WHat do you think of the Murtha plan to keep an "over the Horizon" force, i.e., troops nearby that, if I understand him correctly, would be empowered to swoop in and perform military operations if they sense an Al Qaeda threat?

We really have gone way too far down the path of empire.  Drawing borders, moving populations, it's unbelievable.  

Of course, Richardson's formulation does not rule out dispatching forces on an agreed to mission to protect humanitarian workers ... and today's coverage on the front page "clarified" that the formulation said what it sounded like it meant, but avoided addressing whether questions had been raised regarding after the occupation has been stopped.

And of course, Edwards explicit refusal to rule out forces on a mission to protect humanitarian workers does not imply that there will be such a mission, let alone imply that it will commence before the withdrawal is complete.

... so while I am unimpressed with whar I read of Samantha Power's approach, when I see that the linchpin of the piece is

Obama's is apparently written by Samantha Power

it seems only prudent to take that with a grain of salt.

why don't you wait and see what he says come Tuesday or are you going to assume before the finished and actual speech, like usual

is that ANY Democrat will be forced to leave substantial residual forces in Iraq. Richardson and Dodd are pandering on the assumption that their facile prescriptions will translate into Mindless Foaming Angry Nutroots Left Wing Fringe Moonbat votes and internet money. Like the rest of the Beltway consultant class, they believe that enough bloody shirts waved means millions of dollars in netroots money. The hell with them.

The real issue at hand is, whom do you trust to expedite this regrettably necessary course with the most efficiency, honesty, and integrity?

in Iraq, because we did create a bit of a mess there and if we had some troops in a relatively safe, isolated location, for non-permanenet peacekeeping, I don't see the problem with that.

What we may overlook is that there are already large gatherings of US military in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and those aren't going away anytime soon. Those bases are going to be there regardless...but it may make sense to have a 'quick-reaction' force in Iraq, so long as they are not under constant attack, and are staying out of the fray.

I don't WANT that...I'd rather our troops were completely out of harm's way, but the Iraq War veteran in me tells me that its probably necessary for the short-term.

I find it ironic that Obama is getting slapped when he saw this was a stupid war to begin with but, as a thoughtful and intellectual man, can see it will be difficult to get out.  He did not approve of the war.  But, this is what is left to people like him to figure the best way to get out.  And though he is praised for his vision when it he told what would happen, now he is trashed because he can see that the options are awful there but, it is not what people want to hear.  They want to hear the fantasy rather than the reality that Iraq is a total mess but, we do hold responsiblity for making it that way.  We have to clean up Bush's mess.
Then, Edwards is praised though he went along to get along rather than try to find out more information about what was being fed to him.  And so he voted for war and ultimate power to Bush.  He is not held to any responsibility for this mess that people like Obama are getting vilified for because they have to clean the damn thing up and the mess Edwards voted yes to.  
You don't like the situation or the fact that the answers are not what you want to hear, then you should at least hold some of this to Edwards rather than dump it all on Obama who is the clean up guy.

is that as we take most of our troops out, it's not clear to me that we will have an Iraqi govt that wants us around.  Al-Sadr sure doesn't.  So it's very possible that removing most combat troops will lead to everyone gone anyway.  Not exactly a progressive vision, but it may be what happens.  

remember that power advocated going into iraq in 1998.

it is very interesting to hear that she is an advisor to obama, i konw she's been quite influential to people like george soros in creating an intellectual basis for a 'positive military'.

fwiw, i like richardson on iraq.

are very different. the troop remainder argument may be valid but otherwise the plans are very very different. I think Obama and Edwards supporters would agree on that.

Maybe some rephrasing?

They wouldn't be there under President Obama.

They would have been their under President Edwards.

So sorry you sold your brain for money.

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, I am here to speak in support of the resolution before us, which I cosponsored. I believe we must vote for this resolution not because we want war, but because the national security of our country requires action. The prospect of using force to protect our security is the most difficult decision a Nation must ever make.

We all agree that this is not an easy decision. It carries many risks. If force proves necessary, it will also carry costs, certainly in resources, and perhaps in lives. After careful consideration, I believe that the risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action.

Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal.

Edwards in his own words 9/12/2002

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I firmly believe that the issue of Iraq is not about politics. It's about national security. We know that for at least 20 years, Saddam Hussein has aggressively and obsessively sought weapons of mass destruction through every means available. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today. He has used them in the past, and he is doing everything he can to build more. Each day he inches closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability--a capability that could be less than a year away.
I believe that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime represents a clear threat to the United States, to our allies, to our interests around the world, and to the values of freedom and democracy we hold dear.

Saddam has proven his willingness to act irrationally and brutally against his neighbors and against his own people. Iraqi's destructive capacity has the potential to throw the entire Middle East into chaos, and poses a mortal threat to our vital ally, Israel.

What's more, the terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam's arsenal, and there is every possibility that he could turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11 had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On September 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat, and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror.

I agree with the comment above that we need to deal with the Iraq situation in a UN context.  The next President needs to go before the UN Assembly and say, "Hey, we screwed up big-time, but America has done some great stuff for the world in the past, and we hope that you will forgive us for Dubya's stupidity and please join with us and help create the best possible outcome in Iraq."

A little humility would go a long way.

Samantha Powers words about the left infuriated me so much, it's such a Lieberman kind of way of talking about the Democrtic party, progressives and THE LEFT, that I was going to post about it.

This is so typical of Barack Obama and the people HE HAS CHOSEN TO SURROUND HIMSELF WITH.

Matt, you may think the substance of his views is more important, but in this case I know that HOW HE TALKS ABOUT IT TELLS YOU HOW HE THINKS,  NOT JUST ABOUT THIS ISSUE BUT HOW HE WOULD DEAL WITH OTHER FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICIES IF HE WAS PRESIDENT.AND WE WHO CARE SHOULD WORRY if he keeps having Samantha Power and her ilk speak for him because, you know, maybe by now we should realize it's him as well.

I think these kinds of words from him and his surrogates are a window into his political soul.  And I will defend myself by saying I knew who  Joe Lieberman really was long before the blogs knew what kind of Democrat he was.  When I sat next to him on a plane for 5 hours in the early 90's, I thought he was a faithless Dem and I said so repeatedly in Dkos comments when people trashed Kerry and I was constantly bringing up  "you don't know what an unprincipled Democrat is until you look at Joe"

John Edwards,  not now or ever,  even as a more moderate Southern Democrat, has spoken with such unthinking disdain for the left and the Democratic party.  I admire him for that.  It frankly makes me trust his instincts, his judgments and what he will do in the future.  

And I know too few of you will give her credit for it.... but Hillary Clinton doesn't talk about the Democratic party, progressives and even the left with such casually assumed, unthinking disdain for Democratic party, its  principles or of those of us on the left.  I too think this tells you something about how she thinks about principles we care about and how she would govern, what her values are.

In this case I think it's the style, the meta, that tells us more than anything substative.  These kinds of words are prognosticators for the future. We should pay heed.  

I have been a huge fan of Samantha Power, as my girlfriend works on Anti-genocide issues and Power is a rockstar in the field. However, while personally am willing to cut people slack ...I am taking a post about cutting slack from this site to heart.

Power's plan is a recipe for disaster, unending entanglement, and exacerbating genocide. All she needed to do was look at her OWN research. The 1947 Hindu-Muslim genocides were so bad because of the relocations. Identification is a key step towards mass genocide. When people start moving en masse, that is when they have revealed who they are and are most vulnerable. Our troops would be trapped in the same conditions that led towards the worst excesses of the Khmer Rouge and the horrors in Gujarat.

Second, while I do not believe Power was ill-intentioned in her comment, it showed she is extremely out-of-touch with the future of the democratic party, proud progressives and netroots activists.

OK. You want to support the Edwards plan, whatever it is this week, check the polls.

So all the netgoons made fun of McCain for going to Iraq to show the surge was working. Actually, he showed us the opposite, but regardless.

You want to call Edwards anti-war.  You do know he put us here, I hope.  Edwards didn't just vote yes, he was a cheerleader.

You have seen what Obama said before the war, he wasn't just anti-war, everything he said has happened.

So here is my challenge.  You think leaving now is the answer.  Disclaimer, a lot of me does as well.

So show us how much you believe.  When we pull out all the troops.  Go there and walk down the street.   Feel Lucky?

Edwards put us here.  Obama wants to figure out the best way out.  Agree or disagree, you don't know what will happen.

If you think it will be nirvana.  Go there.

There well may be humongous slaughter. Because it is not Americans, I should not care.

Well, I do.  And I trust Obama a billion more times then Edwards.

Of course I have a track record. You don't.  Your hero put us there.

When are you leaving to Bagdad.

The Edwards plan: Say what ever satisfies every last whim by liberal bloggers on Iraq because I don't have to vote in the senate anymore. That way those bloggers will bash my opponenets even though when I was put to the test I voted for war and co-sponsered it even though I knew better because it was popular at the time and Bob Shrum told me so. If I win the nomination I will backtack on the "I wont leave any troops in Iraq under any circumstances because it will be political death to say their are no circumstances where any residual troops would remain to fight some legitimate terror fighting goal, then the democratic party will have to exept reality which is I will try and get the troops out ASAP logistically which is what all the dem candidates for the nomination said earlier.

As far as I can tell, all of our candidates except for Richardson and Dodd see no problem in keeping troops in Iraq.

You need to look a bit farther. Kucinich not only voted against the war, in the first place, but has called for withdrawal consistently.

Matt,

I'm not sure why this is being made a big deal of NOW.  It sounds like some of the bloggers seem that they are pushing some big scoop.  This has been part of Obama's bill since the beginning and has been discussed in the MyDD comments in various diaries numerous times.  All of a sudden I see Taylor making this out to be some new scoop that she had never seen before, and you seem to be doing the same.  Did you miss this in you initial reading of his Iraq proposal?  

It seems like it's a bit of coordinated attack by some members ot the liberal blogosphere, find every possable thing wrong on Obama and pounce, while Edwards "contoversies" are ignored or papered over.

I'm cold, but I don't care. If they fall into complete civil war, so be it. I want our troops home.

Us young types on the political left are foreign policy, and not given to the sound bites like the one Samantha Power issued.  That said, I want to see her whole background, before I toss her off as journalistic offal. If the comment is that telling though, I can promise you:  she's got one hell of a lot to learn about us Americans on the left.  This is one member of the American left who damn near bursts with pride when he thinks of his grandfather, who stopped accepting steelworker deferments so he could fight fascism in the Pacific Theater.  Anybody who thinks the Reagan crowd has the market cornered on patriotism has their head up their ass.  

And many of us young Dems, I promise you, are Clarkies.  Otherwise, the closest that comes to him is probably Bill Richardson.

However, before we dissect Obama's plan, can we please enumerate what benchmarks his plan will consist of?  Why not have a plan for gradual draw-down that is balanced by these pragmatic incentives?  Like everyone else in this blogging community, I get fed up with easy does-it approaches, but political will is not contradictory to caution in this case.  

And, for electoral purposes and the more important task of getting the best nat'l security reorientation we can, I am disinclined to make my primary vote a reductive issue of only counting boots on the ground.  

What is most important is that any plan, ANY plan, is accompanied by excellent shuttle diplomacy, effective reallocation of the troops as a means to adjusting Iranian and Syrian positions, and whatever it takes to fortify/lend legitimacy to the Iraqi government.  

While I want my buddies who are serving to come home quickly as much as the next guy does, I want it done in a fashion that is accompanied by some decent geopolitical thinking.  It seems like the differences between the current Dem platforms on this issue, then, are matters of degrees, rather than being the difference between day and night.

mcjoan alway getst here first!

Hope ya Obama Police are ready for my next post:

Why Barack Obama is the next Joey the LiarMann and what you can do about it!

in which the best candidate on foreign policy is a former DLC chair and war supporter?  How the hell did this happen?  Are we so easily seduced by faux liberals?

I'm this close to pulling the lever for Richardson, I really am.

The number one way you learn who someone is is by seeing who they surround themselves with.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.  Powers is only one data point, but she is a data point.

" [We] are a prime irritant and cause of the violence."

I believe that sectarian divisions, ethnic chauvinism, religious fundamentalism and historical tensions are the reasons. Not American presence. Without US troops Iraq would be even worse off, perhaps in a genocidal war.

We MUST be as CAREFUL pulling out as we were CARELESS going in.

There are NO good option in IRAQ, only BAD options and WORST options

[Paraphrases of Senator Obama]

'Nuff said

"both [Obama and Edwards] assert that troops should remain in Iraq for humanitarian purposes."

I don't know about Obama, but I don't know that you can say that about Edwards.  The phrasing "troops should remain in Iraq for humanitarian purposes" implies that troops should remain, so that in case there are humanitarian missions, there will already be troops there to protect them.

The Edwards campaign statement suggests more along the lines of 'the troops will be withdrawn, but if there's a humanitarian mission we feel is worth doing, we'd send troops along with it to protect it.'  Let's roll tape:

"And just the same, if American civilians are providing humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people, we're going to protect them. How in good conscience could we refuse to protect them and then allow humanitarian workers to be at risk for their lives or the work not to happen at all?"

That doesn't to me imply a continuous presence of troops in Iraq to protect such work.  The Edwards campaign, and the Obama and Clinton campaigns, should be asked to clarify what they mean, but it's unreasonable to say the Edwards campaign is saying it's going to leave a residual force for humanitarian purposes.  It may or may not be thinking that, but it hasn't said it.

controversy drives up page views.

so we need to keep killing americans in iraq so we dont have to pay 15 dollars a gallon for gas and to protect sadia arabia from iran.you people are gutless immoral hipocrites.you will destroy this country with your simmple minded stupidity.you sound just like george w bush.in ten years when gas has reached 15 dollars a gallon and thousands more americans have died in iraq,I wonder will you have any since of shame.sending americans to die in another countrys civil war doesnt make you strong.

I agree with GCEE.  This country rushed into war and gave Bush the power.  Senator Obama is correct in saying we must be careful getting out as we were careless getting in.
Those careless enough to okay this mess and give George all that power without thinking have left those who are responsible enough to see what a disaster we are left with, to find ways to get us out.  It is not as easy as snapping your fingers.  It will take more than just leaving to get out.  It must be done carefully.  And we have left the whole region a powder keg.
Instead of attacking those who are trying to find a grown up way to get out, look to the ones who carelessly gave permission for this to ever take place to begin with.

It's amazing to me to see how many commenters are personality/candidate partisans rather than progressive value partisans, independent of candidate affiliation.  

There's so much sloppy thinking, cant and misprepresentation of Matt's writing in this thread it's rather breathtaking.

Matt wants an end to the American political default position of imperial "privilege," the belief that we haaaave some right or duty to impose our will around the world with force, rather than use force simply to defend ourselves.  

Richardson has articulated a position consistent with that, so he gets props.  Obama, Clinton and Edwards have not, though on a scale of 1-10, with 10 as high (anti-imperialist), Edwards is not perfect (7?) but edges out Obama (5?), whose stock is falling a little, and Clinton is near the bottom (1?).  

The purpose of writing about this stuff is to make a public argument about the role of the US in foriegn policy, a discussion that is not really happening today. I happen to agree with Matt on all these fronts.  This is what a progressive movement does:  put pressure on the party and its high profile candidates to transform the conversation from one dominated by the Georgetown foreign policy elites.

Grief.  I can't keep up with all this "grab a sound-bite" - then dissect it until the original sound-bite is unrecognizable. My head hurts.