General Petraeus' Testimony Sparks New Vote Vet Ad - Jon Soltz Speaks Out
By Logan Murphy Wednesday Sep 12, 2007 9:05am
We covered General Petraeus' now-infamous "I don't know" statement from yesterday's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee and now Vote Vets has a new ad out, highlighting those words. Vote Vets' Chairman Jon Soltz appeared on today's Hardball along with Dante Zappala, who lost his brother in Iraq and is a member of Gold Star Families Speak Out, to talk about the new ad and the absolute disgrace that was the General's testimony and the never ending nightmare in Iraq.
Download | play 
Download | play (thanks to Scarce for the video)
Zappala spoke passionately about General Petraeus and the Bush administration and had this to say about the loss of his brother:
"As you may know my brother was sent to Iraq to work with the Iraq Survey Group, so he was actually looking for weapons of mass destruction when he was killed, and it was long after we knew that they did not exist. And so I think about what did he died for. If he died for anything it was so this never happens again -- that they don't trump evidence and reason for ideology and some negligent policy."
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Kudos to Jon Soltz for taking the Pravdans to task
Police: Bomb kills top Sunni ally working with U.S.
BAGHDAD (AP) — The most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed Thursday by a bomb planted near his home in Anbar province, 10 days after he met with President Bush, police and tribal leaders said.
Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar Awakening — an alliance of clans backing the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.
Officials said his assassination would be a huge setback for U.S. efforts in Iraq, because it sends a message to others who are cooperating with coalition forces or thinking about cooperating against al-Qaeda.
Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb planted near the tribal leader's home in Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital, said Col. Tareq Youssef, supervisor of Anbar police.
A spokesman for Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, confirmed the report.
"It is confirmed that the sheik and two of his bodyguards were killed today near or outside his home," Col. Steven Boylan said in an e-mail from Washington, where Petraeus testified before Congress this week on recent successes in Anbar province.
No group claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion fell on al-Qaeda in Iraq, which U.S. officials say has suffered devastating setbacks in Anbar thanks to Abu Risha and his fellow sheiks. It's unclear how his death would affect U.S. efforts to organize Sunnis against the terrorist network.
Abu Risha was among a group of tribal leaders who met with Bush on Sept. 3 at al-Asad Air Base in Anbar province.
It was not the first time that Abu Risha has been targeted. A suicide bomber tried and failed to kill him on Feb. 19. That same day, gunmen ambushed a minivan on the main highway from Baghdad to Anbar and killed all 13 passengers who were accused of opposing al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In June, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the lobby of Baghdad's Mansour Hotel during a meeting of U.S.-linked Sunni tribal leaders, killing 13 people and wounding 27. Among those killed was the former governor of Anbar and sheik of the al-Bu Nimir tribe, Fassal al-Guood — a key ally of Abu Risha. A day later, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.
"It is a major blow to the council, but we are determined to strike back and continue our work," said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha's group. "Such an attack was expected, but it will not deter us."
He said the bombing took place at 3:30 p.m. as Abu Risha was returning home.
A Ramadi police officer said Abu Risha had received a group of poor people at his home earlier in the day, as a gesture of charity marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said authorities believed the bomb was planted by one of the visitors.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that after the first blast that killed Abu Risha, a car bomb exploded nearby.
"The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy," Khalaf said. There were no casualties from the car bomb, he added.
After the bombing, police announced a state of emergency in Ramadi and set up additional checkpoints throughout the city, Rashid said.
Anbar police were investigating the attack, and the Interior Ministry would send a committee to assist, Khalaf added.
A senior member of Abu Risha's group, Sheik Jubeir Rashid, called the assassination a "criminal act" and blamed al-Qaeda.
"It is a major blow to the council, but we are determined to strike back and continue our work," Rashid said. "Such an attack was expected, but it will not deter us."
The Interior Ministry swiftly ordered plans for a monument built to honor Abu Risha as a "martyr," Khalaf said. It would be build either at the explosion site, or at the center of Ramadi, he said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-09-13-iraq-sheik_N.htm?csp=34
Chris Mathews is morphing...
It is a tragedy that so many people have to keep learning the same lessons over and over.
Though I am enheartened to know that people eventually get it, I'd prefer that after they get it, they remember it.
I put out some new ads myself yesterday:
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/2007/09/man-in-black.html
these are about half of them.
its ot but my oppinion , if the democrats run either obamma or clinton as thier presidential candidate id encourage dennis kucinich to run as an independent, ,im not buying either obamma or clinton they both get laid by the corporations , as for myself ill vote for kucinich im tired of loosing with the candidates the democrats come up with, when i vote i want it to count for something not just more of the same ,four more wars!
Oh don't worry, once the primaries are over, we're going to start hearing that many of the candidates have been against the war all along.
Then after the elections it will be business as usual.
I'm going to vote republican just to wake everyone the hell up!!!
SpankyTheMonkey @ 6:
SpankyTheMonkey @ 6:
the last thing a sane man would do!
scarlet p. @ 3:
Nice!
tyree @ 4:
Hi tyree. I've had calls 2 nights in a row from the Edwards' campaign. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I lost my temper with both--he wants to cut troops back to 100,000. Kucinich is the only one who has a sense about this whole invasion & occupation. Not "war".
SpankyTheMonkey @ 6:
Don't worry... your vote will be counted as "Republican" no matter who you vote for.
good morning hadenuf , this if i make it that long will probably be my last election im going out with a honest vote , our america deserves one last chance ,kucinich is it!
man
It's strange to see hardball without a winger shouting at Soltz.
It's like they are having a hard time finding wingers.
The whole segment is calling bullshit on bush and Gen. P.
wow.
Evidence
Reason
Truth
Words never spoken or understood in DC for 7+ years. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty.
Well said... that if they died for anything, it's that this kind of Iraq fake war situation never happens again.
How sad there are still some people that can't even grasp this (including the President of the U.S., and his asshole puppet/generals/killers/Republican/war mongerers).
The President and his minions may be hiding behind Petraeus as political strategy, but they are doing it with the full knowledge and consent of the general. For that he deserves our eternal scorn along with whatever impolite apellations moveon.org included in their ad, and several that they didn't: sellout, brown-noser, and watercarrier come immediately to mind.
Bush Has Already Won
On February 6, 2007, I wrote (in a note to myself and my father) that, with respect to the surge, philosophically, Bush has already won. This was true, I wrote then, of the biggest political and public policy issues facing the nation and the world -- war, civil liberties, the economy, the environment and the rule of law. You've got to hand it to the man's handlers for their strategy. They are able to go so far out on the limb of radical ideological shifts, that we wind up debating whether we need to step back from the end of the limb and not whether we should have started on that limb at all.
It is now September 12, 2007. I am facing the USA Today headline: “Bush to support troop pullback.” The story talks of Bush’s willingness to accept the plan that emerged from General Petraeus’ congressional testimony, of a gradual drawdown of 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. That number, of course, is the same number of troops that were put into Iraq under Bush’s surge plan at the beginning of 2007. So Bush’s plan is basically to achieve, by the Summer of 2008, the same level of engagement that the U.S. had in January, 2007.
This is nothing more than a retail store jacking up the price of a pair of jeans from $19.99 to $29.99, and then a couple weeks later announcing that it is having a 33% off sale. The buyer of the jeans feels like he has gotten a great deal when, in fact, he could have gotten the exact same jeans for the exact same price two weeks before the sale ever began.
For the past year, I have been struck by a legacy of Bush’s (Rove’s?) tenure that I have yet to see articulated by the media analysts – he wins fundamental national debates before they even start by his ability to frame the debate as one between his extreme view and one that is a little less extreme but is still pretty far out there. We never get to reach a conclusion in the debate between A vs. B, because Bush stakes out the A+ position, causing his critics to take the A- position, and we wind up landing on A anyway.
I don’t say this as a compliment of President Bush. I do not admire his ability to “win” before a debate starts, because I view it not as savvy result-oriented politics but as bait-and-switch deception of the American public on issues that deserve a fair and open national debate.
In January of this year, the Iraq Study Group report had been out there for a month, and the public’s frustration with progress in Iraq had reached a crescendo. The national debate was on, it was getting heated, and it was becoming meaningful. Should we formulate and begin executing an exit plan? Could we ever “win”? What were the long-term goals? These were serious questions being debated. And we never reached a resolution. We never reached a resolution because Bush came up with the “surge.” And instead the public debate started to turn to the merits of the surge. And the administration engaged in the debate, if only to say that you can’t judge the surge yet until you give it time to work. Wait until the Summer of 2007. Then wait until the General’s report in September, 2007. Now that Petraeus has joined Powell in playing the dutiful role of administration mouthpiece, I see that we are no longer debating the serious suggestions of the Iraq Study Group. Instead, we are debating whether and when we should draw down the additional surge troops. Bush has already won the debate over the Iraq Study Group’s suggestions, not by showing that they lacked merit, but by changing the debate.
You can start from the beginning of the Iraq war. There is no longer any debate about the legal or philosophic merits of starting the war. In the face of the initial concerns about whether the war could be justified legally, morally, philosophically and diplomatically, all the administration talked about was the evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the need to prevent another 9/11. By the time the pundits and the public came around to realizing there were no WMDs and no connection to 9/11, all the administration was talking about was deposing a despot and creating a democracy. By the time the pundits and the public began debating whether a democracy could truly take hold in a nation like Iraq, all the administration was talking about was the on-the-ground logistics for achieving "victory." By the time the pundits and the public got around to debating the best way to achieve that victory or at least cut our losses, we now find ourselves talking about when or whether to withdraw the surge troops.
Bush won at every step. Not by winning the national debate on a particular issue, mind you -- but by changing the national debate such that his position, revised after discussion to allow its opponents to claim victory by eliminating only its most extreme aspects, is now a given as we move on to the next debate.
It now seems to be a given that if, in fact, the bad guy over there had WMDs, then the war would have been justified. Bush has already won the first debate about the war without the nation ever reaching a substantive conclusion to this question. It should NOT be a given that unilateral, preemptive war, without international consensus, is justified because a bad guy has bad weapons. That was NEVER the law of international relations.
In 2003, I was ready to debate any and all comers on whether we should, as a nation, attack another sovereign nation just because they were ruled by a bad guy who had bad weapons. My belief then (and now) was that legally, morally and diplomatically, a unilateral attack on another nation can only be justified when that nation has attacked us or our allies or presents an “imminent threat” to our security. Even if Saddam had WMDs, there was no evidence or real suggestion that he was poised to use them against us or our allies (Rice’s “mushroom cloud” warning notwithstanding). He was largely contained, by both the watchful skepticism of the international community and the balance of power among his various neighbors. By the time the debate over when war could be justified was reaching meaningful national proportions, Bush simply dropped any precept of addressing it, and instead started talking – through Puppet Powell – about the overwhelming evidence that Saddam did have WMDs, and the not-so-subtle hints that Iraq was somehow connected to 9/11. Instead of talking about whether the attack could be justified even if the WMD claims were accurate, the national debate turned to the extent of Saddam’s WMD’s and his connections to 9/11. Bush won the first debate by reframing it.
With the focus of the national debate on whether there were WMDs or ties to 9/11, eventually it became clear that this wasn’t a debate Bush could win. In fact, the debate was becoming one of whether Bush and his folks had deliberately deceived the public. If there was a consensus resolution to that debate, I missed it. Once again, Bush simply reframed the debate by talking about what a despicable tyrant Saddam was and about how democracy in Iraq was a worthwhile goal. Suddenly, the debate became one of how to capture Saddam and what to do with him, and how to establish a democracy in Iraq. This was a debate it looked like Bush was actually winning when Saddam was captured and the Iraqis were showing off their ink-stained voting fingers. But it didn’t take too long to realize that there was nothing good prepared to replace Saddam and that the elections were hollow indeed. This was also a point where the people started asking – OK, they’ve voted and Saddam is gone, isn’t it time to bring the troops home? You know of course what comes next – Bush changed the debate. For Bush, it was now all about what the generals on-the-ground said regarding how “victory” could be attained. (Victory, presumably, referred to some sort of safe, secure country).
So, at this point and under Bush’s steering, the debate was about how some sort of military victory could be attained. A few successes but mostly failures -- as well as constant casualties -- over a several month period, and we were up to the Iraq Study Group and the national debate on how to get out of there and cut our losses. Not liking that debate, Bush came up with the surge. How far removed we are from the debate we should be having, the debate in which we are qualified to engage by reason of our being U.S. and indeed world citizens, over when it is OK to engage in a full-scale unilateral war without the support on the international community.
Why this debate is still relevant four years after the invasion and occupation is that International Law, unlike the domestic law most of us are used to considering, is created in large part by the actions of member-states (especially the larger, more influential ones). Unless the international community articulates clear denunciation of a practice -- as happens when, for example, the UN General Assembly passes a resolution denouncing the actions of some rogue nation or certain conduct in the Israeli-Palestine conflict -- the practice becomes embedded in the fabric of international law. Scholarly articles will no doubt be written about whether the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Preemptive War Principle is an accepted international legal principle now. Regardless of the outcome of such analysis, no one should be surprised the next time they hear the leader of a rogue nation justifying a unilateral strike against another sovereign nation or insular minority on the ground that "we believe they were planning to cause much harm." If the U.S. Congress really wants to debate a meaningful "non-binding resolution" regarding the Iraq War, and rebuke Bush in the process, they should pass a resolution which says that the United States does not support preemptive war in the absence of an imminent threat to our security. That used to be the preemptive war doctrine that most international legal scholars would agree existed before the Bush doctrine. Because Congress is not even considering having that debate, Bush has already won.
Blue Buddha @ 10:
Especially if you are in Ohio or Florida!
Fanon @ 16:
Dammit! You're probably right! There's got to be some way to reach all the clueless! Sorry for such a silly idea....
PETRAEUS AND CROCKER URGE PATIENCE ON … ‘VIETNAMIZATION’
There's an old saying about "the more decorations on your uniform, the less effective you are as a soldier." That was originally applied to South American generals. Petraeus is loaded! But, way to go, Tweety, I hope you have come all the way round to sanity at last.
"that they don’t trump evidence and reason for ideology and some negligent policy.”
A great line. I literally clapped when he said it.
I think it's encouraging that even Matthews is talking about the "selling" of the war. Americans can be manipulated, as we've seen, but they don't like sell jobs.
Matthews is endangering his membership in beltway pundits club. Nice work.
no fan of tweety here, but i finally think he gets it about the iraq war.
this is, what, the fourth time he's played the "I DON'T KNOW" clip on his show in two days? let's face it, the only way to hammer out a message in our society is with sound bytes, and that exchange should be played on a loop in every medium until this war ends.
matthwes hasn't changed. he's starting to realize that anti bush people are not watching his show, and there's a lot more of them than those that suck bushes ass. it's all about ratings.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/12/webb-fallon/CentCom Chief Fallon: Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickensh*t,’ ‘I Hate People Like That’In January, President Bush replaced Abizaid and Casey, who were “surge” skeptics, with Adm. William Fallon and Gen. David Petraeus. This week, Petraeus — in the first public hearings since taking on his new role — delivered his Iraq assessment to great media fanfare. But where was his boss, Admiral Fallon? Inter-Press Service suggests animosity between the two might be one reason for Fallon’s absence:
Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/12/webb-fallon/CentCom Chief Fallon: Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickensh*t,’ ‘I Hate People Like That’between the two might be one reason for Fallon’s absence:
Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
This is adminstration if first and foremost about image projection much of which is accomplished through elaborate "stagecraft." Nice of Matthews to notice and to mention it.
WARNER: . . . Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.
WARNER: Does that make America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I don’t know actually.
repeat it, again and again.
If the Dems had any brains, they would take Zappala's comments and run with it...
The only lasting contribution to democracy any of these soldiers dying in Iraq might make is the guarantee that this nation never again fight an unnecessary war of choice.
"I don't know anyone who is pro war, it's hard to find someone pro war."
i myself know one person who is, well maybe was . one of my own brothers is a republican. he voted for george. he is also a career army guy-supplies. when my mom told me that he was a republican i was angry and said 'well if he supports little georgie he aught to have to go over there in the desert and fight georgie's war.'
well they just sent my older brother to bagdhad. i wish i was making this up but there he is. a 53 year old man over in that mess.
i'm truly sorry i said that and i hope he comes back to his wife, kids and grandkids safe. but i do hope he sees and hears stuff that will open his eyes.
Bush's strategy this week is working, Tweets? The poll numbers have upticked? They've upticked to the point that he's at 30% in the Wall Street (most conservative) poll. That's a working strategy?
Solz is dead on when he says that all Bush is doing is running out the clock. That's not a working strategy. It's a cynical ploy. And if Coleman and Collins like being senators, they'll recognize it and jump ship right now.
Cant help seeing this as a "if I've lost Cronkhite, I've lost the country" moment, Tweety is so pissed about this, the perfect little meme that he could finally get his mind around to see how hopeless and absurd and tragic this is. He's not as mainstream as the networks (i.e. as Cronkhite was) in a way, but in another way he's even more emblematic, of being so determined to be centrist while in fact being fairly far right usually in his sympathies,
...anyway my point being, this means somethig.
To clarify: Bush lost the country years ago in some ways, yet there's a difference from the 1960s in that he simply ignores this fact and just barrels on, for the most part, not paying any attention. What I really mean though is that maybe the Democrats will finally get it, or even, god forbid, some more moderate Republicans. Who knows. Seems significant that Tweety has gone this ballistic though, in any case.
Thank You Jon Soltz:
I have always taught my sons there is a huge difference between playing to win and playing not to loose.
Of course I was referring to the game of Chess not war where there are lives at stake, American lives in the case of Iraq.
Iraq is a Political game now, and the political strategy is to save face, run out the clock, and to do so by not loosing.
We are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario and more time, money, and killing will not fix the situation in Iraq.
tyree @ 8:
Yes, sane people kill 44 million babies since Roe vs Wade.
a guy @ 33:
Its hard to change what you believe to be right unless your a Democrat or moderate.
Negative press is partly responsible for the polls, if you believe polls.
But then when 92% vote Democrat in the media, why be bi-partisan like they should be. And by the way the Democrat-controlled congress is 18%.
Fanon @ 18:
Or Democrat in New Jersey, New orleans, Chicago, Miami and on and on...
PLEASE make the video clips "right clickable" to copy and send to others. downloading and then trying to email them is just a PAIN in the A**.
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