Lack of Responsibility (continued)
Mark Lynch has a post up on the plan Darcy Burner commissioned Paul Eaton, Larry Korb, John Johns, and Larry Seaquist to draft, which Chellie Pingree and eight other candidates are "presenting" withdrawl, a theme of the text mentioned in strike through [Thanks to commenter Nell for a correction]. Mark's title is Thinking Through Withdrawal, and Mark also is not greatly impressed by the plan claims offered for responsible withdrawl [Thanks Nell].
I don't know if its worth looking at the races Burner and the eight others are in, or looking up what PACs the ten share that their primary competitors don't. I may, as there is something less to this than what we tried with Cynthia Pool's November Victory list in 2006 to coordinate message, generally by poor and generally progressive candidates taking on comfortable incumbents of either party.
Juan Cole and Josh Landis haven't weighed in yet.
It really is walking in the air to opine upon the Iraq War and not draw some inference about the political claims of the Israeli state and its military dependency upon the United States.
Comments
It's not about coming up with a plan to end the war.
It's about appearing to come up with a plan to end the war and getting enough suckers to believe it,
Responsible. Yeah, I'll pull out baby. Just not yet.
One cannot run a thought-exercise on how withdrawal might work. Put the gear in the trucks and drive. The sooner and the faster we dump our mess in the Iraqis laps the more likely any positive outcome. Easy.
Remember, the US doesn't want a positive outcome. It wants ongoing chaos.
Posted by: Chris Miller | March 19, 2008 11:46 AM
It really is walking in the air to opine upon the Iraq War and not draw some inference about the political claims of the Israeli state and its military dependency upon the United States.
Then Marc Lynch is walking in the air as well. He makes no mention of the Israeli state in his discussion of withdrawal, focused entirely on Iraqi actors. (And the last time I read him, which is part of what made me quit reading him for a while, he was perfectly happy to give Obama a pass on having moved sharply right on I/P questions because "candidates have to".)
Since Lynch had not read the Burner etc. plan at the time he wrote that post, and makes no specific criticisms of it, I'm not sure how you arrive at the idea that he's "not greatly impressed with the plan."
As far as I'm concerned, an organized push for withdrawal by likely future members of Congress is a welcome development -- given the unlikelihood of any of the three remaining candidates bringing it about on their own.
Posted by: Nell | March 20, 2008 05:16 AM
Nell,
You could be right that Marc hasn't even looked at the pdf version of the Eaton text, nor seen the talking points in the html version, nor ever heard of Eaton, Korb, Johns, or Seaquist and have no notion of their views, or ever even considered the question of withdrawal. I'll ask.
You could also be right that in the several years that Marc's been writing, on Abu Aardvark and academically, he's never made a connection between Israeli state and the US war in Iraq. I'll ask that also, though there is a search field on AA.
However, for the consumers of the Eaton et al draft, as congressional candidates, that draft appears to be messaged as a complete and self-contained statement of error and solution, and it simply doesn't mention a well-known elephant proximal to the room.
Thank you for what may be a correction, and I'll see if I can get Marc today, and no, I don't read Marc for his domestic political insight or which Hero Twin he finds substantively superior to the other.
Posted by: ebw | March 20, 2008 08:39 AM
Nell,
Marc read the press release sent him prior to writing "thinking through withdrawal", though not the 36pp pdf of the Eaton plan.
Posted by: ebw | March 22, 2008 10:22 AM