Making hihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs way onto the huge "resign, Rumsfeld!" list, former General John Batiste who led the 1st ID in Iraq blames Rumsfeld for serving the US Military what he called "chicken feces" refering to the war on Iraq. Watch.
Transcript:

Donald Rumsfeld is still at the helm of the Department of Defense, which is absolutely outrageous. He served up our great military a huge bowl of chicken feces, and ever since then, our military and our country have been trying to turn this bowl into chicken salad. And it’s not working.

That line of thought has been abandoned by the majority as it has either lost its bite politically or - more likely - everyone realizes that it is BS. Pat Lang places a flower on the grave.

s there a causal connection between civil war and insurgency in Iraq and an absence of Jihadi attacks in the United States?

Let's see - What would it be?

- People now fighting us in Iraq would otherwise be fighting us in the streets of Peoria? How? There were no Iraqis among the 9/11 attackers. The bogus claims of people like Stephen Hayes that evidence exists of Saddamist/Al-Qa'ida collaboration are a fraud. The only people who say or think that anymore are the simple minded dupes of the Bush Administration, committed neocons like the AEI crowd and the merely ambitious and venal hoping to have a few "bones" thrown their way.

- War in Iraq keeps the Jihadis fully occupied so that they don't have the planning energy left to work against the West in Europe or the United States. Hello!! Madrid, London twice, Indonesia, etc.

The fact is that the War does one thing. It gives the Jihadis a convenient place to fight us and it may in the future give the Iranians a place to fight us on their own terms.

The RNC crowd are still saying this egregious crapola as a response to anything they don't like. Ridiculous.

Ah, yes, what will be the reponse to this thought? -Leftist- Defeatist- Jihadi Sympathizer - Someone who wants Saddam back in office, etc.

Sorry, I do love freedom, but the present Iraqi government ain't it. No. It is the triumph of Twelver Shiism. This is something the Shia had never managed for themselves, but they have done well with the help of folks like Chalabi, my friend Reuel Gerecht and Zal Khalilzad (greatest American of all time according to Biden).

From the comments: "Democrats ... run good liberals like Joe Lieberman out of the party just because they want to defend the country." This is a response to the ongoing and undisputed claim that conservatives are hypocrites. One of their own - no several one, two and a half , and so on... - have called for an actual plan or a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. While up until now Joe Lieberman has been a conservative darling for having no plan at , now Lieberman is reportedly considering Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) plan to pull out of Iraq.

This should get a huge response from those brave right wing bloggers.

...Iraqi officials would act with greater urgency if the United States this fall set a timetable for withdrawal.

What a F'n breakthrough!

From earlier in the article

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), once an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, said yesterday that the Bush administration should set a time frame for withdrawing U.S. troops.

I guess it isn't just the Democrats in Connecticut that are sick of supporting a failed policy.

BTW, Republicans are Hypocrites.

The Brits have.

British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling, a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.
...
Adopting tactics used by a British special forces unit in North Africa during World War II, 600 of the soldiers plan to slip soon into the marshlands and deserts of eastern Maysan in an attempt to secure the Iranian border. [link]

A Jefferson County geography teacher was placed on paid administrative [leave] on the second day of school for hanging several flags from other countries in his classroom.

Can you think of any other country that has had nationalism run this far amuck? Hint: my grandfathers once fought them. One more step towards beloved fascism... I know that was unfair... anyway.

We know the people and the political party that ferments this. Let's vote them out of Washington this November.

We have new buttons and bottle openers, thanks to the genorosity of our liberal leaders in New York City.

Also please note the sad demise of The A-Team.
It is said that A-Team stood for 'accountability' while everyone knew it really stood for Arthur. That big, huge, beautiful bridge was not enough apparently. Anyway, the A-Team fell apart after it was revealed that, well, accountability was not what their name was all about, at least as it relates to fundraising. Oops. Hopefully this will keep our public schools safe for another little while until they come up with some other plan.

I guess now would be a good time to thank all of those who have made it out to Drinking Liberally as we have moved about town. We are always happy to see you. Please come again. And a warm welcome to all of the newbies who have located our little den of fellow liberals deep here in what Republicans would like to believe is Red America. We meet every Thursday night at 5:30 p.m. on the lovely and smoke-free covered patio of Juanita Greenberg's on King Street for a Happy Hour Social and then, well, more happy hours of socializing with fellow liberals. News of our plans to retake South Carolina from those nasty Republicans is spreading far and wide. Why, I even hear tell of visitors from exotic locales may even be visiting us. So come on out and give a warm DL Charleston welcome to John of DL Savannah!

Saturday , August 26, is National Women's Equality Day! It is to commemorate the wonderful women of the United States gaining the right to vote. There will be a film presentation followed by a panel discussion on Monday, August 28, 2006, at the College of Charleston's Maybank Hall beginning at 7:00 p. m. in Room 100. Maybank Hall is the pink building at the corner of Calhoun and St Philip Streets, across from Starbucks. The presentation is sponsored by the College of Charleston's Women's and Gender Studies Program, Planned Parenthood Health Systems, and the Low Country Women Vote Coalition. More details can be found at www.c4women.org

Get Out Of Iraq Now Rally! ThinkingPeople is heading up a rally along with Military Families, Charleston Peace, Progressive Patriots, The Quakers, Amnesty International, and others, scheduled for Saturday, October 7, at Marion Square from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. October 7 happens to be the last day to register to vote for the November 7 elections. ThinkingPeople is at www.thinkingpeople.info

Which brings up . . . November 7! House Cleaning Day in the United States. The day we remind the Republicans that South Carolina is not their hereditary fiefdom. The day we start to make South Carolina resemble her flag, BLUE! The day we get rid of Henry Brown and elect Randy Maatta to the United States House of Representatives! Henry doesn't really want to do anything in Washington anyway, so it is time that he really started his retirement. But, we have a lot of work to do between now and then. And we need to figure out what we can do.

So get fired up and join us Thursday night at Drinking Liberally. (And if you're good, maybe next week we will give you some Superbush.)

That is Drinking Liberally for this the 1,210th day since the declaring of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. We're your city leaders, goodnight and good luck.

Don't forget to join us Thusday night at 5:30 p.m. at Juanita Greenberg's in beautiful downtown Charleston for another edition of Drinking Liberally.

Liberally yours,
Sadie, Leslie, Mike & Marilyn
Juanita Greenberg's
439 King Street - Downtown
5:30pm until Superbush learns to relax
This and every Thursday
843.723.NACHO(6224)
On King, just a couple of blocks above Calhoun. Look for the blinking lights.
http://www.juanitagreenbergs.com/index.php

Readers will know that I have a lot of respect for Michael Scheuer (prior here, here, and here). Dr. Scheuer is an author and an expert on NS issues and terrorism. He is 22-year CIA vet, a member of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorism Center from 1996 to 1999 and Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November the 2004. Although he is a conservative Republican, many of his views, IMO, are spot on. Anyway, he was interviewed for Harper's Magazine last week. Here is my summary, please read here.

1) We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Is the country safer or more vulnerable to terrorism?
"On balance, more vulnerable." We are safer in the air and at official transit points but that's not enough. "...our victories have been tactical and not strategic" we have killed a lot of al Qaeda operatives but we can not kill them all, nor can we "...capture them one by one and bring them to justice. There are too many of them, and more now than before September 11. ... [E]very time we interfere in Muslim countries they get more support." Basically, "...we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. ... We use the term "Islamofascism" - but we're supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state. We don't have a strategy because we don't have a clue about what motivates our enemies."

2) Is Al Qaeda stronger or weaker than it was five years ago?

"We keep saying that we're killing their leaders, but you notice that we keep having to kill their number twos, threes and fours all over again. They bring in replacements, and these are not novices off the street - they're understudies. ... [UBL has] always said that his primary goal is to incite attacks by people who might not have any direct contact with Al Qaeda. Since 2001, and especially since mid-2005, there's been an increase in the number of groups that were not directly tied to Al Qaeda but were inspired by bin Laden's words and actions." Basically, "..we've moved from man and organization to philosophy and movement." I'll let that be interpreted by the readers.

3) Given all this, why hasn't there been an attack on the United States for the past five years?

"[T]hey're not ready to do it." If they wanted to they could "shoot up a mall" but that wouldn't be as spectacular as 911, and so they wait. Besides it is easier to kill westerners in the Mid East.

4) Has the war in Iraq helped or hurt in the fight against terrorism?

"It broke the back of our counterterrorism program", and despite your POV, "[t]he war has validated everything bin Laden said: that the United States will destroy any strong government in the Arab world, that it will seek to destroy Israel's enemies, that it will occupy Muslim holy places, that it will seize Arab oil, and that it will replace God's law with man's law."

5) Things seemed to have turned for the worse in Afghanistan too. What's your take on the situation there?

The Taliban "provided nationwide law and order for the first time in 25 years; we destroyed that and haven't replaced it. They're remembered in Afghanistan for their harsh, theocratic rule, but remembered more for the security they provided. ... [O]ur only real mission there should have been to kill bin Laden and Zawahiri and as many Al Qaeda fighters as possible, and we didn't do it."

"In the end, we'll lose and leave."

6) Has the war in Lebanon also been a plus for the jihadists?

"The Israel-Hezbollah battle validates bin Laden. It showed that the Arab regimes are useless, that they can't protect their own nationals, and that they are apostate regimes that are creatures of the infidels. It also showed that the Americans will let Israel do whatever it wants. ... The most salient point it showed for Islamists is that Muslim blood is cheap. Israel said it went to war to get back its captured soldiers. The price was the gutting of Lebanon. Olmert said that Israel would fight until it got its soldiers back and until Hezbollah was disarmed. Neither happened. No matter how you spin it, this will be viewed as a victory for Hezbollah."

So yes, and that was a no-brainier.

7) And finally, an extra question - what needs to be done?

"We need to acknowledge that we are at war, not because of who we are, but because of what we do. We are confronting a jihad that is inspired by the tangible and visible impact of our policies. People are willing to die for that, and we're not going to win by killing them off one by one." Basically, the Muslim world hates our policies but loves our way of life. We need to accept that truth and then have our foreign policy debate. In the end this is about oil - which we are addicted to - and therefore "we can't do anything about the perception that we support Arab tyranny." "As it stands, we are going to have to fight wars if anything endangers the oil supply in the Middle East." We also need more options, and those are limited by misplaced priorities in the Middle East and around the Muslim world.