It seems to me that this answer should please no one - neither the Iraq war-hating majority of Democrats nor the hawkish minority, who tend to be the sort that would say we "lost our nerve" if we left over high casualties.

But what do I know? I'm not the manager of a long-leading-in-the-polls-but-now-stuck-in-second-place campaign, I guess.

Hell, in many ways I agree with both her and McCain. The old "you broke it, you bought it" thing. I most certainly didn't support the invasion, but what's done is done, and I don't think we can now just cut and run and tell them to go fuck themselves. Much as I'd like to.

What a weird criterion: we stop fighting when we have lost too many people. Forget Churchill and his streets and hills and beaches. A war can be casually put aside if we are losing too many.

Conversely we should start wars so long as we will have low casualties? And Clinton is considered a wonk?

Seems to me that it is not a good idea to get into a war unless you believe and will act as if must truly be a battle to the death.

John Aravosis doesn't need "a lot of room" in Clinton's comments to go off on her. There are zero possible combinations or sequences of words in the English language that would not cause him to go apeshit on the subject of Hillary Clinton.

@2 - Except, we broke it and can't fix it. The only way for the United States to prevent a civil war in Iraq is to nuke the entire country, killing all inhabitants. Since that solution has some (hopefully obvious) flaws, I think the outcome will be the same whether we leave next month or in 10 years.

yeah that dumb bitch Hillary!!!!!
The only proper Democratic viewpoint is to say "bring our troops home from any country at all, even if there's no casualties being suffered, no war going on, and no sectarian violence!!!!!!"

That's why the God Obama and all the REAL DEMOCRATS are saying get out of the Philippines....no troops in South Korea...no troops in Turkey! None in Israel or Dubai or Kuwait! That's the consistent Obama position, isn't it? No troops anywhere!!

Oh wait that's not the Obama position that's the Ron Paul position. Well fuck that dumb bitch Hillary anyway!

Unity, consistency, unity, rah rah rah !!!!

I bet ECB is searching the web right this second for an Obama quote so she can say "Yeah, but...."

unpc, you're getting hysterical. again.

i agree with 5. we'll fight for an indeterminate period of years, finally leave, and the thing that wanted to happen after saddam was deposed will finally happen anyway: civil war. and what was the net gain for us and them? net loss, that's what. so stupid.

@5 - I think you meant to say "nuke Saudi Arabia".

Since they're the ones actually providing more than 90 percent of the funding for attacks on US forces worldwide.

I guess what the Iraqis want is irrelevant.

One would think more reasonable questions to ask are; do we have a national security interest (is this country a threat to us), what do the Iraqis want, and are we helping the situation? A good argument can be made for no, no, and no.

I have to wonder if we transported the Clinton of today back to the late 60s what her position on the Vietnam War might be. I suspect it would be a lot closer to McCain's than the Hillary of the 1960s.

There are no good options left. Staying there until they learn to get along will take a couple generations, untold casualties on both sides, and bankrupt us in the process, assuming it doesn't descend into civil war anyways.

If we announce we're leaving, it'll create a strong incentive for the government to get its shit together. That's about as best as can be hoped for I think.

Comparisons to Germany, Japan and Korea don't work. We didn't start WW2 or the Korean war. When the Third Reich fell the German people welcomed Americans as liberators. The Marshall Plan in Europe and similar efforts to rebuild Japan and South Korea when hostilities ended helped ensure a lasting friendship between these countries and the US. I don't recall hearing about roadside bombs and IEDs outside Seoul or Berlin killing soldiers stationed there.

There is no equivalent in the Iraq of 2008. The Iraqis don't want us there. We marched into their country uninvited because Bush (correctly) believed that the majority of Americans were gullible enough to believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Now we're stuck there--chaos if we stay and chaos if we leave. My guess is the only thing that will bring stability to Iraq is the emergence of a strongman dictatorship who will put a lid on the sectarian violence. In other words, we overthrew one monstrous dictator and created the conditions for another one to take his place. Were 4000 American and countless thousands Iraqi lives worth it?

This basically just means that John McCain's 100 years in Iraq quote, which is effective to use against him politically, is simply not available to HRC. Yet another gaping hole in her "I'm more electable" argument.

"Once again, Hillary’s attempt to pretend she’s a Republican has shot us in the ass."

She Ain't pretending!

John Aravosis is nothing but a lying hypocrite. I VOTED FOR OBAMA and I hope to hell he wins, BUT! Bloggers like Aravosis, Daily Kos, et al sound just as bad as the right wing blogs that do nothing but spew hate, hate, hate. Stop the hate already!!!

Well, there's Hillary's John Kerry moment. Can we please be done with her, now?

RainMan: You really need to go back and study your history. To say "the German people welcomed Americans as liberators" is a significant misrepresentation.

There were no cheering crowds like there were in France. In 1945, your typical German was happy the war was over, happy to be rid of Hitler, but still wary of the Americans (although certainly not as wary as of the Soviets) and painfully aware of his country's defeat and occupation. Over the next few years, numerous conflicts flared between the occupation authorities and the German populace over specific decisions and the degree of German autonomy. (There was, for example, a riot in Munich when the Americans decided that, to ensure an adaquate food supply, yeast would be used for bread instead of beer.)

I'd say that the situations in Germany and Iraq at the start of their respective occupations were rather closly analogous. The analogy diverges to the extent that the U.S. then proceeded to totally botch the occupation of Iraq, whereas it pulled off the occupation of Germany pretty well. (That may have something to do with the fact that the troop:population ratio in Germany was 1:10, but was only 1:200 in Iraq.)

@19, what's someone with actual historical facts doing on slog? I thought only comments filled with bs and hyperbole were allowed...moderator!

@11 - Sadly, you are right. If anyone really cared about what they wanted, the occupation would have ended years ago.

How lucky we are in the USA that no other nation decided that we couldn't settle our differences on our own. Imagine if Spain had decided that the system of slavery in this country was barbaric and had to be stopped. (By them.)

Suppose when our Civil War broke out, some other nation decided it would be in our best interest to invade. Whose side would they choose, or would they simply battle both sides, and then decide for us what kind of government we should have.

And we, being too fragile after the war to take care of ourselves, rebuild our own infrastructure, and live in peace with one another, needed to be occupied for the next 100 years. Just the necessary troops to maintain the peace, and make sure that the system of government they installed stayed in place - regardless of what we ourselves wanted.

Or - imagine if, because of the sins committed by our current administration, it happened today. How long would we let them stay? When would we stopping trying to kill them? I doubt we would stop while one remained.

But because we "broke it" we should continue to sacrifice our young men and women? How about we train everyone who supports the war and let them go. How about we send the sons and daughters of those who don't mind making the sacrifice.

the larger question is whether the USA has a RIGHT to be an imperial power in iraq, the phillipines, korea, hell, diego garcia. that aside, we cannot AFFORD to project our power globally at this burn rate.

Once John Kerry started agreeing with Bush his campaign was finished. Bad move Hillary. No Republican is going to choose her over McCain if she fails to differentiate herself on key issues. They will vote for who they are more comfortable with.

However, Republicans who disagree with the how the war has been run and know that the gas tax holiday is total bullshit could be pursuaded if Obama stays strong.