Monday, November 20th, 2006

QOD: "the great riddle of the American Deomocratic experience is the fickle nature of our PUBLIC OPINION." Thomas Huxley

TPNS: Bush in Indonesia...the largest Muslim majority Democracy in the world...their president is a moderate and supportive of the USA...yet, the vast majority of the Muslim majority in Indonesia do not like Prez Bush [big surprise!]...in any event when Bush was asked today about the protester in Indonesia, he commented that it was a good thing in that it demonstrated that "freedom of assembly and freedom of expression" were available to the Indonesian peoples...which is a good thing.

McLaughlin Group--the highlights from todays program--
Topics on McLaughlin---if itz in bold itz important!

Send In More Troops? General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command and the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that sending in more U.S. forces into Iraq would “prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.” Abizaid also testified that the U.S. could send in “20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect. But when you look at the overall American force pool that's available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. “Let's get this straight. Abizaid says more troops would be better, but we don't have enough. And anyway, more troops make the Iraqis rely too much on us. And anyway, things are better now than in August. But even though things are better, we would not advocate bringing home any troops. Is that a fair summary?” -John McLaughlin

“I'm honored to be a part of this leadership team to support Mitch McConnell and all of my colleagues to do a job that I've always really loved the most - count the votes,” says Senator Trent Lott, the former GOP Majority Leader, who was elected by his fellow Republicans to be their new Senate minority whip. “I would hope that Trent Lott learned something and has done some soul-searching since he made those remarks. He after all voted against the Voting Rights Act, voted against Martin Luther King's birthday. He does have a history. I think he's broadened his perspective as a result of that humiliation. But this is payback time, and he's going to get back at a White House that humiliated him and engineered his dumping. And so I see Trent Lott as a savvy inside player, and he's good for the Democrats. He's independent of the White House.” -Eleanor Clift

Is Iraq Now Vietnam? The Senate brought top U.S. military chieftains to testify on the Iraq war: General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command and the top U.S. commander in the Middle East; Michael Maples, director of Defense Intelligence (DIA); and Michael Hayden, director of the CIA. Senator John Warner was the chairman, and reminded General Abizaid of the last time he testified – on August 3rd – when Abizaid stated, "I believe the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it in Baghdad in particular. And if it's not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move to a civil war.” Senator Warner asked the General whether he would restate, add to, or amend his August comment. “A lot of the sectarian violence is down. It's still at unacceptably high levels. I wouldn't say that we have turned the corner in this regard, but it's not nearly as bad as it was back in August. And I am encouraged by that,” replied Abizaid. DIA Director Maples had this to say about violence in Iraq “It continues to increase in scope, complexity and lethality.” CIA Director Hayden testified that Iraq’s security forces are “plagued by sectarianism” with “maintenance and logistics problems” and the “civilian bureaucracy is buffeted by inefficiency and partisan control.”

John McLaughlin asks if Maples’ and Hayden’s testimonies contradict Abizaid’s.

“The problem today is the Iraqi government can't solve the political problem, and the Iraqi military and the current level of American military can't stop the violence problem. Since the Iraqi government, which we've been so proud of, can't solve the problem, we have to either get out or we've got to try to solve the political problems ourselves and increase troop strength. If we don't do those two things, then we might as well decide that we're going to get out. But this idea of counting whether violence is up or down each week or month and waiting for a dysfunctional Iraqi government to solve problems it's incapable of solving is a formula for failure..” -Tony Blankley