stable” the region was, pre-Booosh.
Icy Texan (fb843e) — 7/4/2010 @ 3:57 amThank you General Patraeus for salvaging something from the horrible mistake that was President Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Time123 (b7cad2) — 7/4/2010 @ 5:13 amMaybe now Patraeus can win what we should have been focusing on all along, Afghanistan and that Taliban!
Time123 (b7cad2) — 7/4/2010 @ 5:14 amNever let an opportunity to support Teh Narrative go to waste, even if it does confirm you as the total cretin you are.
AD - RtR/OS! (ed07ac) — 7/4/2010 @ 9:58 amBTW, what was you position on the various UNSC Resolutions re Iraq promulgated between 1991 and 2002? You know, the ones that Saddam Hussein violated/disregarded time after time.
Nevermind, that’s his talking point and he’s sticking to it.
… even misspells “Petraeus”… what a maroon.
GeneralMalaise (9cf017) — 7/4/2010 @ 10:06 am