Comments on Stranger Q&A with Rep. Brian Baird

i respect and understand his position. i also think he's dead wrong.

“I'm going to listen to what Gen. David Patraeus, the best mind in counterinsurgency, and [U.S. Ambassador Ryan] Crocker have to say. I am going to listen to these people. And by the way, these are good people. These are not the same people who have been failing in Iraq all along. And just telling us what we want to hear.”

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.

How do we get out of Iraq? Same way we got in: ships and planes.

Baird talked a lot about what everyone wants except for the Iraqi people, the majority of whom apparently want us to stop raping their country and leave.

How am I supposed to respect the position of a man who uses "ask" as a noun?

baird can suck it.

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.

maxsolomon @ 6,

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

No doubt Rep. Tool will get his six months of more surge, and then we'll get to see whether there's a draw down or another extension of tours of duty. In the meantime, if you do a follow-up, Josh, could you ask him to give his indicators for how "things are improving" in Iraq? He's a little vague in his claims. See Kevin Drum for some empirical data (based on the Brookings Iraq Index) on how violence is up and infrastructure is down since the surge started. You might also ask him if he knows how one of his sources, the current prime minister of the Palestinians, got into power.

Oh my dear god, he did not just tell you we're one Friedman Unit away from success in Iraq...

The Friedman Unit has its own Wikipedia article? God damn do I love the internets.

Levislade @5- I'm guessing that you aren't and have never been involved in politics or any kind of fundraising. Using "ask" as a noun is common and accepted in those worlds. As a politician Mr. Baird knows that nearly everyone who asks to meet with him has "an ask". When you're trying to raise money, your entire conversation is built around "the ask".

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

Hmmm...I wasn't aware that Mahmoud Abbas had "skin the game," but we didn't. I figured with trillions of dollars, thousands of dead, and tens of thousands injured, we kind of had some stake in this decision too.

I am from Rep. Baird's district and I, for one, have never been so proud of an elected official. We seriously fucked up Iraq and it's perfectly valid to think that we have a moral obligation to try and repair some of the damage done before we leave. He knows that this war is horrible and, hello, HE'S AGAINST IT. But if a complete abandonment would be worse than staying six more months, maybe it's worth a shot. Instead of cavalierly admitting, "Yeah, genocide's gonna happen anyway" maybe it'll help.

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.

Travis, did Rep. Baird have his cock in your butt as you typed that ringing endorsment of the man?
FYI, we are not there to stabilise the county, we are there for the oil. Divide and counquor as we steal their resourses is as old as Rome.

OK.

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.

Gita @ 12 - Abbas is the president of the Palestinians, not the prime minister. The prime minister is Salam Fayyad, who was installed after Abbas dissolved the elected government of Ismail Haniyeh in June.

Sounds just like Mitt Romney's dad, George: "I was brainwashed."

I am an active Democratic Party member in Skamania County - part of Brian's district. We will have a viable primary opponent for Baird, unless he recants (and apologizes to the Iraquis and to the U.S. servicepeople who will die, be wounded, develop PTSD, etc. due to) his unsupportable position to reenforce the Bush administration's occupation.

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".

Baird needs to be defeated.

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.

People were not satisfied with me because they've made up their minds and [think] I should do what they want.

I thought representatives were supposed to represent their constituents.

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