Specter: ‘We Have To Face The Fact’ That Iraq Is A Civil War
Specter: ‘We Have To Face The Fact’ That Iraq Is A Civil War
This weekend on CNN’s Late Edition, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) made the case that U.S. troops in Iraq are “being sucked slowly into a civil war with disastrous consequences.”
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) was asked if he agreed with Reed’s view that Iraq is in a civil war. Specter flatly said “yes” and added, “I don’t think there’s any point, Wolf, in hiding the facts. I think we have to face the facts.” Watch it:
Specter’s view mirrors that of many of Iraq’s leaders, U.S. troops in Iraq, and seven in ten Americans.
Full transcript:
SEN. JACK REED: This is a civil war. And we are being sucked slowly into a civil war with disastrous consequences.
BLITZER: Is it a civil war already, Senator Specter, as many of the critics are suggesting?
SPECTER: Yes.
BLITZER: That’s your flat answer. So on this specific point, Senator Specter, you clearly disagree with the president and vice president.
SPECTER: Well, I think it’s a matter of semantics, but when you have the insurgents as violent as they have been, and when you have the three major factions in Iraq killing each other, and you have the level of violence, I don’t think there’s any point, Wolf, in hiding the facts. I think we have to face the facts.
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Send him to Gitmo.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:40 pmSpecter must be one of the dozen or so Republicans that Biden suggests will ask the president to change course.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:42 pm“I don’t think there’s any point, Wolf, in hiding the facts. I think we have to face the facts.”
Wow. Talk about breaking with the Administration. Big time.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:43 pmIf it is any consolation – I will be bringing Dick Cheney to his Habeus Corpusless knees.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:43 pmSpecter is a sickening example of why our country is in deep deep trouble. This man has no moral code and is as sneaky and slimey as they come. I’m so tired of his sham manuvers of “standing up to the executive.” on various occasions. He’s a fake and a bad man. How stupid does he think we are? As far as his brave “let’s face the facts” statement. The facts were there long ago…….he only faces facts when it is in the interest of saving his ass to do so. He’s a hard target to hit because he moves the target constantly….there are no facts for this man really. Well…….we elected these freaks.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:45 pmWhy the hell is there STILL any debate over “is this a civil war, is it not a civil war”? When you have large groups of people in the same country killing each other on a daily basis, it’s a freaking civil war. I’m sure the Bush talking heads will still insist we’re not there yet. Morons.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:46 pmThis just in from Captain Obvious:
Crap, Senator Obvious beat me to it!
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:46 pmSpectre, you are correct, sir.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:46 pmUntil KKKarl calls you & tells you to change your story and your Depends,
that is.
Jack Reed appears to be a good man.
That probably means no one in the White House is listening.
We know Bush doesn’t read books; does he read reports?
Iraq has been mired in a civil war for months, but that reality is just
beginning to sink in with the Neocrooks. The new policy on Iraq is
‘Don’t ask & we won’t tell’
Now they even have Malaki prohibiting ‘bad news’. If Bush thinks Malaki
is a good man, then he’s most likely for sale.
Sad, indeed.
He can suck it! He gives cover to this administration and the republican party by speaking in a bipartisan manner, but when it really counts he rubber stamps everything his party wants. He is more dangerous and disengenous than the extreme right leaning colleagues of his that never waver from their ideology in speech or actions.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:50 pmSpecter has no credibility at all.
If he stated “the sky is blue ” I would doubt he believed the statement, because the next day, if Bush thought the sky was green, Spector would be there yelling that the sky was now green along with King Chimpy.
Spector, who pushed to make illegal wiretapping legal, retroactively, because Bush was goingto do it anyway.
Fine way to uphold the law, gassbag.
No credibility at all…….
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:51 pmI have never forgiven Spectre for trying to kill Maxwell Smart.
-GSD
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:53 pmThus the recent babble by chuckle-nutts declaring that
they’ve ‘never been stay the course’.
Looks like King Warpig will be changing course now,
whether his psycopath ass wants to or not.
And against his highly respected uncle dick’s wishes.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:55 pmWeird stuff! How very awkward for the water carrying Specter!
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:57 pmRealScientist – Ya Beat me to the gitmo punchline! The Spectre of this guy telling the truth is real scary. His Aura is black as coal for the multitude of occasions where he has spouted party line, or pretended to offer some alternative only to fall on his knees when the phone rings and KKKarl is on the other line.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:57 pmGet better kneepads, Spectre.
Yeah, he’ll tell Wolf that it’s a civil war in Iraq, then he’ll orchestrate a Senate statement saying that it isn’t.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:03 pmHe has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth for too long now.
Specter is one of the most two-faced in Congress. His presidential aspirations has made him a transparent panderer to war and torture opponents.
I almost have more respect for a line-towing Republican thug than Spectre, at least they’re lying to everyone only once, where Spectre lies when he toes the line and lies when he pretends he’s not towing the line.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:07 pmFace the facts? Ha! This is America, where facts don’t mean shit and the man sitting in the Oval Office is a pathelogical liar.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:08 pmHe’s not credible. Wasn’t he responsible for Kennedy’s Magic Bullet?
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:09 pmSpector is pond life. He’ll go on TV and pander to the moderate line and then when the cameras are off lick Bushevik butt. He posed in opposition to the Act of Enablement bill from a few weeks ago saying he wanted to protect habeas corpus and when his amendment was defeated voted for the bill anyway!
Habeas Corpus – 1215 – 2006 – Rest-in-peace
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:10 pmThis is America, where facts don’t mean shit and the man sitting in the Oval Office is a pathelogical liar
I was hearing Drew Carey when you said that: “Welcome to America, where everything is made up and the votes don’t matter!”
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:11 pmSpector has a big yapper until it comes to the time to vote!
He does not care about any of the issues that he raises… he only cares about creating the illusion of oversight so that this corrupt administration can continue ass-raping the American public.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:18 pmGlad to see he’s recovered his health – but his moral cancer continues its unabated growth.
What you see are the effects of an unchecked ambition; it’s eaten away his convictions, resolve, and character.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:19 pmWell okay, not everything is made up. The nausea I get when I read these news stories is real.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:24 pmThose that are not brain dead figure, they are at civil war a few months ago. At least one or two from our government are willing to say it. Don’t expect too much from them.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:30 pm…so said Sen. Spectre (R-PA) right before voting for Congressional acknowledgement that there is no civil war in Iraq…and that the White House never utter the words “Stay” “The” and “Course” in any order or permutation.
He’s as genuine as his hair color.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:31 pmGee Arlen…thanks for catching up! Voters have had a a clear perspective on the war in Iraq for some time…perhaps more cogent than either Party. They feel it is being handled poorly, they know what a civil war looks like, they believe Congress has failed to do its part in guiding and overseeing the executive branch, and they realize that the notion of exporting democracy to the Middle East is a Bush Doctrine that fails to recognize the realities in the region. Finally, they believe that Middle East stability is important and that a withdrawal that leaves Iraq in chaos may well be detrimental to the United States.
That, my friends, is one spot on analysis and suggests that voters have discerned fact from fiction with an impressive demonstration of acuity. Perhaps both parties will someday learn that the truth is, in the final analysis, the most powerful campaign strategy available. Don’t hold your breath.
Read more here”
http://www.thoughttheater.com
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:33 pmis it just me or does Spector look like the pumpkin on the next thread down?
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:35 pmJust more talk from the big Spector. He has talked tough before, then goes and rubberstamps everything for Bush.
Whatever dude.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:35 pmit is a civil war it isn’t a civil war
it is sectarian it’s not sectarian
it is insuregentsm it is not insurgents
it is militia groups it is not militia groups
it is a freedom operation it’s not a freedom operation
it is an experiment in democracy it is not an experiment
it was WMD it was not WMD
it was yellowcake it was not yellowcake
These political asshats need to stop with the Orator crap and start speaking the truth, I for one, am sick and tired of this politicos crying wolfe 8 days a week.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pmWe have to face the facts yet we don’t want to face the facts.
Are Wan Sphincter
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:44 pmWeird stuff! How very awkward for the water carrying Specter!
Comment by Think+Half+Ass+Progress
Weird troll. How very awkward for you to try to post something with thought.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:48 pmHey Specter, come back when you actually earn some credibility and stand up for yourself.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:55 pmAmerica’s Least Wanted
#30 By them admitting that they have to look at the facts is an important step. The closer the elections come more and more republicans will give their own personal spin on the facts and how they can distance themselves from this administration while holding onto their district/senate seat.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:56 pmI’m glad Specter has mustered up the courage to admit Iraq is in the state of civil war. Bravo. What courage. Thanks, Arlen.
Now maybe you could tell all Americans what the Military Commissions Act amounts to and why it’s fascist and un-American.
We’ll be waiting, Arlen…
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:56 pmWell, I love the semantics, they are my religious brothers. I am no anti-semantic. But when you have the terrerristss as violent as they have been, and when you have the three major factions in Iraq (Eenie, Meenie and Minie), killing each other and Amurkans, and you have the level of violence, I don’t think there’s any point, Wolf, in facing the facts. Amurkans might get-the-wrong-idea and want to keep me from being the War President and being able to dictate like the decider. I think we have to hide the facts. If people don’t agree with my de-ci-sionss, it’s because they don’t love semantics like all good Amurkans do.
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:59 pmSure there is a Civil War … You already had 2 British SAS soldiers caught wearing shiite uniforms riding around in a jeep shooting Iraqi cops – and they had plasic explosives in the jeep when they were finally caught.
Who profits in a continual war? … why have we built 14 permanant military bases all over Iraq? Why are we going to be there a projected 10yrs?
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:59 pmThese guys actually make killing a business … and business is good.
#27 Terry – ROFLMAO!
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:00 pmAny photo shoppers around here that can do the superimposition?
TTT, you’re on a roll today — LOL at #20!
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:23 pmOkay…..
Check out THIS VIDEO. It’s really, really funny. Which is odd. ‘Cause it’s about torture. But it’s so right.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:24 pmIt doesn’t matter what the facts are, Bush must save face before saving lives. He wants to go down in history as “the great decider” so he must stick to stubborness, stay the course, save face, more deaths, more stubborness, more stay the course, etc…
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:24 pmOctober 23rd, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Reply to #5 by S. Look “S” who ever you are, Sen. Spector is merely telling the truth and it hurts people like you who have been drinking the kool aid. Any fool can see that we are in the middle of a civil war in Iraq, even if you watch FOX News. Fox reports the same things that the other national networks report. They may try to shade it to fit a certain Republican way of looking at things, but our soldiers are still dying non the less. If you take the reporters’ bias away and just look at the plain facts, any sane person would conclude we are in a civil war.
I don’t have to use Democrat talking points to see with my own eyes what reality is. No matter how much spin Rove, Bush and Cheney put on it, our soldiers are dying for no good reason and you know it. I’m a former soldier who served for 11 years and I’m nobody’s fool, I know when we are winning or not. I watch C-Span, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC to get a cross section of the news and then I make up my own mind.
I just hate to see a President in denial about our soldier getting kill for nothing. When it was his turn to fight in Viet Nam he and Cheney were afraid and you don’t see him sending his daugthers to Iraq do you? If the President thought the war was that important, he’d ask his daughters to serve their country too. Sitting in a nice clean College dorm room isn’t serving you country. And don’t try to use the excuse that they choose not to go. If that was the case what happens if everyone chose not to go to Iraq, what then?
No my misguided friend it doesn’t take a lead weight or a hit from a bullet in Iraq to convince me what going on here is false bravado with other people’s kid’s blood. I agree with the President that we have to win the War on Terror, but we could lose if it we don’t wake up and start fight the right people and I mean now.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:31 pmDo the people in Washington really think we stayed glued to the idiot box and buy into their reality based BS?
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:51 pmYes, Spector will say there’s no point in hiding the facts until Karl twists his arm and then he’ll support Bush like he always has. It’s sad, really.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:52 pm#42, I think you misunderstood #5’s comment. As far as I can tell, he’s expressing his disgust with Specter, because Specter has constantly given us hope that he’s going to stand against the president, or stand up for our rights, only to dash our hopes when push comes to shove. In other words, yes, Specter’s telling the truth today, but will he tomorrow?I used to have a lot of respect for Specter, not so much anymore. I don’t believe that #5 is saying in any way that he does not believe Iraq is in a civil war.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:53 pmSpecter’s right, but this is probably yet another issue he’ll talk loudly about but refuse to take real action on… worthless criticism, in other words…
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:56 pmSo there is a vicious civil war? Democarcy is still achievable. A rotating Presidency where the car bomber groups have the Presidency one year and the death squad groups have the Presidency the next year is the way to bring Democracy to Iraq. A little black humor there.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:15 pm#47, you got a chuckle out of me, but I’ve got a pretty dark sense of humor anyway!
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:33 pm[...] Specter: ‘We Have To Face The Fact’ That Iraq Is A Civil War [...]
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:34 pm# 48, Unfortunately these are halycon days for black humor.
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 pmHe’s not even up for re-election, but he says what is necessary to boost his Republican friends. We all know that when it comes to the end, he bows to Bush.
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:54 pmBush&Co are still playing the “we never said stay the course” card while denying the fact of civil war.
Specter talks the talk, but that’s where it stops.
Another soldier has disappeared in Iraq. One disappeared a month ago but I have not heard any follow up.
If these guys are captured, it could be very, very bad – considering that Bush decided that rules of war don’t apply – we can never take the high ground.
#50, hmmm, halcyon, not necessarily the word I’d use to describe these days…;-) Although I have to say that my best efforts at black humor came when my parents were dying…much the same end-of-world humor, it’s amazing what you can laugh at!
Good night!
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:23 pmThere are many facts this administration needs to face about Iraq, as well as about its policies, and even itself.
But I won’t hold my breath: Introspection does not seem to come naturally to anyone in Pres Bush’s cabinet -beginning with Bush himself.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:52 pmNot again.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:14 pm# 52. Poor selection of words. I was thinking of rich, prosperous etc, but apparently the word also has the connotation of peaceful. These are ‘boom times’ for black humor then. I am not sure black humor is really all that funny though. No one goes looking for the stuff.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 pmScrew Specter! He abdicated his responsibility as soon as he started. He, like Lindsay Graham, talk the talk that they’ll actually do something then quietly cave in each and every time.
I hope the Democrats hold extensive hearings if they get the House back to shine the light on all of the corruption the Republicans have condoned and participated in. They can’t even bring themselves to try to stop war profiteering. Absolutely despicable,
October 24th, 2006 at 12:53 amYes, it’s a civil war. Thank you, Einstein. Now quick — WHO CAUSED IT?
Maybe Specter will find out that once he starts thinking he can’t STOP. Or maybe, like the repug snake that he is, he’ll slither another direction very soon.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:50 am100+ people a day are dying over there (as per CNN). 100!
that’s 700 a week! At minimum. That’s disturbing.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:20 pmBoy you Americans are tough on your politicians! I actually thought what he said was pretty good, to the point, I liked the comment about semantics..
October 25th, 2006 at 11:22 pmyou just said on live t.v….
that the dem’s plan to impeach bush…
for practically nothing.
you impeached clinton for lying about a blowjob.
but, you consider diverting troops to attack a sovereign nation that was no known threat to us, while we were actively engaged against the 9-11 terrorists in afghanistan,
as an acceptable act… ?
you protected gun manufacturers, before voting for troop pay raises…
you convoluted medicare so bad…
seniors need lawyers to help them decide which plan to buy…
to buy.
you should be ashamed of yourself.
your name will come up again, on a ballot…
November 7th, 2006 at 2:26 pm& god willing…
you’ll get your ass booted out too…
i thank you for your time…
chuck.