Massa hammers Kuhl on Iraq
The Massa campaign is really hammering Kuhl on Iraq on the heels of Joe Dunning’s piece in the Corning Leader (where Dunning says Kuhl will lose in 2008 over Iraq):
“It is clear after closely watching the testimony yesterday that the surge, which my opponent has wholeheartedly supported, even while being ’skeptical,’ has failed,” said 24 year Veteran and former Aide to the Commander of NATO Eric Massa. “General Petraeus stated that our military must now hold the current troop surge level until next summer, but I remember reading an article in the Olean Times Herald in August of 2006 where my opponent suggested that we would start bringing the troops home by last Christmas. The conversation about Iraq has indeed taken a turn for the worse. Rather than having the conversation of ‘did the surge work or not,’ we are now discussing the impossible - namely sustaining the enormous spike in our deployment that’s been rapidly breaking our military for an additional year. We don’t have the troops to do this and we simply cannot afford to spend anymore American lives on this three way civil war. The longer we stay, the worse it gets and I refuse to sit on the sidelines while American military personnel continue to pay the ultimate price for George Bush and Randy Kuhl’s failed strategy in Iraq — this while the Iraqi government goes on two month vacations.”
Here’s the Olean Herald Times article of which Massa is speaking.
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Excellent! More like this from Dems nationwide, please!
Exile:
I understand the “political” argument Massa made in that statement, but what is his “policy” on Iraq, al-Qaeda, radical Islamic fundamentalism, etc.?
Are we to assume that if we just get out of Iraq, al-Qaeda and their ilk will just go home and leave us alone? Do you and Mr. Massa believe that we can talk Iran out of developing nukes? Do you believe we can talk Syria and Iran from backing Hamas and Hesbollah in their efforts against Israel?
Look, I agree that the current situation is a mess and that the Bush administration conducted the war badly. It honestly appears, however, that the modest progress from the surge could lead to a gradual withdrawal of our troops. I have been under the impression that there is a growing consensus for that approach, because of the risk that an abrupt withdrawal could lead to Darfur-like bloodshed.
So, what’s the post withdrawal strategy? Just blame Bush ’cause he started it, so anything bad that happens after is his fault? All I find from the left is “get out now”. But what about the day after?
I’ve heard Massa speak on this a number of times and here’s basically what I think his position is:
1: Separate the warring factions - this is happening already through civil war, but we need to make it our concerted objective.
2: Allow the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds form three semi autonomous states with a government of their own choosing (rather than imposing a Jeffersonian Democracy on them).
3: Leave
Long story short, his plan is the same plan that worked in Bosnia without a single American fatality… and here we are a decade later and Bosnia is about to join the E.U.
There is not magic on/off switch and it will take us upwards of another year to get everything out, but we are slowly bleeding away our troops and resources. Honestly, I think we’d be in a much better position to negotiate with the neighboring states when (and if) they are convinced that we’re no longer a cowboy nation that will invade anywhere just because we want to.
Thoughts?
That sounds like the consensus plan that I’ve been reading about lately. If that’s been Massa’s idea all along, I salute him for it. But I don’t hear that in the statement Exile quoted.
Unfortunately, Mr. Massa, like most politicians, often uses corrosive rhetoric and perjoratives to make political points. Why not let the policy positions speak for themselves?
John, thanks for the questions.
Let me just say a bit more about your first one: On the question of if we leave would they leave us alone, my answer would be that I don’t think Al Qaeda attacking us here is that connected with whether we’re there or not. Al Qaeda is not that prominent in Iraq — they’re mostly in Pakistan. The Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq is called “Al Qaeda in Iraq” and seems to only have about 850 members in it. Many of the high profile attacks seem to have been from former Baathists, not from those connected with Al Qaeda.
It’s important to note that Iraq is mostly a Shiite country, while Al Qaeda is Sunni, Also, Iraqi Sunnis are relatively secular and by no means practitioners of Wahhabism, which is the (very extremist) set of religious beliefs that motivates Osama bin Laden and his followers.
Obviously, the situation in Iraq is very complicated, but I don’t think that Al Qaeda figures that prominently in any of it.
It is interesting to me that we’re able to have good discussions with different points of view that actually look at the issues here in these discussions. I wish Washington DC were better at this kind of thing. I’m not blaming the politicians here — I’m blaming the press. They really have not done a good job at describing the underlying issues here.
This has been Massa’s plan all along. He’s consistently expressed it since the beginning of the 2006 campaign. It isn’t explicity in this press release, but it’s been on his website for two years. The shorthand he uses for it is “responsible redeployment” which was the headline of the press release Exile quoted.
The fact that he’s repeated himself so many times yet hasn’t been heard goes to your second point: Massa and other politicians are always putting in little zings in the hope that what they say will rise up out of the noise. Unfortunate but true. “Rubber Stamp” is one.