Bubba: Iraq war's 'a quagmire'

[sabra]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/353070p-300957c.html

Bubba: Iraq war's 'a quagmire'

Former President Clinton worries for the mission in Iraq.

WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton says Iraq "looks like a quagmire," and estimates "the odds are not great of our prevailing there."

But, speaking for an interview that appears in the November issue of Ladies Home Journal, Clinton qualified his quagmire remark by saying, "It's not Vietnam."

"The reason this is not Vietnam is that 58% of the eligible voters showed up and voted in Iraq," Clinton told the magazine. The South Vietnamese government was "never legitimate" in the eyes of the Vietnamese, he said.

...

"Having said that, it could go wrong," Clinton admitted. "Since the end of World War II, the only major foreign power that succeeded in putting down an insurgency was the British putting down the Malay insurgency, but the British stayed 15 years.

[leftofcool]

1. Well, Big Dog.....

You know darn well that this quagmire is all your fault.........thus speaketh Cheney and Company. Of course, we all know that suggestive cheerleading is your fault too. In fact, everything is your fault. And something else, the only person that gets blamed for stuff more than you is God himself. How does it feel to be, uh, the number 2 man.....so to speak? (heavy sarcasm)

Left of Cool

[Demeter]

3. I Don't Think I'd Blame Bill, But Certainly Hillary Gets Credit

She has yet to acknowledge the error of her vote on the IWR.

[marshall]

16. Tell it to the Senator beside you!

What good does it do unless he tells it to somebody who can do something about it, like his wife!

[tabasco]

20. Voting for the IWR was the equivalent of giving a madman a gun.

Mrs. H. Clinton should acknowledge her mistake, along with all other Senators that voted to give Bu$h permission to wage war. Both of my Senators from Maryland were wise enough to vote no. I will not support any '08 candidate that voted yes. That's just the way it is.

[LynnTheDem]

2. Sorry, Bill, but yer wrong on the Vietnam thang....

1. Did ya not hear about the Kurds and Shia STUFFING the ballot boxes in the "election"?

2. Did ya not know that the vast majority of Iraqis do NOT consider the "government" in Iraq to be legitimate?

3. And you realize of course that MORE US TROOPS ARE DEAD in Iraq than the number dead during the first 5 years of 'Nam?

Other than that yer right...Good mornin' IRAQMIRE.

[jody]

9. Number of deaths in Vietnam for the first five years compared to

Iraq depend upon which five years and number of troops involved.

In Vietnam, we had 20,000 in 1964 with 206 names on the Wall for that year, a rate of 10.3 per 1,000. Our heavy involvement in Vietnam started in 1965 when troop strength increased rapidly to 200,000 and continued to grow.

I believe the death rate for our involvement in Iraq for the first year is about 6 or 7 per 1,000.

Please don't take my comments as support for our troops in Iraq because I oppose our invasion and want our troops home.

[LynnTheDem]

12. The MORE troops you have, the FEWER troops should die.

Which makes Iraq even worse than 'Nam.

If we only had 20,000 US troops in Iraq, we'd have 20,000 dead US troops.

As for BRING EM HOME NOW, I agree. :)

IMPEACH INDICT IMPRISON bush & bLiar, war criminals.

[neoteric lefty]

23. I support our troops in Iraq!

I support them enough to say that the orders that were given to them were a wrong and I respect them enough to not want to see any more of their lives wasted on a lie.

By speaking the truth, you are supporting those men and women. Don't say otherwise.

We support the troops, the Right supports the mission. BIG DIFFERENCE!

[matcom]

4. "Bubba"?

:eyes:

stupid tabloid

[acmavm]

5. Not like Viet Nam? How would he know? He didn't serve either.

I don't think Clinton walks on water hence the ability to face the fact that he's not too familiar with what war is like either.

[TheWraith]

8. And that's the cue for the Clinton haters to come out of the woodwork.

I swear, we've got such a huge population of Clinton haters here that you would think we were RepublicanUnderground. When Clinton says something idealistic, he gets bashed for being "out of touch" or "impractical." When he says something moderate, he's smeared for being "a member of the Bush family" or "pandering to extremists." I wonder how many of us are able to accept Clinton for the things he does right, and mostly forgive for the things we disagree with.

[acmavm]

10. I don't HATE Clinton, I can just be realistic about the man. Unlike those

who don't understand that he sure as hell doesn't walk on water, and never did ever pre-Monica.

He's done nothing for the democratic party since he got out of office. In fact, he's been a bigger help to Poopy and Junior than he has to us.

I also don't care whether or not anyone likes what I say about Clinton. He was a good President, and what he got in trouble for was no one's business but his, Hillary's and Monica. BUT the second he chose to pull another "but I didn't inhale" line on the public, he was just begging for trouble. The guy does seem to have a little bit of a problem with telling the truth. But then, so do a lot of people.

He should stick to what he knows. But in the area of Viet Nam and war, he's not the guy I'd be asking for advice from.

[jackbourassa]

22. Clinton is ALL TALK

Simple.

Some Democrats are just too overly impressed with Bill Clinton.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Not a quagmire, it is a SandTrap (better meme)

[daleo]

15. Split the difference - call it Quicksand. n/t

[Hekate]

24. Quicksand: What I've been saying all along

Gotta get our imagery in line with geography. Vietnam was hot steamy jungles; Iraq is hot dry sand.

Hekate

[The Roux Comes First]

7. Once a Politician Always a Politician

That word "prevail" caught my eye. The article includes the quote "the key to success is getting the Iraqis to defend themselves against the insurgents." That seems pretty weasily on the face of it. Is that "defend" while our troops continue to conspicuously and provocatively occupy Iraq? Or ??

[LynnTheDem]

14. And as 95% of the "insurgents" ARE IRAQIS...

Hrmmmmm...

[endarkenment]

21. Once again

it is the subtext, the implicit assumptions. Why are we in Iraq? What is the mission? Why should we 'prevail'?

[u4ic]

25. Welcome to DU, The Roux Comes First!

:hi:

[lancdem]

11. What cracked me up was the reporter's characterization

of Clinton's comments as a "bombshell." Hardly. He was just stating what the majority of the country thinks.

[paineinthearse]

13. Hey Daily News, he is President Clinton to you!

But we can call him "bubba".

[Emillereid]

17. I sure wish the Clintons would sometimes get out and lead on an issue

rather that tiptoe behind public opinion. Though I'm glad he's saying what he is saying, it would have been more meaningful to public discourse had he said some of these things when the war was 'popular.' Then of course he appeared to just be another cheerleader.

Somebody should inform Clinton that the Iraqi people do not see the present regime as legitimate. If I remember correctly there was quite a bit of finagling with the election process in Iraq -- I mean telling people if they didn't vote, they wouldn't get food rations does motivate one to vote I suppose. The only way that an insurgency maintains its struggle is with basic support from the people. For that matter I remember a so called election in Vietnam that supposed elicited the participation of an even greater percentage of the people -- and we all knew it was phony.

[warrens]

18. Eep, the Q word

Remember how the wingies would twist themselves into the ground screeching whenever that word was used? HAHAHAHAHA. Eat it, fascists.

[Straight Shooter]

19. bush scurries to his advisors and asks, "What's the Malay insurgency?"

He'll probably work it into his next terra terra 9/11 9/11 catapult-the-propaganda speech.