Cue the laugh track. Attention Congressman Baird, I just time-warped back from General Petraeus’ testimony and he said that “war is hard, but we’ve turned a corner and we’re not sure who but someone’s in their final throes and we just need six more months for the next 10 years, blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah.” Gee, that's a surprise.

Petraeus Ex Machina! Presto: Here’s $50 Billion more for the War and Occupation from the Congressional ATM!

Since Petraeus is the expert, why aren’t we following his counterinsurgency manual which calls for 500,000 troops? Have you heard of the Googles?

Why do we even bother with this pathetic charade?

What grotesque fools.

you can't put lipstick on this pig. its over. when you lose a war, you retreat. the genocide & partition that will follow our retreat is unavoidable.

and the stranger deserves a kick in the ass for condescending to those with the balls to stand up & tell a congressman to eat shit, no matter how emotional they got.

bush must be humiliated before he leaves office.

In USA, Bush does the self-humiliation for you.

Don't hate because you aren't down with the lingo.

And even if he's wrong, and I personally think he might be wrong, I fully respect his ability to state what he honestly believes without simply abandoning his free will and parroting the party line.

In summation, Brian Baird is awesome and I am proud that he represents me.

So, supposing six months go by, and the situation in Iraq after that is sort of "yeah, pretty much the same, maybe with a different armed faction grabbing more of the US headlines."

Or whatever.

Point being, can you get Baird on record saying "if things haven't improved in six months, I'll be advocating a different strategy?"

This, after all, is the fundamental nature of the Friedman Unit— for those who invoke it, the imaginable Better Situation is always in the future.

What length of time is Baird willing to GO ON RECORD as saying he'll wait for an improvement? Is he also willing to say he'll take a DIFFERENT position if things don't work out as well as he'd like?

There's a reason Friedman's opinions are completely bankrupt today, and that reason is entirely due to his shameful and continuing refusal to acknowledge the naivety of his (one Friedman unit prior) positions. Oh, and maybe due to his repeating the same delusional pattern over and over again, but I don't pretend to be a fucking shrink.

I do not join in the vitriolic attacks on Baird, but I fully understand your reaction. The debacle in Iraq is enough to cause apoplexy in any moral, rational person. Having said that, Brian is mostly on the side of veterans and working people politically, so that's the good news. However, I don't think that it will be difficult to find someone who supports similar positions but has his/her head screwed on right viz. Iraq.

I do have two observations from this latest interview input. First, I wonder about this soldier who showed up for the Longview meeting on Tuesday. Anybody know what unit, where stationed? Basically, I'm wondering if the Army sent a plant after the Monday meeting in Vancouver.

Secondly, I have heard Brian make this strange "argument" concerning input from Jordanian and Egyptian (and now Palestinian) officials before. It's always accompanied by his caveat that he can't discuss details of their discussions, but "they" want the U.S. to stay in Iraq, because otherwise the shit's going to hit the fan in their locales, too. And sometimes these "officials" have some kind of plan that they're working on to make things better. Sure would be nice to know what these plans might look like, but I guess that We, the People are just not as trustworthy as these "officials".

If he truly believes in this war then he needs to commit to going back to Washington, DC and introducing legislation to increase taxes to pay for it. Let's see if he is courageous enough and believes enough in the war to increase taxes to pay for it.

As it stands now Baird and other members of Congress who vote to fund the war are being cowards. Funding for the war isn't being paid for today through taxes it's being paid for by deficit spending. So future generations of American taxpayers will have to pay for this war plus interest.

So Brian, if you truly believe we need to stay in Iraq show me the money and support a tax increase.

I thought representatives were supposed to represent their constituents.

No, he won't represent his constituents. He'll do what he wants.