Mercer convention filled with those already beaten by Smith

It's refreshing to see a grassroots campaign gain momentum and become something substantial, which is what Dr. Zeitz's underdog bid for congress is becoming.

His campaign issues listed on his site reveal a nuanced, thoughtful approach to the environment, the Iraq War, and several other issues. Rightfully so, Zeitz makes the connection between profligate war spending in Iraq and the lack of domestic spending at home:

http://joshzeitz.com/issues/

What has impressed thus far in Zeitz's campaign, though, is his fundraising prowess. According to a campaign volunteer writing on the Daily Kos, Zeitz far outpaced Smith in fundraising in the last 2007 cycle:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/18/121421/83

The Republicans in Congress have been with Bush every step of the way, from Iraq to the budget to shifting the tax burden from millionaires to working families. Zeitz can join Smith and Bush at the hip and remind people every day why we need a change. It won't be an easy win by any means, but Zeitz can win. Just my two cents.

If inexperience and extremely liberal views were qualifications Josh Zeitz would be an ideal candidate.  But, just like the previous liberal democrats that have run aginst Smith, Zeitz will also be trounced and rejected.

I've been following the Zeitz campaign for a while, and he seems like a really genuine guy. His ideas are well-grounded in policy, and he actually listens. The attacks on him are mindless. Read what this guy has written--it makes sense.

We have heard this same story for 28 years and all the results are the same.Congressman Smith will crush Joshy and he will go away .The fact is Congresssman Smith started the term Grassroots Campaign when he walked the streets of Trenton 20 + years ago talking to the regular people and hearing there concerns. If any body is out of touch with the people it is Josh who lives in a fantasy world.The people of Hamilton have  great respect and honor for Congressman Smith.We will have a army of volunteers supporting Congressman Smith both Republican and Democrat  going door to door.Congresssman Smith is a independent thinker and has integrity and is not afraid to go against Washington in his quest to do the right thing for the Veterans,Woman,Seniors and children.Also Congressman Smith has the greatest supporter in the world God.

He is going to be schooled by Congressman Smith.

Ironically, Rush Holt was right when he commented that Smith's very strong roots in the Labor movement will be a problem for Zeitz. These other clowns posting about Smith being some kind of a 'Bush clone' are smoking something that just ain't right. A Bush clone doesn't get the endorsement of most major Labor organizations year in and year out. A Bush clone doesn't get sacked as Chairman of the House Veterans' Affaird for standing up to Tom DeLay. A Bush clone doesn't vote the way Smith votes.

When Bush ran in New Jersey in 2000 and 2004, Smith outpaced Bush's vote results by massive margins. The voters clearly recognized that Smith was his own person.

And to these Dems who keep fawning over Zeitz like he's some kind of genius. Take a look at his web page on Iraq. He quotes some numbers about how many public safety agents and port safety officers we could have hired. Wow, how smart he is.

Turns out that these calculations are just a cookie-cutter formula ginned up by the Democrats. You can find the same kinds of statistics on numerous Democrat candidates for Congress. The Democrats have some kind of database and then they crunch the numbers however they want to make the same point. There's nothing original about it at all. All Zeitz did was regurgitate the talking points that his Washington DC partisan handlers handed to him. So much for being his own person....

http://www.votevickiebutcher.com/issues.html#iraq

http://www.house.gov/list/speech/ca35_waters/floor_051102_iraqcaucus.htm...

http://proctoringcongress.blogspot.com/2008/03/62-of-our-best-youth-4-bi...

Josh Zeitz says "To win the war against terrorism, we need to end the war in Iraq." Really? Wel, Josh, the 9/11 Commission recommendations don't agree with you at all.

Source: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/chap12.pdf

Chapter 12

WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY

12.2 ATTACK TERRORISTS AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONS

The U.S.government,joined by other governments around the world,is working through intelligence, law enforcement, military, financial, and diplomatic channels to identify,disrupt,capture,or kill individual terrorists.This effort was going on before 9/11 and it continues on a vastly enlarged scale. But to catch terrorists, a U.S. or foreign agency needs to be able to find and reach them.

No Sanctuaries

The 9/11 attack was a complex international operation, the product of years of planning. Bombings like those in Bali in 2003 or Madrid in 2004,while able to take hundreds of lives, can be mounted locally.Their requirements are far more modest in size and complexity.They are more difficult to thwart. But the U.S. government must build the capacities to prevent a 9/11-scale plot from succeeding, and those capabilities will help greatly to cope with lesser but still devastating attacks.

A complex international terrorist operation aimed at launching a catastrophic attack cannot be mounted by just anyone in any place. Such operations appear to require

• time,space,and ability to perform competent planning and staff work;
• a command structure able to make necessary decisions and possessing the authority and contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials;
• opportunity and space to recruit, train, and select operatives with the needed skills and dedication, providing the time and structure
required to socialize them into the terrorist cause, judge their trust-
worthiness, and hone their skills;
• a logistics network able to securely manage the travel of operatives, move money, and transport resources (like explosives) where they need to go;
• access, in the case of certain weapons, to the special materials needed for a nuclear, chemical, radiological, or biological attack;
• reliable communications between coordinators and operatives; and
• opportunity to test the workability of the plan.

Many details in chapters 2, 5, and 7 illustrate the direct and indirect value of the Afghan sanctuary to al Qaeda in preparing the 9/11 attack and other operations.

The organization cemented personal ties among veteran jihadists working together there for years. It had the operational space to gather and sift recruits,indoctrinating them in isolated,desert camps.It built up logistical net-works, running through Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Al Qaeda also exploited relatively lax internal security environments inWestern countries,especially Germany.It considered the environment in the United States so hospitable that the 9/11 operatives used America as their staging area for further training and exercises—traveling into, out of, and around the country and complacently using their real names with little fear of capture.

To find sanctuary, terrorist organizations have fled to some of the least governed, most lawless places in the world. The intelligence community has pre-pared a world map that highlights possible terrorist havens, using no secret intelligence—just indicating areas that combine rugged terrain, weak governance, room to hide or receive supplies,and low population density with a town or city near enough to allow necessary interaction with the outside world.Large areas scattered around the world meet these criteria.5

In talking with American and foreign government officials and military officers on the front lines fighting terrorists today, we asked them: If you were a terrorist leader today, where would you locate your base? Some of the same places come up again and again on their lists:

• western Pakistan and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region
• southern or western Afghanistan
• the Arabian Peninsula, especially Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and the nearby Horn of Africa, including Somalia and extending southwest into Kenya
• Southeast Asia,from Thailand to the southern Philippines to Indonesia
• West Africa, including Nigeria and Mali
• European cities with expatriate Muslim communities,especially cities in central and eastern Europe where security forces and border controls are less effective

In the twentieth century, strategists focused on the world’s great industrial heartlands. In the twenty-first, the focus is in the opposite direction, toward remote regions and failing states.The United States has had to find ways to extend its reach, straining the limits of its influence.

Every policy decision we make needs to be seen through this lens. If, for example, Iraq becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are breeding grounds for attacks against Americans at home. Similarly, if we are paying insufficient attention to Afghanistan, the rule of the Taliban or warlords and narcotraffickers may reemerge and its countryside could once again offer refuge to al Qaeda, or its successor.

Recommendation:The U.S. government must identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries. For each, it should have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all elements of national power.We should reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help.

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Our intelligence community has already done extensive analysis of what would happen if the US were to rapidly withdraw its troops from Iraq. The resulting consensus document was called the National Intelligence Estimate (NIW) and was published in January 2007 -- a little over a year ago.

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Source: http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070202_release.pdf

Coalition capabilities, including force levels, resources, and operations, remain an essential stabilizing element in Iraq. If Coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this Estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi Government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation.

If such a rapid withdrawal were to take place, we judge that the ISF would be unlikely to survive as a non-sectarian national institution; neighboring countries—invited by Iraqi factions or unilaterally—might intervene openly in the conflict; massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable; AQI would attempt to use parts of the country—particularly al-Anbar province—to plan increased attacks in and outside of Iraq; and spiraling violence and political disarray in Iraq, along with Kurdish moves to control Kirkuk and strengthen autonomy, could prompt Turkey to launch a military incursion.

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Bottom line: The NIE uses certain terms like "probable," "possible," etc in a very deliberate way to reflect areas of higher confidence and less confidence. Notice that the consequences of a sudden US withdrawal would "almost certainly" result in a "significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq." "Massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable." There is another term which accurately describes massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement. It is called genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The policies that people like Josh Zeitz are advocating should more properly be referred to as Genocide Facilitation. Zeitz says that America would be safer if we pulled out of Iraq. That's not what the experts say. They say the exact opposite. They say that Iraq would collapse, become a failed state, degenerate into genocide, and that Al Qaeda would use it as a base to reconstitute its ability to attack the United States.

Josh Zeitz and his knee-jerk, talking-point regurgitatin' fellow travelers should get a clue. How about reading and studying the facts from the experts before spouting off nonsensical false notions that will get hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed if their ideas are followed.

Chris Smith does his own homework. He has his own ideas. He stands up for what he believes in -- even if he pays a heavy political price for it. Josh Zeitz is a knee-jerk liberal and a puppet who regurgitates whatever script the Democrat party puts in front of him. I challenge any of you Zeitz-heads to point me to a SINGLE instance where Zeitz' policy views differ from the standard Democrat party line.