And why has the fact that large chunks of the American public basically agree with Reid here been completely absent from the media's discussion of this?
Because the Big Media is being told by its owners to turn its head...

Only the GOP dead enders won't admit we're losing.

We lost the first day we knew we couldn't do what Bush sent them there to do. We lost because the President lied about why we invaded.

Reid is right...we lost long ago.

The Right will assert that pointing out Reid is voicing an opinion in accord with a majority of the public IS ALSO an act of treachery. And another thing, don't you be pointing out Dubya has no robes!!

Pleases correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Harry Reid say that: Unless Bush changes course, the war is lost.

Probably for the same reasons that most Americans will likely not see yesterday's hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee...in which the Attorney General of the United States seems to be unable to determine whether he is perjurying himself or not.

Mae, the exact quote from the link above.

“I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — that this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq,” Mr. Reid said.

Senator Reid speaks to truth.

mae, reid made two sets of comments yesterday. in his first set of comments to reporters, he said something very convoluted which suggests that he meant to say something else...but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that that is what he said.

in the second set of comments on the Senate floor, he clarified what he meant by saying what you're recalling...

This is still Core Commentary and base-pandering designed to move the middle to the right, the same as the "liberal media" meme does. They're not saying so much that the Left are the only people against the war as they are saying, "if you're against the war, you are a part of the Left." They are defining politics in military terms with a "for us or against us" mentality. They are speaking to people who are more turned off by the idea of themselves being a part of the Left than they are opposed to the war.

Pleases correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Harry Reid say that: Unless Bush changes course, the war is lost.

Posted by: Mae

I saw two different quotes. One was from a press conference and one was from the senate floor. Both were clipped. Does anybody have video or transcript of what Reid said? Not the clipped versions but full quotes.

The GOP really seems out to lunch on this. I used to think they would drop the war as an issue as they got closer to the election. They know how this polls as well. Now, I have wonder. I think these guys are going to go right down the toilet on the war. Hey, if they want the next cycle to be about expanding the way, let them ride that train right off a cliff!

Code Word: Paint as in painted into a corner!

Of course, Sen. Reid is right. I just think we should wrap it up and leave so as not to add more deaths and grieving families to a list that's already too lengthy.
A decade more? I can't help but wonder why we don't just put a number on it, so we'll know what we're willing to lose. We lost 58,000 Americans in Vietnam. So how about 59,000 American dead in Iraq and not one American more?
That makes no sense. When we leave, it's gonna be a hellhole. Guess what? It IS a hellhole, and it's been one since long before we went in there and ousted Saddam.
That nation is not worth another another American life. I hope the people who voted for this war, and who backed this war (but didn't sign up to serve) and most of all the people who trumped up this war face the wrath of God when their time comes.

My prayer is that we get our people out of there yesterday.

By the way, I served in the Vietnam era (but never went into that country)m and like most Americans I revere those who are serving honorably in our military now. They just have not been well-served by this administration.

here are his full comments:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sYZEGot-xU4

what do you all think?

This is all well and good to be discussing what public officials say about an inconsequential issue like a war.

But get some priorities: the TV news is telling me that it's much more important to focus on a phone message Alec Baldwin left for his daughter.

The reason for the disconnect between media coverage and reality is that the media is not in the reality business, they're in the business of presenting both sides of an argument, even if one side is nothing short of propaganda. The onus is apparently on us to filter out the bullshit.

The "war", when there was one, was with Saddam Hussein. That didn't take long. And it *was* won. What's happening in Iraq now is not America's war. A major part of it is Iraq's civil war, not Iraq's war against America (even after accepting that there have been many observations that most of the violence there is occurring because of the presence of American forces).

Before this war can be considered to be lost, the President (and all the morons who keep screaming on and on about how "victory" is still possible in Iraq) has to (and STILL HAS NOT) defined what "victory" in Iraq is. You can't win something if you don't know when you've won. Of course, you can't win something when you don't want to know when you can call it a victory, either. And yet, billions of dollars have been spent on this search for "victory", whatever the hell that means.

So please, let's pin these guys down on what they really mean when they say they want victory.

And MSM dosn't tell us that Centcom has abandoned its idea of Iraqi troops standing up in the fight against insurgents enabling US-troops to stand down.

Nor does the military agree with Bush that the surge is working or going to work.

Absolutely nothing Cornyn says can be taken seriously with regards to the war (actually on just about anything). While a monumental success as just another Bush lackey, he is a complete zero as a politician. CNN could interview a styrofoam cup and get more insight.

Reid is correct. Why aren't more Dems agreeing with him?

Whatever the polls say about Americans' thinking on this, Reid is still letting the Administration frame the issue. He should not say that the war is or will be lost. He should say that all talk of winning or losing is irrelevant because you can't win or lose a war in which you have no definite enemy and no clear objectives. It's time to redeploy in Iraq not because we've lost or are losing but because we're not AT war. It's the Iraqis who are at war with one another, and we're just stuck in the middle.

I noticed the difference in how Reid's comment is being reported in comparison to Senator McCain's comment about "bombing Iran". Senator McCain's comment was just a joke - that's just the way he is. Anyway, if we bomb Iran, it should have no impact on our troops in Iraq? However, Senator Reid's comment was a dangerous breach and could cause harm to our troops in Iraq? Just saying...

Most americans, unlike BushCo and MSNBC, do not profitmin any qway from this war. In fact the mahority ofmAmericans have nbeen [aying for this war in taxes since 2001 and, along with a gneration or two, will continue to pay for this war for years by servicing the enormous debt the war has created.

What do we have to show for this? Not a god damn thing except for the fact that Wolfowitz has a nice gig, that GE (MSNBC's parent) continues rakes in the contracts, Halliburton execs wallow in governments money with no scrutiny, the ever undefinable chin of Exxon's Lee Raymond drags closer to the ground and all of the NeoCons wallets have exploded. All this makes my heart swell with pride.

Is Lee /Greenwood still proud to be an American?

The reason for the disconnect between media coverage and reality is that the media is not in the reality business, they're in the business of presenting both sides of an argument, even if one side is nothing short of propaganda. The onus is apparently on us to filter out the bullshit.

This is really on target. I still have the vague sense that the media really really should be in the reality business, but it certainly doesn't seem to be. Information that contradicts the "reality" of mainstream media doesn't even get mentioned. It's Orwellian. And the umbrage of reporters and pundits when people continue to disagree with them is fascinating--in the same way that a trainwreck is fascinating.

There was a WaPo/ABC poll in mid april that showed a solid majority believes the US is losing in Iraq, and a narrow majority believes it will lose when all is said and done.

Greenwald commented on that poll in connection to Pelosi's skyrocketing approval ratings, but it's in there...

Reid is merely speaking uncomfortable truths. Please, no democrats should close the triangle on him by agreeing his comments were too far or any shit. He's completely right.

Funny. All I have to do is cut & paste from a previous post:

"No Iraqi Shia with any sense trusts the Maliki government or the Americans to protect them."
Because they cannot. I see so many responses talking of how pulling out is tantamount to defeat.
On the premise that reality is what remains even though you stop believing in something, WE ARE DEFEATED. We were defeated when the inadequate plans were drawn up and executed. We were defeated when Shinseki (sp?) was not listened to. We were defeated when the American public was not given a share of the responsibility for this war and told to make a sacrifice for it.
Defeat is already here. It is not something that "will happen."
The current plan is to teach the Iraqis to provide their own security. How can you teach something that you do not know how to do yourself???????
Folks we have been defeated in this endevour and the responsibility for that defeat lies at the feet of George W Bush. And just so we don't get into an Alice in Wonderland thing here, I do not mean the kind of responsibility that I have seen GWB "accept" before.

I recall a statement by Bob Schrum on Matthew's
program about a year ago.."It's all over but the killing." The current policy and execution is very much like post-Tet in Vietnam. More people were killed during the"peace with honor" period than the during the time when we were "winning
hearts and minds.
Time to call this dog home.

The war in Iraq is not yet lost, however we are no longer in a position to win it. The only people who can truly win it at this point are the Iraquis. Our leaving will guarantee their failure. The question becomes, how can we get them to take their future in hand, in a way that lets us leave with some sembalence of honor?

Were not in a war. In a war you have a distinct enemy. In Iraq we are killing people on both sides. It used to be we were killing Sunni only but with the "surge" we have begun killing on both sides. So if you wish to call this a war it's really a war on the people of Iraq, because it seems all Iraqi's are our enemy.

Ask the commanders who isn't the enemy and they can't answer that either.

Gandhi -- I have no doubt at all that your post ("Centcom has abandoned its idea of Iraqi troops standing up in the fight against insurgents enabling US-troops to stand down . . . military [does not] agree with Bush that the surge is working or going to work") is accurate. Could you give me some cites so that I can refer others to your sources? Many thanks.

It occurs to me which is worse, not funding the troops or funding their death and those they kill.

We need a study of what exactly will happen if the supplemental is not funded.

There is no honor in murder. "Thou shall not kill."

Randy wrote, Were not in a war.

Of course. It's an occupation, not a war.

It occurs to me which is worse, not funding the troops or funding their death and those they kill.

The phrasing "not funding the troops" is pernicious (though I'm sure you didn't mean it so), given that no one is talking about abandoning the troops in the field with no materiel.

Rather, the question is: fund the troops so they can continue down this ruinous path at the behest of a madman, or fund their return home.

Harry Reid is getting punished for speaking the truth. Honestly, since we're actually building a wall in Baghdad how can anyone say we've not lost this leg of our Iraqi adventurism in preemption? As for the war itself, General Franks and our military won it quickly, which is when mission creep entered the picture and all hell broke loose.

Democrats need to learn the lesson, which I thought we'd learned in '04 after Kerry. When you're in a fight like this you don't back down, you push back.

Once more, the media skews a story in attempts to cast Democrats (and reason) in a bad light. For example this morning, when not running the un-news story of Alec Baldwin & his family problems CNN interviewed Dana Perino and asked her about this very thing. As one can imagine she spouted all of the Bush talking points-

"General Patreus...blah, blah, security in Baghdad...blah, blah, getting better...blah, blah..."

It's all complete bunk. Furthermore, it's irresponsible journalism to even suggest that it is anything otherwise. The situation in Iraq is horrendous and it's been continually getting worse. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any silver lining in anything that's occurred in Iraq since we invaded that country. On top of that they (the Iraqis) ALL want us out. By a large majority they want us to leave and by a large majority they see US as legitimate targets.

Noam Chomsky made a great point in an interview he had with Amy Goodman and was asked about winning in Iraq. In discussing the disaster in Iraq and historically similar disasters such as Afghanistan, Vietnam & Cambodia he said:

"...The Germans could have argued if they had the force that they didn't, that they could have won the Second World War. I mean the question is not can you win. The question is should you be there."

And that's the real question isn't it? Can Iraq be won? Sure, if we kill everyone there...we'd win. But is that really what we want to do? It is certainly not civil, just, humane or even American in the ideal sense of the word. But that's the only way a military victory will been attained in Iraq only no one wants to come right out and say such a vile thing. So that is exactly the question the the press should have been asking all along and it's as relevant a question today as it was amidst the lies during the buildup to the war. Should we even be there?

Regarding the youtube video:

Reid was asked a question by a reporter. The full question and full answer are what is needed. To really KNOW what is going I'd/you'd have to have seen the whole press conference.

This is a talking point the rnc has decided the "liberal media" is gonna push. So the whole thing would be nice. Checked c-span and it's not there.

Reid stepped in it. He shouldn't have said the L word. He should have said, "let's declare victory and go home".

No matter that he's right. No matter that most Americans agree with him. I'll be very surprised if this doesn't come back to haunt Democrats in 2008.

No matter that he's right. No matter that most Americans agree with him. I'll be very surprised if this doesn't come back to haunt Democrats in 2008.

You are thinking the same thing as the Republicans and the media. This is old Vietnam era thinking, when the Democrats were right about that war but got clobbered politically.

This time things have changed. There aren't all the other social upheavals that occurred in the '60's that scared the bejesus out of people.

This time a majority of the public is getting a taste of what it is like to be called a traitor and a loser because they are sick of a protracted, unwinnable war and want it to end. And I'm willing to bet they don't like it.

This war is going to make the Republicans the Titanic of political parties. They already got a taste of it November, and that was just a start as the public's patience grows increasly short. When the Republicans call people who want the war over cowards and traitors they are addressing the majority of Americans.

I sincerely hope you are right, Pug. I hope things have changed.

Greg, this is off topic, but it might be one you'd like to look at, a really deceptive disclaimer in Newsweek that RealClimate dug up.

Source:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/lindzen-in-newsweek/#more-435:

Original article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

Lindzen chose to include this very lawyerly disclaimer at the end of the piece:

[Lindzen's] research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.

Richard, one thinks thou dost protest too much! A casual reader would be led to infer that Lindzen has received no industry money for his services. But that would be wrong. He has in fact received a pretty penny from industry. But this isn't for research. Rather it is for his faithful advocacy of a fossil fuel industry-friendly point of view. So Lindzen's claim is true, on a technicality. But while the reader is led to believe that there is no conflict of interest at work behind Lindzen's writings, just the opposite is the case.

PS if you look at Comment #2 in the realclimate post I linked to, it appears that the same disclaimer for Lindzen has been used elsewhere so it is presumably his invention, not Newsweek's. So maybe they'll correct?

And why has the fact that large chunks of the American public basically agree with Reid here been completely absent from the media's discussion of this?

Because the MSM just doesn't look for trouble. It sees everything in horserace/personality terms.

HEre is an iteresting articale about an upcoming presentation on how the press helped to "enable President Bush" to start a war on "false pretenses"

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003574260

From a strategic standpoint, isn't "losing" the better outcome for the United States? After all, winning means the current Iraqi government wins. A government that is dominated by Shia, many of whom have very close ties with Iran, and a government that has absolutely no desire of reconciling with the Sunnis.

If we "win," we simply make it easier for the Iraqi government to kill Sunnis and to strengthen its ties with Iran.

And in the end, that is the insanity right now that is Iraq. We are fighting on the side of the Shia, who, in turn, are allied with Iran. If Iran really is the number one danger in the region, what in the world are we doing aiding their allies in Iraq?

The American public has been lied to by defeatist MSM outlets and the fact that Bush still has a 38% approval rating seems to escape the Moonbats.

Whoever except leftist loonies ran a war by polls?

When taunted by a Liberal in Parliament that he was going to die "on the gallows or of a vicious social disease," Disraeli replied "That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

Thanks for that link. Moyers is one of the few remaining journalists on tv worthy of the name. Sadly, the audience for this show will probably be small and limited to those who already agree with Moyers.

The reason the war is lost is because there is no possible way to win. There is no specific enemy that can surrender. There is no specific goal which, if achieved, would enable us to declare victory. Our soldiers, who were trained for battle, are there as a police force. How can a police force achieve victory. At best it can hope to lower crime statistics. Is that victory? Why doesn't the media attact Bush as vehemently when he talks about victory?

Thinking about objectives, etc, a/ Saddam is deposed and b/ we've eliminated the chance of Iraq having WMDs (for a very short period) 'cos they never had any. We haven't ensured a peaceful, prosperous, democratic and corporate capitalist paradise- but then this was never realistically a military job: it was a neo-con fantasy. That it was mismanaged to freakishly surreal propotions is a tragi-comic sidebar- but it was was, I think, always a neocon DREAM, not something they ever bothered to plan for. So militariy, where have we failed/lost/what the heck is happening? Well, we haven't yet SECURED THE OIL. Ain't that the point of permanent bases?

Amazing, Reagan is given credit for winning the Cold War by saying tear down this wall. Now the Neocon answer for illegal immigration is put up a wall the answer for Iraq is build a wall around the Sunni's, the Israeli answer is build a wall. I guess we can just wall off everyone and never have to solve any problems. Seems to me we are going backward.

Can anyone tell me how we can be worse off in Iraq by pulling out when I cannot imagine anything worse that the violence that happened there this week? At least if we take our men out of this mess we can begin to rebuild our military. I think Reid is right that we are staying there so that Bush and the Republican's can say that the next President who is likely to be a Democrat lost this war just as they continue to pile on debt and light a time bomb in the Economy that will eventually hit the next President and they will try to say is their fault. The Responsibility for all this mess belongs to Bush and we must make sure that is where it falls.

"Reid's "War Is Lost" Comment "
When will the Democrats learn to avoid using Republican talking points?

The Iraq war was won when Bush declared "Mission Accomplished"

What the USA has now in Iraq is an occupation - which is going poorly and which should be ended.