Welcome back Congresswoman Harman

What do the Republicans say about the attacks in other countries who are allies? London and Madrid may not be "here" but it is not "over there" either. Do they seem to have any sense of that?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Thank you for returning to talk.

I must compliment you and Nancy Pelosi for invoking the grandmother sisterhood:

Pelosi, to Jim Lehrer, countered the description of her as a liberal Democrat from San Franciso saying "I am an Italian Catholic mother of five, grandmother of five, going on six."

How does your view coming back from a Sept 2005 visit to Iraq look now:

My message to senior officials was that the US is running out of time to get it right in Iraq and risks losing the hearts and minds of the American public.

I calculate 3 months - culminating with the December 15 election - to persuade the American public that real progress is being made and there is a success strategy in sight

...I believe we need to do 4 concrete things now.

1.     Get the power on ... 
2.     Get the oil out ....
3.     Get the government ministries going...
4.     Get Zarqawi

"You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism." That's a good sound-bite.

On CNN, I saw the clip where you say this.

Wrong answer. It's a bad sound bite. The lesson from the Taliban's opposition to the Russians in Afghanistan is that you do in fact create terrorism by fighting it militarily. You stop terrorism using the techniques used by the British against the IRA, by the Spanish against the Basques--intelligence, penetration, and shifting of economic incentives. As the NIE states, waging an imperial military effort against a sovereign nation will only increase the number of people who will use asymmetric methods of battle.

Given this nation's history, where asymmetric methods were used to overthrow an imperial power, the president demonstrates a shocking lack of historical understanding, or general strategic competence.

You stop terrorism using the techniques used by the British against the IRA

Strange.

I would have sworn the republic of Ireland was free of British rule. Goes to show you.

My father was in the IRA as a youngster in Ireland. All the young men in his area were.

Heard tell there have been troubles up north where the British decided to stay longer.

By the way, I hear the Basques are still causing trouble.

Subjugating people is always very difficult. Takes real commitment. Hear there are some folks in our own country who still aren't real fond of us here in the north.

Best, Terry

Why not just lay it out?

"We think that the war on terror is too important to let the president and the Republicans' Party lose it for us. The Bush's great plan for victory turns out to have done nothing more than keep Saddam Hussein from giving weapons he didn't have to terrorists he didn't know. It's time to take the keys away."

Um, dude? How about saving your scorn for Democrats who deserve it?

Not only did Harman vote against the GOPs (you can check her record), but I've seen her on almost every political TV show, and heard her on every political radio show, railing against the GOPs on this issue. She's been fighting hard.

There are 34 Dems in the House you can save this for. 

She's not my Rep, so I don't know where she stands on everything else, but on this issue, she's on of the good guys. Er, girls. 

And, PS, thanks for reinforcing the stereotypical netroots-purity-purge mentality that many of us here try to dispel. Buck up, soldier. There's plenty more work to be done, and your casting of the pox ain't gonna help one bit.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

p.s. Regarding a viable Iraqi strategy

While Republicans love to challenge Democrats by asking where their strategy is, the Democratic response should be that lacking access to the various NIEs and other intelligence they cannot craft a comprehensive strategy.

I'd like to know why ANY Dems voted for torture? Surely, no one thought this was a good bill...

If not, then it's all about the political ramifications back home. Don't Dems have enough already to run on, without being scared of this vote?

The GOPs are running on: Vote For Us Because We Screwed Up Everything Already. (Or, any of the variants in Josh's post.)

We can't beat that? 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

cscs, I wondered the same thing, and one of my senators, a Democrat, voted for it, and he's not up for reelection.  I filled out a comments form on his website requesting him to post an explanation of his yea vote on his website (for what it's worth, I also wrote expressing opposition to the bill before the vote).  I hope his father, who is a former governor and senator, boxes his ears.

Glenn
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring;…—J.R.R. Tolkien

That is a pretty good response, but isn't the problem that Democrats will never have a "stay the course" strategy, a strategy to maximize Halliburton's profit, a "fight them over there and not over here" strategy, or even a "war on ****ism" strategy.  The goals of the Bush gang simply are not acceptable as national goals.  So, our strategy is to defeat the Republicans and take back Congress, so we can act as a check against the extemism of the Republican administration. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

An alternative view of the matter may be this: suppose Bush&Co. is well aware that we are generating more terrorist. It is a war of civilizations after all and in all such epic clashes as people die new combatants take their place naturally. Look at the 30 year war in Europe as a model.
I remember Rumsfeld saying that this thing might take generations to win, or words to that effect. You see, it does not seem to faze them that terrorism is on the increase worldwide. They have drawn us into a very long struggle for reasons I, frankly, don't quite understand.

There is no way that a Democrat is going to offer a plan to keep the Iraq war going until the Iraqis agree to allow us to have a good ending, or to to stay the course until someone else can solve the problem, or to keep on fighting them over there so we wont be fighting them over here, etc.   Our party just doesn't have the same goals as the Republicans.  Our goals are to stop the killing of our military people, to allow Iraqis to solve their own problems,  to stop killing Iraqis, to stop serving as a recruiting ad for al Qaeda, to stop the destruction of our Constitution, etc.   And, those goals are nowhere near the same as the Bush administration.

Hoppy in Sacramento

If Dems cannot stand up for Habeas Corpus and against torture, I disagree with you. Clean your own mess first.

Representative Harman,

I believe that two of the commenters here have given you, and other Democratic politicians, a priceless response. Borrowing heavily from VLaszlo and Brian CB:

"Take away the Republican sound bites and what remains is Bush's pyrrhic victory of preventing Saddam Hussein from giving weapons he didn't even have to a group of terrorists he couldn't stand. Meanwhile, real terrorists continue to multiply in Afghanistan, Asia and Europe. Democrats believe that the safety of the American people is far too important to leave in the hands of Mr. Bush and the Republicans. It's time to transfer the keys."

JohnW1141

My plan is pull the troops out today. What will happen, what will change? The death and maiming for life of our troops will stop. The wounding of our troops will stop. The spending of $8 billion per month will stop. The corruption of taxpayer dollars there will stop. Nothing else will change, the present day carnage will go on until the Sunnis and Shiites feel they've had enough. My plan is hard cold fact, Bush and the Repuplican's plan and dire warnings of the consequences of a pullout is all guess work and rhetoric and they haven't been right on Iraq yet. We should not have been there to begin with, this war is totally unjustified. We're in a hole, lets stop digging.

By the way, I don't beleive there are any Iraqis, I believe there are only Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds living there.

The average citizen may not realize the Constitutional significance of the bill, or be able to follow the inalienable rights threads back to the Magna Carta, but I'm certain that the Bush administration knows, and those in Congress who voted for it surely realize what they've done. They're changing our form of government and our way of life in ways that will become more apparent over time.

I guess as Richard Armitage has said:

"We’ve got to press on in honor of the memory of those who have fallen. Another way to say that is we’ve got to have more men fall to honor the memories of those who have already fallen.”

There is no 'solution' to the US occupation of Iraq, to think that there is some magic solution where US occupation creates a peaceful 'terrorist free' unified democratic state that supports the USA is sophistry of the worst kind, that kills people, lots of them, sophistry that is like that spewed by Bush, Cheney et. al. over the last 5 years

irishkg

It would be a truly sad day indeed when the general populace is called upon to do the work of elected officials.

Unlike Rep. Harmon, I am not an elected official and am not receiving a salary from taxpayers dollars. It is that group of people in Washington whose job it is to provide leadership. That is what they have been elected and paid to do.

Many on the left argue that it is useless in the current environment for Democrats to offer any altertantive at all simply because the Republican leadership will not consider it anyhow.

This is likely true, but it at least gives the voters yet another verifiable instance of the recalcitrant attitude of this GOP leadership.

A few days ago Bush lambasted the Democrats by saying all they offer is criticisms and endless second-guessing. I hate to do it, but unfortunately I have to agree with the man on this one point.

My alternatives point was aimed at both officials, of either party, who criticize the Administration strategy, plan and operation.

The general populace is not obligated to formulate alternative strategies as officals who speak in oppostion should do but at a general level citizens would do well to think through a preferred alternative as a means of knowing what is better and what might work.

As I respond to you I am trying to distinguish a strategy which lays out an approach in broader terms from a specific plan. A plan is beyond the what an individual or group out of power can do. A plan should be time phased, estimate some level of resources, incorporate a level of cost-benefit with risk/probability of success and failure and then what. A plan should be comprehensive, so more than military which seems to be the almost exclusive focus.

Bush as the President and his staff should privately consider the criticisms. Who knows where they might find a nugget of insight that would help them. 

When President Bush mostly speaks in public as a politican Americans and other countries can only respond  to the political Bush. He has a bully pulpit which he only rarely uses to be Presidential.   I wish him no success as a politican but as an American I need him to lead and leave the country a better place. He is a disaster in his most important role.

No argument here about Bush being a disaster.

JohnW1141

Let me try to explain my point again. As you pointed out, Bush claims "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." This,of course, is a mindless banality that has substance to only the wingnut Bush sycophants. Since it takes only 1, 2 or 19 to attack us here, I'm sure al Qaeda, Osama, Mullah Omar or Donald Duck can afford to take a few people from Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever and send them here. My point is simple; whatever the number needed to attack us here as we fight in Iraq, it can be done. In other words, terrorists CAN fight us over there and simultaneously attack us over here

I was surprised to read in today's newspaper that the President used a campaign speech yesterday to attack this 5'3" grandmother - because I said that he got it backwards: fighting them there may make it more likely that we'll fight them here.

This is all you need to know about Rep. Harman. She is still surprised at things that most Dems stopped being surprised about...oh, 4 or 5 years ago.

She is an enabler and a fool. Never forget that when Bush & Cheney took this country to war based on transparent bullshit -- and, yes, the bullshit was quite obvious at the time -- it was fools like Harman who gave them cover. Moreover, she continues to give Bush cover, even if unintentionally, by treating the administration as a good faith actor with which she has policy differences, rather than an out-of-control outlaw regime. And she insults our intellligence if she thinks that their fighting back is news. Yawn. Wake me when Bush doesn't act like a cynical sleazeball.

Jane Harman is not a fool. No way. But an enabler? Absolutely. So it appears, over and over again. Now, if we're wrong about that, I'd love to hear from her just how wrong and I'll respond with an apology. I'd like to be a Harman fan.

Yes but when is torture good?

How can anyone "fix Iraq" so long as we have a President who is so certain that he is right about whatever it is he believes he is doing in Iraq.  Henry Kissinger, whose primary function on this planet seems to be to make millions of dollars offering advice to those willing to pay him, has a new mark: George W. Bush.

Kissinger,  arrogant as ever, and taking advantage of this President's obsession with proving himself better than his father the former President, would redeem his Nixonian failures.  In Kissinger's revised history of the Viet Nam conflict, the U.S. did not estalish the political environment in which to win a war in which  58,000 Americans died.   George W. Bush is being given the same bad advice Kissinger gave Nixon: the only exit strategy is victory.  

This President isn't interested in fixing Iraq.  He wants victory.  Can he tell us what that is?

Arun -- Don't blame you for wanting to! But it's a big mistake. This is a popularity contest -- this election system we have. Anyway, it's always smarter and more effective to change yourself than to try to change others.

Now, bring others before the law when they've broken it, that's another matter... So. Let's work on being really smart prosecutors. We certainly have some horrendous perps to deal with.

I read it not as a general criticism of the Dems, but specifically directed at Rep. Harman. From the original post:

As for the Democrats, Ms. Harman, you don't seem to understand what kind of people you're dealing with. To refuse to fight the Republicans and the psychotic in the White House on torture and detainees and habeas corpus?...That's what you people agreed to by not fighting those bills tooth and nail. You betrayed this country, you betrayed the Constitution, you betrayed everyone who has fought and died for those principles.

"You people" does not include Rep. Harman, who spoke out against and voted against this bill.

People are of course entitled to state how they feel. Rant on, I love it.

Just direct it at the right place. 

If the poster wanted Rep. Harman to take a message back to the Dems who voted for this bill, he or she perhaps could have said, "I know you voted against this -- here's what you need to tell your fellow Reps." 

I doubt Ms. Harman is going to read that post, accusing her of betraying the Constitution, and do anything productive with it. There are smarter ways to get a message across.  

And I do appreciate you taking the time to explain your rating. Thank you for that.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

"...Sadly... those attacks also don't much move Americans. It's a short-sighted way of thinking..."

Sadly, the only thing that moves most Americans is what is in front of their faces on television every night of the week: hurricanes with reporters hanging on to lamp-posts; missing blondes in Aruba; AliGee pretending to be someone he's not; the latest school shooting; expert lawyers, doctors or reporters being interviewed about this or that; spinach...

If the war in Iraq were being covered the way the Vietnam war was covered -- with the horrible visual images night after night of maiming, suffering, death, and coffins -- we would be out of there ... yesterday. Is it because Americans just can't stomach war? No. It is because Americans can't stomach watching our young sacrificed as cannon-fodder for NOTHING!

Today, Vietnam is thriving, even though we "cut and ran." We have diplomatic relations with their vibrant, successful economy (so much for the Domino Theory -- even China isn't really communist anymore, and we didn't go to war with THEM!) . So 53,000+ young people in my generation (including my high school boyfriend) died for absolutely nothing!

Why did it end? Because Americans were FINALLY moved. Why were they moved? Because the draft made the war personal (except for the Bush's, Cheney's, Roves, Rumsfelds, etc), and because of the force of television, which NOW is prohibited by this criminally fascist administration, which controls what we see.

Short-sighted? Look at how hard it is for those of us here who really work at staying informed. How about the majority who remain passive recipients of news? Short-sighted? Yes, but the long view is against the law here -- no coffin views; no T-shirts in the SOTU --

We better do something fast, or we're going to end up where we're headed!

Jan Knaus

I was feeling low on Thursday night. Confused that I couldn't find the same outrage I was feeling on blogs, early edition newspapers or anywhere (I think the average voter missed the importance of this in the flood of news that went down this week. Politic and other, a school shooting everyday.. It took me a while to realize what really took me down was not the Reps taking a stilleto to the Constitution, it was the fact that my team barely put up a fight. Just like the war vote... Check this quote from the oldest guy in the Senate. Robert Byrd of WVA. He also put up a strong fight on the war vote. I haven't seen any quotes from the floor on Thursday, but this statement from Dec. 19, 2005 says it all...

"I continue to be shocked and astounded by the breadth with which the administration undermines the constitutional protections afforded to the people, and the arrogance with which it rebukes the powers held by the legislative and judicial branches. The president has cast off federal law, enacted by Congress, often bearing his own signature, as mere formality. He has rebuffed the rule of law, and he has trivialized and trampled upon the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed to Americans by the U.S. Constitution.

We are supposed to accept these dirty little secrets. We are told that it is irresponsible to draw attention to President Bush's gross abuse of power and constitutional violations. But what is truly irresponsible is to neglect to uphold the rule of law. We listened to the president speak last night on the potential for democracy in Iraq. He claims to want to instill in the Iraqi people a tangible freedom and a working democracy, at the same time he violates our own U.S. laws and checks and balances? President Bush called the recent Iraqi election "a landmark day in the history of liberty." I dare say in this country we may have reached our own sort of landmark. Never have the promises and protections of liberty seemed so illusory. Never have the freedoms we cherish seemed so imperiled.

These renegade assaults on the Constitution and our system of laws strike at the very core of our values, and foster a sense of mistrust and apprehension about the reach of government.

I am reminded of Thomas Paine's famous words, "These are the times that try men's souls." ...Sen. Robert Byrd (12/19/05)

Real military historians would go back much further than the Philippines War, for such an errant use of force-how about 2014 years to 9BC when the 18th Legion was lost by Emperor Augustus, so says Professor van Crevald, Hebrew University: link

There is a remarkable article in the latest issue of the American Jewish weekly, Forward. It calls for President Bush to be impeached and put on trial "for misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them".

To describe Iraq as the most foolish war of the last 2,014 years is a sweeping statement, but the writer is well qualified to know. He is Martin van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the world's foremost military historians.....

The parallels with Imperial Rome are growing. NYT yesterday (Sat.) had this by Robert Harris on the Roman response to a "terrorist" attack by pirates or some such on their important port of Ostia, in 68 BC.

The general Pompey moved politically to give himself supreme military command both at home and abroad, to have power over citizens as well, and to usurp the Treasury for campaigns across the region. He established many permanent garrisons and enriched himself.

Sounds familiar. From the piece:

In truth, however, the Lex Gabinia [the legislation] was the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. It set a precedent. Less than a decade later, Julius Caesar — the only man, according to Plutarch, who spoke out in favor of Pompey’s special command during the Senate debate — was awarded similar, extended military sovereignty in Gaul. Previously, the state, through the Senate, largely had direction of its armed forces; now the armed forces began to assume direction of the state.

It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. In 49 B.C., the system collapsed completely, Caesar crossed the Rubicon — and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.

Damn, I've done that before. I click on four and must drag the mouse or something. I'm also colored-blind and can't see when there's a link, which has made me look like a doofus once or twice. Glad you asked. And now I've just posted this as a New message...aaaaaagh.

Dear Honorable Representative Harman:

Thank you for your timely visit. At this moment in time I believe, instead of you being surprised, you should be totally indignant and pissed off! And stand up and state it... But that's just me....

First: Have you fully endorsed and publicly stated your support of the Democratic Party's "Real Security Act of 2006''??

For others, since it was totally ignored by the press and media, a very good explanation from Democrats.org see: Real Security Act of 2006.

Now to the subject at hand: It's been one year and two days... And yes, things have stayed the same.

One year ago: At your post Mission Ground Truth here at the Cafe I left the following comment and these pertinent questions:

On September 26, 2005 - 1:35pm OldenGoldenDecoy said:

Representative Harman:

Thank you for your dedicated representation and for taking the time to visit us here at the Cafe . . .

As you have observed from your involvement and intelligence position, over the past 3 years, why has there been an unprecedented surge in terrorist attacks that kill and wound people?

You should be aware that statistics show that there was a steady downward trend from1987 until 2002 of terrorist attacks. Suddenly, in 2003 attacks that involved someone being killed or wounded increased slightly over the previous year.

And as you should be aware many of these violent attacks were perpetrated by radical Islamists.

Beginning in 2004 terrorist attacks increased dramatically to 700 incidents where death or serious injuries occurred. History shows there's never been this high of an amount of attacks per year. Many, but not a majority of these violent attacks did occur in Iraq.

The President continues to use the same talking point over and over that we are fighting terrorism in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here.

Do you attribute this overall increase of death and mayhem to our expanded physical presence in Iraq?

Is our presence on the ground in Iraq furthering additional violent attacks as expanding radical retaliation elsewhere in the world?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you may provide as a clarifying response to my questions here . . . Have a good trip and we await your safe return.

Yours . . .

OldenGoldenDecoy Los Angeles, CA

reply | link |

I lived through the same kind of lies, rhetoric and stonewalling from 1964 through 1974 ...

Then, I was a late teen in '64, who quickly aged 50 years in those 10 years.

"My pathway led by confusion boats...Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

Bob Dylan © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music

Out of Iraq!

Yesterday!

~OGD~

ps: Not to belabor the point, but at the time you posted, there had been 1,933 US military deaths in Iraq, and since that visit an additional 777 military personnel have died, bringing the not so grand total to 2,701.

Gettysburg : without their party having offered any sort of substantive alternative to the president's miserable plan?

Get real. Dems don't have to offer a plan. This isn't some parlor trick or a school assignment. If Dems win control of Congress, or even just the House, American voters will have sent a clear message to the Iraqi people. "Fix your mess and do it now because we're fed up with your bulls**t."

It's taken 3 years to form a government that doesn't work. Why? Well as long as boy George keeps paying salaries to Iragi politicians and offering them sanctuary in the green zone you can't blame them. They're holding us hostage as long as the game is "stay the course". It's up to the American voter to say, "Enough already!"

All the Dems have to do is win, the Iraqis will get the message that time is short. Changing that dynamic is the first order of business in "changing the course". I'm surprised I haven't heard any Dem politician putting it that clearly to voters.

You have to click away from a rating before using the wheel to go down-page.

You can always glance at what rating you get and redo it if it comes out wrong the first time. You can rerate at any time in the life of a thread. 

Oh my, the CIA tortures people? Well mercy me.

And let's see, have they ever been held accountable for it? No. Anybody charged and tried for it? No. But now they don't have to worry about that because frat boy George says it's okay - it's just like hazing at the old frat house.

As for the fruits of torture, sure, ask around South America. The democracies that are there aren't there because they love the CIA; they're there because they threw out the people who worked with the CIA, whom the CIA tutored in torture, whom the CIA taught to torture and murder their own people.

As for horse trading, perhaps you'd like to be on the receiving end of the tortures - having your teeth knocked out, your legs pulped, held under water until you almost drown over and over, having your testicles wired up to a generator, etctera ad nauseam - but you would feel that it's okay because it was just a political tradeoff and in a democracy that's okay. Now that wouldn't hurt a bit, would it? Well, maybe it's okay because they're only mad dog Arabs, or crazed Vietnamese, or whatever the enemy du jour might be.

Oh, the law says they can't do this and they can't do that. Wonderful. Now that they've specified a few ways that U.S. troops and CIA torturers may not hurt people, the door is open to every other way the human imagination can come up with to brutalize and murder them, with no fear of penalty.

What on earth makes you think that a law made under this administration means anything? Law is window dressing these days. If it conflicts with this Republican crowd's agenda, then it doesn't get enforced.

No oil contracts? Joke. Halliburton was doing business with Iraq that was illegal during the sanctions period under U.S. law, but all they did to get around it was to spin off an offshore company. No bases? Only if the Iraqis kick us out, but then the ones who try to kick us out will become the enemy and we'll have to stay to put them in their place - they'll be 'terrorists' and the 'insurgents' of course.

When you surrender the rule of law and allow the rule of men, you can be sure that it won't be long before the screams of the tortured will be ringing out of the basement of the CIA and the FBI. From sea to bloody shining sea.

But as long as it's a fair horse trade, right?

I would take a second, third or fourth 'guess' from a Democratic leader any day over a 100% 'certainty' from Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice or the any of the rest of their lying, hypocritical, war mongering, torture supporting, incompetent bunch of co-conspirators...

Alternatively, if a man speaks in a forest, with no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?

If a woman speaks in a forest, with no man to hear her, is she still nagging?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Abd Allah, 10 hour TPM member, grant us some of your wisdom you are commentless on any subject in your first day at TPM!  What would be your plan for the Iraq fiasco be?  Tell us and spare us more of your '1' ratings-give us your '4' solution! 

Howard - resorting to stereotype to get a response! I should have taken my own advice of using silence as my response but I talk.

Spinning???

I call it bullshit!

And your spinning 'round here is making it real hard for a person to find a place to step...

~OGD~

Gyroscopes spin. When an aircraft's true vertical indicator, driven off a gyro, tumbles and loses calibration before takeoff, the proper technical term is that the reference gyro must be erect before takeoff. Shades of Foleygate?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

For a self professed Libertarian with -- as you say the gift of objectivity -- if the following isn't spin (bullshit in my book) then Donald Duck doesn't quack!

It would be a truly sad day indeed when the general populace is called upon to do the work of elected officials.

~OGD~

ps: Pull my finger...