Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Thu 09/23/2004 View Wed 09/22/2004 View Tue 09/21/2004 View Mon 09/20/2004 View Sun 09/19/2004 View Sat 09/18/2004 View Fri 09/17/2004
1
2004-09-23 Home Front: Politix
Kerry: Allawi doesn't know what he's talking about
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by Dar 2004-09-23 1:32:42 PM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Maybe you could go to Iraq and see for yourself, Sen. JoKe. If, that is, you ever come back from Vietnam.
Posted by BH 2004-09-23 1:37:47 PM||   2004-09-23 1:37:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 What a small pathetic man.
Posted by Bill Nelson 2004-09-23 1:42:30 PM||   2004-09-23 1:42:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 HEHEHEHE-Oh this day is getting better and better.

John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq’s Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face’’ on Bush administration policy.
Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.

Let's say Kerry is elected, and is right about January elections being unlikely. So Allawi is still in place. KERRY WILL BUILD STRONGER ALLIANCES (Kerry campaign booming voice) sounds like a pretty high bar to jump, especially after he's just talked about the interim leader of Iraq as being something like a PR agent for the Bush administration.

(Sound of hands rapidly rubbing together...)
Posted by jules 187 2004-09-23 2:05:50 PM||   2004-09-23 2:05:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq’s Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face’’ on Bush administration policy.

actually this is damning - to Kerry. If Kerry has a better plan for Iraq, which would get Euro troops, etc - why is Allawi eager to present the best face for Bush? Its not like one can say hes a neocon stooge like Chalabi - is it cause Allawi is afraid Kerry will favor someone else - but who? The natural conclusion is that Allawi if afraid Kerry will cut and run, and is not afraid Bush will do that, pace Novak.
Posted by liberalhawk 2004-09-23 2:16:37 PM||   2004-09-23 2:16:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 So Kerry's now beating his chest like a Macho Man over Iraq? What a pathetic, repugnant turd (no offense to excrement intended).
Posted by Xbalanke  2004-09-23 2:16:51 PM||   2004-09-23 2:16:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm John Kerry and I'm a pompous ass
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-23 2:25:43 PM||   2004-09-23 2:25:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I listened to Allawi's speech. He not so subtly bitchslapped Kerry all over the place with references to the numerous and brave coalition partners, how cutting and running would be disastrous to us and to them, how giving a withdrawal date would lead to accelerated violence, how the US and Iraq are together fighting the GWoT, etc. (Karl Rove did a masterful job writing this speech.) /sarcasm. It leaves Kerry in the lame position of arguing that the Prime Minister of Iraq doesn't know what's going on in his own country but the MSM (who are mostly pulling for a Kerry win) does. What a jackass!
Posted by Tibor 2004-09-23 2:32:50 PM||   2004-09-23 2:32:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I propose that we send Thurston to go run against Allawi in the Iraqi elections. He seems to have a much better grasp of the situation there...
Posted by Seafarious  2004-09-23 2:45:19 PM||   2004-09-23 2:45:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 The strategy here is to let the disaffected or apathetic Iraqi people experience life under the terrorists and, when they do, watch them BEG for Coalition troops to come in and restore order.

Really? It seems to me that such a strategy is only significantly different in scale and not in kind from "let's leave the whole of Iraq to let them experience life under Sadr, and in a couple decades when they are BEGGING for us to return, we'll come in and restore order".

You are in essense saying that the withdrawal is already taking place, in a smaller scale. Since withdrawing from the whole country at once would shame you, you are only withdrawings from select neighborhood at first, and then withdrawing from cities, and then withdrawing from whole regions.

How's that different in nature from withdrawing from the whole of Iraq and letting it experience life under Islamofascism as a whole?

How will scared people be any less scared or prone to ask for your help if you show them that you have no power over the thugs that drove your army out of their cities?

If you want to withdraw and abandon Iraq to Islamofascism do so, if you want to stay and try to smash Islamofascism, do so. But it seems to me you are doing the former while just saying you are trying to do the latter. How come Sadr is untouchable for example? (In the case of Saddam there were all those attempted decapitation strikes, if you remember. Him you were actually trying to remove).

Will this tactic change after the elections? Let us hope. But frankly I doubt it.
Posted by Aris Katsaris  2004-09-23 2:48:41 PM||   2004-09-23 2:48:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 If you want to know why Sadr is "untouchable" ask the Iraqis. Their country, their call.

Besides that, Sadr will become a trivia question.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-23 3:19:41 PM||   2004-09-23 3:19:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Aris, you lost the context as you got deeper and deeper into your rant. "The strategy" refers to those areas that we do not now control. They represent a small portion of the 25 million people of Iraq. The large, large majority of the people need to move on with their elections. The rest of the people can join in after their local thugs are subdued.

By Kerry's standard we would delay the U.S. election if anarchy broke out in San Francisco, Berkely, and Beacon Hill.
Posted by Tom 2004-09-23 3:21:11 PM||   2004-09-23 3:21:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Aris, please come back when you have your wits again. You appear to have lost them.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-09-23 3:39:48 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com]  2004-09-23 3:39:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I’m just spit balling here but the strategy is to all the Iraqis handle Fullujah and Sadr. If the Iraqis capture Sadr and the foreign fighters it will boost confidence in the new government. Yes they will need U.S. Air and probably tank support but those should be Iraqi boots kicking in Sadr’s door and hauling him away. The people that have had to live in his SELF MADE squalor will line the streets and cheer after his removal. Of course I am just wagging (Wild Ass Guessing).
Posted by Cyber Sarge  2004-09-23 3:47:02 PM||   2004-09-23 3:47:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Aris--I see no need to defend what I said, because you have twisted and exaggerated it into something completely different. If you can't see the difference between letting a few uncooperative neighborhoods experience life under the thugs for a few weeks and a complete withdrawal from Iraq to let Sadr rule for two decades, then I might as well talk to the wall.

As for Sadr, I would love to see him swinging from a lamp pole and I don't know why he hasn't been introduced to a Hellfire a long time ago. To address your question, I don't know why he's untouchable. I would have liked to seen him "touched" good and hard months ago.
Posted by Dar  2004-09-23 3:51:25 PM||   2004-09-23 3:51:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 "Aris, please come back when you have your wits again. You appear to have lost them."

Robert, not sure why but, for some reason the above invoked an image of unicorn.
Posted by Memesis 2004-09-23 3:57:32 PM||   2004-09-23 3:57:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 KERRY WILL BUILD STRONGER ALLIANCES (Kerry campaign booming voice) sounds like a pretty high bar to jump, especially after he's just talked about the interim leader of Iraq as being something like a PR agent for the Bush administration.

In the context of "building alliances", there's only one possible reason why Allawi seemingly carries little importance in Kerry's eyes: Allawi isn't French.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-09-23 4:00:41 PM||   2004-09-23 4:00:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Since withdrawing from the whole country at once would shame you...

As an American, I wouldn't feel shamed; I would feel saddened. Sad that a once in a lifetime opportunity was squandered. Sad that all those coalition lives lost, all those hostages' lives lost, were sacrificed to those who preferred pride and fear to hopeful courage and a meaningful struggle for self-governance. Sad that the Iraqi people were given a remarkable opportunity-not a painless one, not one without death, but a rare one, where other countries fought to remove a psychopathic dictator and make Iraq a better place-and the Iraqi people, through terror, in some cases, through a misguided notion that outsiders should never be trusted and only had self-interest as motivation in other cases, and through blaming others for the shortcomings of their own nation's people, allowed the chance to slip by. Sad that after this, the US will have less reason and incentive to intervene in countries where mass murderers and tyrants deliver peoples their mass graves. All this doesn't lead to shame-it leads to sadness.
Posted by jules 187 2004-09-23 4:06:19 PM||   2004-09-23 4:06:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 John Forbes Kerry: "Ich bin ein Idiot."

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2004-09-23 4:15:36 PM||   2004-09-23 4:15:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Has Kerry ever been to Iraq? How would he know what is happening there outside of the MSM?
Posted by CrazyFool  2004-09-23 4:35:06 PM||   2004-09-23 4:35:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 I think we should let Kerry keep talking about everything. He seems to be on a roll as of late -- a roll in the opposite direction of his goal. So let him, his family members, campaign planners, CBS, everyone keep talking. They're doing more harm to the Kerry Presidential run than any vast right-wing conspiracy could ever do.
Posted by nada 2004-09-23 4:45:59 PM||   2004-09-23 4:45:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Bingo. If Kerry's handlers were smart, they'd find a way for Thurston to break a leg windsurfing and pack Maria Teresa off to a remote cabin at Canyon Ranch. The first candidate in my lifetime whose poll numbers rise only when he's hustled out of sight.
Posted by lex 2004-09-23 5:18:04 PM||   2004-09-23 5:18:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Cut Aris some slack. He was in the great Polish Earthquake.
Posted by Shipman 2004-09-23 5:37:28 PM||   2004-09-23 5:37:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 the great Polish Earthquake

Sounds like a great setup for a joke. Anyone care to supply a punchline?
Posted by lex 2004-09-23 5:43:26 PM||   2004-09-23 5:43:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Just had a thought on "inability to vote", especially in Sunni areas:

Were the Confederates (initially) allowed to vote once the Civil War ended, much less have authority over emancipatory changes??
Posted by Edward Yee  2004-09-23 5:49:38 PM|| [http://edwardyee.fanworks.net]  2004-09-23 5:49:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 lol shipman..
Posted by Dan 2004-09-23 5:50:40 PM||   2004-09-23 5:50:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Off topic but humorous...

YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS BUT....

I did a search on Google News :

"Kerry Ohio Iraq" and sorted by date

The first enrty was rushlinbaugh.com
THe 2nd was "MUNSTER TIMES"
Google pulled the article paper from Munster IN

(Herman) Munster Times

Is it an Omen??? (good I hope)
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-23 6:17:36 PM||   2004-09-23 6:17:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Robert, you never believed I had any wits to begin with, so how could I lose them? Be consistent at least.

Cyber Sarge, I've not yet seen any evidence of that. This is just one more claim that tries to make all the bad things that happen "part of our Deep and Cunning Plan(tm)". The problem is that in practice this Deep and Cunning Plan (tm) doesn't seem significantly different to what the enemy would have wanted also. People here have made a dozen guesses about "what we really plan to do (tm)" about Sadr and they've all failed. Nope, he's NOT been evicted to Iran. Nope he's NOT been retained in Najaf. Nope we were NOT just expecting Sistani to pretend to leave for surgery, so that we can whack Sadr at ease and let Sistani maintain deniability.

Again and again the bits of our Deep and Cunning Plan About Sadr (tm) that actually involve *stopping* the bastard are disproven, and the only bits that are fulfilled are the ones about letting him be untouchable on his own person, be the prominent "Face of the Resistance" + regional leader of the Caliphate-Reborn, and we occasionally just whack one or two of his lowly followers in order to save face.

Mrs. Davis, "their country, their call" didn't work for tyrants like Saddam, and shouldn't have worked for tyrants like Sadr either. If Allawi's too scared of Sadr to even *ask* for US assistance to remove him, wouldn't you say that's a problem?
Posted by Aris Katsaris  2004-09-23 6:26:04 PM||   2004-09-23 6:26:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Couple points or whatever:

1) "What a small pathetic man" >Bill how about "what a tall pathetic man?"

2) Lex > skerry's handlers are definitely not smart, he hired a couple guys clinton fired IIRC. And clinton got skerry to hire them on his own campaign! HAHAHA. The huxter strikes again from the hospital bed...too f'n funny.

3) Lex > how's this punchline for #24 - "or what happens when michael moore's eating pierogies at his favorite krakow restaurant......."

4) "If Allawi's too scared of Sadr to even *ask* for US assistance to remove him, wouldn't you say that's a problem?"

>*If* that is indeed the case then maybe a problem. The fact is none of us knows what is going on behind the close doors in Baghdad. I would dearly like to know the thinking behind the IGC's policy wrt sadr but fail to see it. However, after we turned over the show to them we in essence have to go w/the flow. I would have personally like to have put a round through sadr's grape but maybe there is some down the road reason for Allawi/Sistani et al to want him alive for now....his being left to live does not sit well w/me either. I think after we lost good guys going after this buffet jockey only to be told to abort his final removal from the earth is a slap in the face to a degree. However, that's just me.
Posted by Jarhead 2004-09-23 6:51:51 PM||   2004-09-23 6:51:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 "or what happens when michael moore's eating pierogies at his favorite krakow restaurant......."

eeeuuuwww! Best keep your day job, jarhead.
Posted by lex 2004-09-23 6:59:29 PM||   2004-09-23 6:59:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Sorry lex, all I'm good for is taking pot shots at jabba the buffet jockey.
Posted by Jarhead 2004-09-23 7:10:29 PM||   2004-09-23 7:10:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 now that brought a smile, thx :^)
Posted by lex 2004-09-23 7:11:10 PM||   2004-09-23 7:11:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 mmmmmmmm..... pierogies........ (drooling Homer Simpson......)
Posted by nada 2004-09-23 7:29:59 PM||   2004-09-23 7:29:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 Allawi lives in Iraq under the daily threats of the enemy.

Has Kerry been to Iraq since Saddam was overthrown?

Think of Kerry during World War Two.
Posted by Mark Espinola 2004-09-23 7:52:02 PM||   2004-09-23 7:52:02 PM|| Front Page Top

13:27 Dreadnought
12:59 lex
12:44 Bulldog
12:29 Bulldog
04:23 Sock Puppet of Doom
02:30 SCpatriot
02:06 lex
00:37 Rafael
00:21 trailing wife
00:20 Zenster
00:05 tipper
23:58 Atomic Conspiracy
23:53 OldSpook
23:43 tibor
23:10 cingold
23:00 Cyber Sarge
22:54 Dave D.
22:53 Jarhead
22:44 Mike Sylwester
22:44 Jarhead
22:41 Jarhead
22:40 Sock Puppet of Doom
22:38 Sock Puppet of Doom
22:38 Steve White









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com