Honestly, I never loved that Chickenhawk line.

But I tell you what did tick me off, who in the heck is Joe Scarborough to speak for our soldiers and their families? How the heck does he know how they feel? That really ticked me off.

That said, at this point in the Iraq Debacle, I think the Chickenhawk argument is politically effective because the country has rejected it, and I bet our soldiers have too. But I do not presume to speak for them.

Can we win in Iraq? Not according to Henry Kissinger.

If you mean by military victory, an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible,'' he told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.

Voters sent an unambiguous message that it's time to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. This is the White House response:

The Pentagon announced Friday that 57,000 U.S. troops, including five combat brigades, have been told to deploy to Iraq early next year -- a move that will maintain current force levels there.

A/k/a, stay the course.

Having avoided fighting in Vietnam, President Bush is belatedly "reading and studying" about the country. The lesson to be learned from the Vietnam war is simple: the United States should not wage war against a country that has not attacked, and poses no credible threat to the security of, the United States or its significant allies. Leave it to the president to learn the wrong lesson:

[A]sked on arrival in Vietnam for an economic summit whether this country holds any lessons for the debate over Iraq, the President answered: "Yes. One lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

In other words, the lesson Bush learned from the Vietman war is: stay the course. Brilliant. All those years of staying the course in Vietman worked so well.

After admitting that he helped eight other servicemen kidnap and kill an unarmed Iraqi, while "staging his body to appear that he was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb," Marine Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson was sentenced to 21 months in military custody.

Jackson pleaded guilty to reduced charges of aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice in a plea deal with prosecutors. Murder and kidnapping charges against Jackson were dropped in exchange for his testimony. Of the eight serviceman originally charged in the case, the four most senior Marines still face courts-martial ....

The Marines murdered the wrong man, as described in this story. On Wednesday, Marine PFC John Jodka III, was sentenced to 18 months for participating in the kidnapping and murder.

At least 16 U.S. service personnel have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in the unwarranted killing of Iraqis since the war began in March 2003. Two received life sentences. ... The Marine Corps is still investigating whether to file murder and other charges against Marines from Camp Pendleton for the deaths of 24 Iraqis at Haditha in November 2005.

Via Oliver Willis, the military about to ask for another $127 billion to fight the Bush Administration wars.

The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II.

The Pentagon is considering $127 billion to $160 billion in requests from the armed services for the 2007 fiscal year, which began last month, several lawmakers and congressional staff members said. That's on top of $70 billion already approved for 2007.

Spencer Ackerman upbraids his former employers at The New Republic for their lack of seriousness on Iraq while feigning "seriousness." This is exactly the problem with the Establishment Beltway and, frankly, anyone who wants to "Stay the course" without asking for real sacrifices from Americans. I tell you, just one time I would like to hear a stay the course person propose a draft, tax increases to pay for the Debacle and, in essence a reconquering of Iraq with 300,000 soldiers - because then I would know I am dealing with a person who is arguing honestly about the problem. Instead we get this:

The coming debate over timetables and troop levels will likely generate much anger, shattering postelection illusions of bipartisanship and provoking intra-party squabbles. But, in the end, this struggle will be over the difference between a largely intolerable outcome and a completely intolerable one....

What in blazes does that mean?

Let's pretend for a moment that we do not already know Iraq is lost. Now consider the reported testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Abizaid was particularly weak:

Gen. John P. Abizaid made it clear that he did not endorse the phased troop withdrawals being proposed by Democratic lawmakers. Instead, he said the number of troops in Iraq might be increased by a small amount as part of new plans by American commanders to improve the training of the Iraqi Army. . . . Under the immediate initiative that General Abizaid described, the number of American military advisers working with Iraqi forces will be increased, with advisers to be assigned even to small Iraqi units with fewer than 200 soldiers.

"We need to put more American capacity into Iraqi units to make them more capable in their ability to confront the sectarian problem," General Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It is possible that we might have to go up in troop levels in order to increase the number of forces that go into the Iraqi security forces, but I believe that's only temporary."

Is that all we have left? More.

Generals Zinni and Batiste, think we should stay:

Anthony C. Zinni . . . argued that any substantial reduction of American forces over the next several months would be more likely to accelerate the slide to civil war than stop it. “The logic of this is you put pressure on Maliki and force him to stand up to this,” General Zinni said in an interview, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. “Well, you can’t put pressure on a wounded guy. . . . I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence.” Instead of taking troops out, General Zinni said, it would make more sense to consider deploying additional American forces over the next six months to “regain momentum” as part of a broader effort to stabilize Iraq that would create more jobs, foster political reconciliation and develop more effective Iraqi security forces.

Um, they are not capable of stopping the sectarian violence so that's why we should commit MORE forces to Iraq? Sounds like Rummy talk to me. This is beyond absurd. I would ask General Zinni this question, when do we win? Because 6 months ain't going to do it. 10,000 troops ain't going to do it. Straight talk please. If you don't want us to leave, tell the truth and tell us what it would cost, in blood and treasure.

Larisa at Raw Story reports that Robert Gates, Bush's nominee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, may not be the pro-Baker, anti-Cheney, anti-necon candidate after all.

The argument has been made by many pundits and experts that the removal of Rumsfeld and the nomination of Gates, planning for which numerous sources indicate began roughly one month ago, will have the effect of marginalizing Vice President Dick Cheney, seen by most to be the driving force behind US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Larisa quotes several sources, such as the one below, to posit that Gates and Cheney may be more closely allied than previously thought.

WaPo:

Speaking in Hartford last Wednesday, Lieberman remained unwavering in his opposition to Democrats' calls for withdrawing troops from Iraq. "What we are doing now there is not working, but that doesn't mean in any sense that it is time for us to retreat," he said. "This is a test in a very difficult and dangerous hour in our history." . . . "The voters spoke on Tuesday that they're unhappy with the status quo," Lieberman said. However, he added, "I don't believe they want us to pick up and leave."

Yet Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and other Democrats called yesterday for the Bush administration to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in the next few months. The new Congress, said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), in line to chair the Armed Services Committee, "is willing to implement the people's will and to put some pressure on this president to change course in Iraq, forget the stay-the-course policy that is no longer viable." Levin said on ABC's "This Week" that redeployment should begin within four to six months.

What Joe Lieberman has to say on Iraq is simply irrelevant. What Reid, Levin, Pelosi and Murtha say matters from the Congress. And of course what Bush says from the Executive. Joe Lieberman is not part of the conversation.

The Democrats have been far from aligned on an exit strategy from Iraq. But they now seem to be agreeing that the troops should start coming home in four to six months.

The Democrats — the incoming majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada; the incoming Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan; and the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware — said a phased redeployment of troops would be their top priority when the new Congress convenes in January, even before an investigation of the conduct of the war.

“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Mr. Levin said in an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week.” In a telephone interview later, Mr. Levin added, “The point of this is to signal to the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that they are going to have to solve their own problems.”

I'll agree, this needs to be a top priority. And how out of touch is John McCain, who on Meet the Press Sunday morning, said we need to stay the course and send more troops?