How many times now, Matt, that you have piped off on Edwards without thinking, and had to crawl back and "correct" your statements?

Much appreciated.

Link here

Iraq - 169,000 troops
Afghanistan - 19,500 troops
Kosovo - 1700 troops

South Korea - 40,000
Japan - 40,000
Diego Garcia - 500 (Diego Garcia?? what the heck?)

Germany - 75,000 (quite a lot, isn't it?)
Italy - 13000
UK - 11000
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 3000

Qatar - 3,432
Bahrain - 1500
UAE - 1100
(no Kuwait?  that's hard to believe)

At any rate, given the rate of deployment, certainly you can see why having more troops stationed in Iraq than in the UK - well, it's defensible, right?  

Or am I wrong, which could certainly be the case.

and I'm glad he answered. This is something like actual journalism.

As for the substance, you've got to squint pretty hard to see daylight between Edwards's position and Richardson's "having no residual force whatsoever."

Still, I appreciate your forcing the candidates to clarify their positions on these issues--it's important.

Edwards has answered your concerns to my satisfaction, and to the satisfaction, I think, of most reasonable observers.

I'd love to know, did you seek them out, or did they seek you out?

Now for Obama and Clinton for that matter...

Well, that clarifies things a bit.  Region means region.  Complete withdrawal means complete withdrawal.  I have no problems with his plan.

In addition to the question of stationing troops for "training" (i don't hate the idea of a limited number for a limited time) and "anti-terrorism" (sorry, but that's just "combat troops" by another name -- if we need to get a terrorist target using our troops, airlift them in for the specific mission from an aircraft carrier or something), you should also ask about stationing troops for "logistical support" (again, given the current sorry state of the Iraq Army, a limited number of troops for a limited time would be acceptable to me.)

But BTAIM, (and I'm gonna repeat myself) rather than focussing on what these candidates will do in 20 months because the Democratic Congress failed to end US involvement in Iraq, we should be (per Matt's earlier post) demanding that our candidates show leadership NOW to make the work of Pelosi and Reid successful.

I mean, why not ask ALL the declared candidates for 5% of the contributions they've gotten so far for seed money for ad advertising campaign designed to pressure GOP congresscritters to override a Bush veto -- and get the message of our Congressional leaders out there.  (Their campaign money could be used for matching funds for an "Act Blue" effort to raise funds.)

Demand that those who wish to lead us SHOW LEADERSHIP NOW.  I want Iraq policy to be practically IRRELEVANT in the 2008 election, and the only way that will happen is if the candidates ACT NOW.

Good Post Chris.  And FWIW I think the commentary on Stoller is too rude.  True, he says stuff sometimes that I think are demonstrably false, but he is a good guy working for the cause.  And on his good days he says some stuff I agree with 100%. Cut him some slack.

"I have asked the Edwards campaign if this includes a training program for Iraqi troops, or if it includes a role for "counter-terrorism" forces inside Iraq itself, because I think those are two important differences we can identify in varying Iraq plans."

seems like the original email was pretty crystal clear.

I think it's pretty clear what Edward's means here.  

He's anticipating under his presidency U.S. involvement in Iraq will be roughly equivalent to U.S. involvement in the Balkans.  There will be a small force "in the region" which after a few years will be all but forgotten.  If things get really bad, we may engage in some "strategic bombings" to stop major genocides or to hit AQ units.  But that's about it.  

It's still not ideal, at least IMO, as any actions we take are still likely to have blowback.  The U.S. hasn't really done a single thing well with direct interventions in the Middle East or Latin America ever.  But it would cut down our level of meddling to the historical norm of foreign policy meddling - taking down the negative effects on Iraq by an order of magnitude, eliminate extra-budgetary war spending, and all but eliminate the issue from the public mind.  It will do.  

Where does it say "stay" to defend? I don't ever see the word "stay" in blockquotes. I see it added by commentators, but I do not find it in the original.

I'm looking for the part of the statement where these hypothetical troops to defend a hypothetical humanitarian mission are troops that have stayed behind for that purpose.

If you want Edwards to rule out deploying troops to defense a humanitarian missions, he'd refused to do that. And I understand that you are unlikely to have any family that have benefitted from a peace keeping mission, but my wife is presently living in the Congo, and both she and a large number of my in-laws have benefitted from having MONUC in country.

If he had done the irresponsible thing and had ruled out every deploying troops to Iraq to protect a humanitarian mission, I would have been very unhappy.

He could have done so, if he was purely concerned with scoring political points. After all, amoment's reflection (though some people do not have a moment for reflection in a busy day of blogging) will establish that Richardson's phrasing of complete withdrawal also refrains from ruling out ever using forces of some form to protect a humanitarian mission.

So if he wanted to draw a distinction between his position and Richardson's, he could have ruled that out. However, I am happy that he did not do so, since the position that he and Richardson share (except on timing), is the one I support.