It’s good that President Bush accepted responsibility for mistakes in Iraq and admitted that "we need to change our strategy." He proposed in his national address Wednesday night that the United States send more than 20,000 troops to help secure Baghdad and Anbar province, and that we increase economic aid and raise our demands on the Iraqi government. But Bush must do more to convince Congress and the public that these actions really would "break the current cycle of violence." As he said, the question is whether the new strategy will bring us closer to success. Bush says it will, but that’s far from certain.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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102 Comments
What exactly are the percentages supporting Bush on this phase now? I would venture to guess maybe 15% think putting more troops in is a good idea….
Obviously we wont know the end results of the Iraq war for years to come, but it would not shock me if Bush is looked at as one of the worst presidents ever
The bottom line of the speech,which remained unspoken,is that Bush has demanded that we go into Sadr city.Not going to be a cakewalk.
Gonna be interesting. I hope this thing works … but I honestly do not think it will. I saw this movie before and didn’t like the ending then either. Escalate, spend gazillions training the ARVN, place them in charge, and they fold up. We have about 300,000 ARI right now; what are they doing? There are only a couple thousand “dead-enders in their last throes”; why can’t 300,000 ARI dispatch them with ease? Especially with US air and logistics support.
TROLL ALERT! 7:37 was obviously a troll who must be the leftist. ALL TROLLS ARE THE LEFTIST! I said so and that makes it true.
Getting a lot of blow back that this is the same ole same ole. It is different in that we are going to be in areas we were not previously allowed in. we are going to go after Sadr (sp?) City and after Sadr’s(sp?) militia.
This is important in that it is Sadr’s militia propping up the prime minister.
The 20K troops will give a ratio of 1 soldier (Iraqi and American) per 50 civilians. That is supposed to be in the military play book as an optimum ratio.
OK, so that part of the plan sounds about right. The question is, will the prime minister and the government hold what we buy them?
Before the libs cut my throat, the one thing I have not heard any of them address is this; how will we account for the chaos left should the Iraqi gov’t fail should we pull out now? Iran is already in there. Caught 5 of them last night. I’m sure Saudi is in there too, just not caught or reported on.
If we leave and the country collapses, we will pay the price and have zero credibility. So libs, what do you think would address this?
Problem is sol; what do we do after November when there still is not a credible government or ARI? As for Saudi involvement; I thought they were our friends?! (NOT)
Now refresh my memory; why was this invasion such a good idea in the first place?
The fallacy in this idea is that they are going to end up with a miitary/police force that is non-secular and represents the country’s interests rather than a particular sect.
That is not the case now, nor does it appear to be achievable anywhere in the immediate future.That will be it’s downfall IMHO- I hope I’m wrong!
I want to see the Iraqi President really go after Sadr, et al- that will indicate the true direction of this new operation.
Hmmmm,Gotcha. It was really really really dumb to go in like we did. Problem is that we did it. Ok, if you don’t like ‘we’ then Bush did it. But it is not the American way to go screw up a country this horribly and then just walk away.
I kind of purposed this about a month ago. Sweep the country securing cities in our wake. Leave the Iraqis in charge. If the city falls again, then that is pretty much on the Iraqis.
Bush is kind of adopting this on a smaller scale. Going after the biggest trouble spots.
Gster,I hear you. I too am concerned that we were training the combatants for the civil war. There are ‘dirty’ police and military folk that are acting like (and just may be part of) the militias.How do you fix that? We don’t have the same mentality of those folks over there.
Is there a sure fire way to get things straight there? Not by a long shot. IMHO, leaving and allowing Saudi, Iran, and Turkey to continue the chaos is unacceptable though.
I have to say though, I am extremely impressed with the libs on this blog. With the exception of WSClark, y’all seem to really be considering the big picture and not just knew jerk partisan responses.
*knee jerk…
Are we reading the same blog? What does capn and jr and all the rest have to say about that?But, you’re just kidding, right?
I am not the most up-to-date on Middle Eastern history, but as I understand it, Iraq was “assembled” by Britan early last centruy.
As such, it has been held together by this thug or that over time. The 3 sects have nothing to hold them together with the possible exception of oil revenues.
How is the Iraq goverment problem to be resolved without an all-out civil war to deteremine who is in charge ?
They all seem to act like hateful , immature spoiled children under the mantle of a religion that condones violence, religious intolerance,random murder, and the ridiculous notion of revenge!.
If you look at just about evey border the brits have drawn… The first Gulf War? Kuwait DOES belong to Iraq. The Brits drew that line…
A little something sent to me this morning by a veteran (Gulf 1) friend:
America – or at least the Bush administration is backing a bill in Iraq that will RAPE them of their oil rights and make big money for oil companies. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was only a ruse. It’s amazing to me that THIS story, which may turn into what historians will someday call a crucial point in history, is barely even mentioned in the news. It’s not popping up on the front page of my MSN. There are only stories about how Hilary Swank was “too cool for school” or how Bush thinks that sending another 21,500 of our men to Iraq will help stability. It’s outrageous to me that THIS is not on the front page so people could see the real reason WHY Bush wants another 21,500 troops….he knows Iraq is going to get REALLY UNSTABLE once they realize the American political puppets that makes up their new government is about to give Bush and Big Oil just what they always wanted…….This is cut and pasted from the Asia Times Online.A new Iraqi oil law will most likely be voted on in Parliament in the next few weeks, before the arrival of Bush’s 21,500 men, and it should be in effect in March. The law is Anglo-American Big Oil’s holy grail: the draft has been carefully scrutinized by Washington, Big Oil and the International Monetary Fund, but not by Iraqi politicians. The profit-sharing agreements enshrined by the law are immensely profitable for Big Oil. And crucially, the law prevents any Iraqi government from nationalizing the oil industry – as the majority of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member states did. In essence, it’s a game of “if you nationalize, we invade you – again”. So the law fulfills the early-2003 neo-con boast of “we are the new OPEC”.
Iraq’s petrodollars will turn to mush – or rather, as with Saudi Arabia, be recycled back to US banks. Security company Blackwater will make a killing “protecting” Iraqi pipelines. Bechtel and Halliburton will get myriad fat contracts to rebuild everything the US has bombarded since 1991.
But what’s the use of an oil law in a 100-cadavers-a-day hellhole? Enter the escalation as a way of providing “stability”. Whichever way the coming surge goes – ethnic cleansing of Sunnis, the battle of Sadr City – what matters is not the piling up of Arab Muslim (or American) bodies, but how much less cumbersome is the path toward the holy oil grail. Big Business will make a deal with anyone that facilitates the passing of the oil law, be it Maliki’s Da’wa Party, the SCIRI, or – in a wildest-dream version – the Sadrists or al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The overwhelming majority of Iraqis, Sunni and Shi’ite, want the US out, and as soon as possible. A rape of Iraq’s oil wealth enshrined by a Parliament-approved oil law would certainly lead to national unrest. For the moment it’s fair to assume the US is taking no chances in its backroom deals, as the SCIRI’s support for the new law, via Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi, is practically assured. Da’wa must be in the process of being bribed to death.
As I watched Bush and Dick Durbin speak last night, I thought that the terrorists liked Durbin’s speech better. Don’t you agree?
Disagree fleet.
I think the “terrorists” liked the deep worry lines and fear on bush’s face better than Durbin’s confidence and the leadership he projects.
I think the “terrorists” like the decider they have just fine.
Goodbye, Dad: it’s off to Stalingrad.
SBDV,
Militarily, Bush’s plan pours gasoline on a raging fire, and takes sides in a sectarian conflict. Malicki isn’t an honest broker: his lynching of Saddam proved that. And now we’re going to back him in order to make him turn on his patron, Al-Sadr? Dream on. And we’re going to go house to house in Sadr City? Oy vey.
SBDV, I ask this in all seriousness: when you ask ‘what are the alternatives,’ are you fucking kidding? Anything is preferrable to the bloodbath that Bush is orchestrating. If you want a blueprint, look at the ISG Report, which involves diplomacy, gradual withdrawal, and a political solution. The ISG Report, which Bush called “a flaming turd,” and from which he sought to distinguish himself by going to precisely the opposite extremes.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a complete, fantastical delusion from day one. Watching Bill Kristol, and now Kagan from AEI, pushing the same old bullshit last night on Charlie Rose, it was as if the last three years of fuck-ups never happened. The happy talk was incredible. Just incredible. The true believers are headed into an inferno and expect the rest of us to follow them.
And then there’s the Dry Drunk in Chief. Jesus. Jesus Fucking Christ. Bush is the very personification of an alcoholic/addict: doing the same thing and hoping for a different result. Except in this case, the “same thing” consists of killing, killing, and still more killing to no good end.
The cost in lives is too high, SBDV, for securing the real goal here: Bush’s legacy. He could give a fuck about Iraq, the Iraqis, the Middle East, or the American public. Demonstrably.
If the question is how to keep the region from going up in a conflagration, I believe the ISG report really offers the best assessment of how this can be achieved. Involve the regional actors. Use diplomacy. Go through the UN. Create workable institutions. Work on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The idea that pouring troops into a country torn by civil war in order to prop up a ‘government’ that represents only one side will somehow improve the situation or change the underlying dynamic is delusional. Period. And for the Dry Drunk in Chief to then go on to threaten Syria and Iran in the same speech?
The Dry Drunk in Chief has lost his mind. The rest of us have a duty not to go along with him.
Also disagree fleet. alQuada in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere must be overjoyed to see that the US will be bogged down indefinitely in Iraq and leaving them alone to do as they please. After all, those 150,000 troops sure can’t do anything about alQuada now can they?
fleettwood,
You’re just a colossal idiot, you know that, fleettwood? A moron. A challenged second-grader. Nyah! nyah! nyah! says fleettwood, while soldiers and civilians die.
Grow up. Please. This issue is so much bigger than ‘my tribe is better than your tribe’! and all you can do is act like a Cheeto-eating wingnut punk who was accidentally allowed to sit at the grownups’ table.
Good one, cf.Terrorists love the Durbin and the rest of you people.
fleettwood,
Have you asked terrorists who they support? You seem to know. Why is that, fleettwood?
some good commentary … and the terrorists love fear …
“Jan. 10, 2007 – George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared.
George Bush had the look of a man who knew he had made a royal hash of things in reaching for what most enlightened people would say was a noble goal: a stable, antiterrorist Iraq.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16568507/site/newsweek/
Actually, Fellattiwood, you must have missed where Osama’s primary goal (according to many sources and re-affirmed again by “The Looming Tower: The Path to 9-11″) was drawing the US into a massive retaliation of full scale war in a mid-East country, so he could do to us what he and other mujahiden did to the Russians in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden also said on video tape that the Bush response has had a positive effect on recruiting for jihad.
Looks like the terrorists like YOUR guys the best . . . they are so damn predictible, they played right into Osama’s wet dreams.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
fllllleeeeeetttttwwwwwwoooooood,
Who’s a better recruiting tool for Islamic extremists such as Al Qaeda: those who would keep U.S. forces out of Arab countries, or those who want U.S. forces to occupy them?
The answer is obvious enough that I expect everyone to understand and acknowledge it but fleettwood.
hmmmm,
I see your excellent link, and I raise you the story about how Bush called the ISG report a “flaming turd” and how Brent Scowcroft tried and failed to use Condi to get Bush to see the ISG light.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/01/10/condi_rice/?source=whitelist
Cap’N,
Thanks for documenting the argument. I expect flatulent noises any second from ffffffflllllleeeeeettttttteeeeeennnnneeeemmmmaaaaa.
Paragraph 1)I will wait and see on Sadr City. We said we would go, I will believe we will until I see otherwise.Is Malicki dirty and one sided. We’ll see about that as well. If he allows us to secure Sadr City and the restricted areas of Baghdad then I would have to say he is at least a semi-straight shooter.
Paragraph 3)Yup. Pretty stupid thing to do, that invasion. Can’t argue that in the least.
Paragraph 4)There are differences. If we are allowed to secure restricted areas of Baghdad… as goes Baghdad, so goes Iraq. If this is a farce, then I am in your boat. But until then…
Paragraph 5)I think he cares a great deal about the oil though.
Paragraph 6)The UN is an absolute joke. Sorry, you lose points on that one.Iran, Syria, Saudi… they are already there. They want to, IMHO, keep the turmoil going. I don’t see how dealing with them will help.Israel/Palestine? That will work itself out when Israel bombs Iran over the nuke issue NO ONE seems to want to talk about. Israel will be wiped from the face of the earth and we will be dragged into that one as well.
Paragraph 7)Syria and Iran SHOULD be threatened. They are fucking up. Problem is we can’t do more than threaten them. If what was said was true, then the troops sent in along with Iraqi troops will provide for a 50:1 ratio of civilians to military. Supposed to be the correct mix by military standards.
Paragraph 8)He might well have lost his mind. He stuck his pecker into a fire ant hill =)
False dilemma–a logical fallacy in which the writer reduces a complex situation down to only two choices, one of which is usually completely objectionable.
Example: “If you don’t like George W. Bush, would you prefer to live under Osama bin Laden?”
Bush and his toadies are doing the same thing with his “new” proposal: if you don’t like Bush’s plan, would you prefer to just walk away and leave Iraq to the terrorists?
No, I don’t like Bush’s plan and no, I don’t want to just walk away.
There are many other options, however. For instance, GW could suck up his inflated arrogance and go to the UN and ask for a coalition force to help police the country until order can be established.
He can talk to neighboring countries, Syrian, Iran etc about their vision for a new Iraq and how they can help bring it about.
Forget it.
Bush did it his way and abject failure is not enough to convince him to actually do anything different.
He’s going to do the same thing, except more of it.
Yeah, that should work.
Go to the UN, because they have been able to do exactly WHAT in the past. Especially when it comes to boots on the ground protecting something.
Iran and Syria? Why don’t you just hand them the reigns then. Don’t be shocked when Saudi and Turkey get pissed about that and start doing their own dance in Iraq.
http://www.amazon.com/DUMBASS-Jules-Carlysle/dp/0978164601
Here’s a new book written by a Canadian housewife.
All she did was compile a list of Bush quotes. It’s 550 pages long. One reader said he read passages aloud at a dinner party and killed the whole table.
It’s title is simply “Dumbass.”
http://www.amazon.com/DUMBASS-Jules-Carlysle/dp/0978164601
Sol–
Korea.
SBDV,
We have lingering disagreements, particularly with regard to Iran and Syria. I no more think they’re honest brokers than you do, but they do have genuine interests in avoiding a failed state of 26 million on their borders. If we had a Secretary of State or a diplomatic core, we might be able to find some pretexts to work together.
I also don’t see much to be gained by ‘unrestricted’ access to Baghdad. To me this just sounds like an echo of the whole ’stabbed in the back’ meme for why the U.S. lost Vietnam. You know, ‘the civilian leadership tied the hands of the generals…’ canard. If what we’re talking about here is an insurgency, how does having more access to certain neighborhoods help? They just stash their weapons and melt away into the population, or engage us in urban combat where we’re at a great disadvantages and civilian casualties go through the roof. Cluster bombs in Sadr City would be a bad, bad idea. It makes me think of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, and that’s blood we do not need on our hands.
Paragraph Five: agreed.
Paragraph Six: my response here is simple. Kosovo. Nation-building worked, and the UN was integral to its implementation. It ain’t perfect, but it’s much preferrable to a civil war. As for the Israel/Palestine issue, Bush’s total lack of interest or integrity notwithstanding, it’s the central flash point of global conflict, and as such merits more of our diplomatic energy than any other situation on planet Earth. Period.
And with regard to Malicki, I see little reason to think of him as anything but a tribal chieftain. I suspect this is how the Sunnis and the Kurds see him as well. We have, effectively, taken sides in a civil war behind the fiction of a democratic Iraqi state.
Disagreements aside, I very much appreciate the thoughtful responses. This is serious, serious business.
And now, on a somewhat lighter note, here’s a blog I stumbled across, in which the picture and the thousand words go together most nicely. The tagline? “Would you buy a used war from this man?”
http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2007/01/would-you-buy-used-war-from-this-man.html
Whatever you’re irritated about,it’s Bill Clinton’s fault.
This is too simple. Would the terrorists prefer fighting men or cut and run folk?
SolDVB–
Do you know what the population of Saudi Arabia is?
The official count is 27 million, but that is clearly inflated by the Saudi gov’t to make the country look bigger.
It may be a low as 7-8 million actual Saudi citizens.
In other words, they couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag without a lot of help.
CF,It is also refreshing to leave the name calling out.
I agree it is a shit storm. Just trying to see a way through it. IMHO, getting the streets at least somewhat quiet (read less violence) then the government voice could be heard? This is a democracy in its infancy. They choose religion and violence. We chose political parties. I think it is unjust to pick apart the Iraqi’s first government. Crap, we’ve been around over 200 years and still can’t get the corruption and lies out of our government.
If we can make a go of this, get the violence turned WAY down (read streets policed heavily) and allow this first round of government to exist, maybe, just maybe the Iraqis will see it might work and do a better job of electing officials next election?
Capn,They had just enough to pull off 9/11 didn’t they?
You’re right, Hotwood, you are too simple.
The terrorist prefer fighting, period.
If we stop fighting them and start arresting them like Malaya did against its communist insurgency, cutting them off from the population that would have supported them if they had been under constant attack by authorities, we might have a chance at bringing this to a better resolution.
If what we’re doing now is working, why is the situation getting worse not better in Iraq?
Yes, you’re right, Fleet, you are simple. And the quagmire in Iraq is anything but.
Capn,You are charged with arresting this man with an RPG pointed at you. Oh yeah, his 7 buddies all have AK’s pointed at you..
Ready? Go… Ready? Ready… go.
SBDV,
Here again, I disagree. Democracy is a bottom-up phenomenon, not one that can be imposed from the top down. Or, to put it a different way, there’s hardware (civic machinery) and software (identity, common beliefs, shared norms and attitudes). The ’software’ has to come first. And only if it is in place can the hardware for managining social conflict be erected.
To put the hardware in place first, without having developed the institutions and attitudes necessary for civil society, means that the machinery gets hijacked by the majority, which is precisely what has happened. At its root, one could analyze democracy as nothing more than the apparatus needed to preserve the will of the minority against encroachments of the majority. Considering that in Iraqi society, the minority has ruled the majority for a very, very long time, it is, frankly, inconceivable to me how one could expect anything like an immediate transition to democracy without a protracted re-alignment of social power, and frankly, a lengthy-period of score-settling such as we’re seeing now.
All this highlights the fact that Iraq’s problem is political rather than military. A military solution that buys a little time–and I don’t think even this will be achieved, frankly–just puts off the reckoning to another day. And when that reckoning comes, it’s just as bad if not worse for having been delayed.
I really do think the best thing we can do is to get out of the way of the combatants, and to give the regional powers the lion’s share of responsibility for deciding how to maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq. The Iraqis are going to have to figure out how to govern themselves. We can’t do it for them, and we will go on harming them as long as we attempt to preserve the fiction of an Iraqi “democracy” that is, in all reality, a political system that represents only the Shia.
“This is too simple. Would the terrorists prefer fighting men or cut and run folk?”
They prefer to see our fighting men tied down elsewhere and leaving them alone. That is what the cokehead-in-chief has done. alQuada was NOT a presence in Iraq. Saddam was a thug but he was OUR thug and he was contained. Now we have our troops bogged down fighting people who ubtil 4 years ago were leaving us alone – and we are fighting them by OUR stupid choice. Meanwhile, alQuada is further emboldened all over the globe, knowing that we are bogged down because Bush wanted to get the guy who “tried to kill my dad”
Sol–
9-11 was a ridiculous failure of US law enforcement, according to “The Path to 9-11″ cited above.
The NSA had phone conversations spelling out pretty much the whole plot. The CIA knew that Mohd Atta etc. had met and trained with Al Qaeda people but refused to turn the information to the FBI because of dept. rivalries.
The FBI is a law enforcement bureau and needs to reveal sources for evidence. The CIA is intelligence gathering agency and never wants itss sources or methods revealed, so there’s a natural conflict.
If another 9-11 happens in this country, we deserve it for being so stupid as not to get a functioning system of protection in place.
My personal feeling is that another 9-11 is very unlikely because of safe-guards that are finally being implimented by the Democratic Congress (following the 9-11 Commission guidelines).
I pose a question:
You are facing serious surgery. The reason things have gotten so bad is because of a prior botched operation done by an incompetant DR.
Do you “stay the course” with this DR to perform the second operation? Or do you find someone who hopefully knows what he is doing?
“This is too simple. Would the terrorists prefer fighting men or cut and run folk?”
It’s the lesbian avengers they are really afraid of.
And we’re not allowed to go. Gays in the military and all.
I suggest you send in the lesbian avengers first, to level the place, then send in the gay men to clean up and redecorate.
“girl, that bridge rubble fits right in with the decor theme, but the teetering buildings have GOT to go”….
Good question, Hmmm. Bush reportedly called the Baker Commission findings, “a flaming turd.”
I’m a software developer and I actually see it in inverse. We have developed the software (the government) and we have no hardware (the people) to support it. Point taken.
Do you really believe the Iraqi people don’t want democracy? If that is true, then you win the debate. We are wasting our time. I might be optimistic, but I think that they DO want freedom.
I also agree and alluded to the fact that the current government is corrupt and not worthy of the office. My point being though, that if the people see that the government IDEA can work and that it is their responsibility to elect the best people to hold office, maybe they will do a better job next time.
I don’t think you will find anyone who will look at all three sects as equal to be Prime Minister for quite some time. Until then, get to the polls and make sure your sect (or party) is duly represented.
Might be optimistic, but I think it is better than letting Iran and Syria run the show. Won’t that give Iran free reign in its nuclear and anti-Semitic ambitions?
KSFrmGrrl,How about…. Lesbian Brigade that has PMS. They retain water and are MAD AS HELL !!!!!
Hmmmmm,
“You are facing serious surgery. The reason things have gotten so bad is because of a prior botched operation done by an incompetant DR.”
Do you try to diplomatically leave the situation to let it ‘fight itself out’ ?
No – and I never said I would.
I’m putting your ‘for instance’ to work against you.
SBDV,
It is wrong to attribute to me the view that “Iraqis don’t want democracy.” This is a right-wing ad hominem fallacy that is beneath you.
I suspect that a majority of Iraqis probably do favor self-government. But this has to be balanced against the fact that a majority probably also doesn’t affirm the need to protect the rights of the minority. A functioning democracy doesn’t just rule according to the will of the majority. It also must ensure that the rights and standing of minorities are protected.
So defined, I suspect that Iraqi society may need some time to be convinced that both stipulations are indispensible to democracy.
Until the majority of Iraqis see both stipulations as the only way of meeting their individual and collective interests, Iraq is definitely not ready for a full-scale, parliamentary democracy. The current civil war makes this clear. I would advocate an interim government of national unity, and an international effort to restore the institutions of civil society. (Such an effort was completely ignored by the Administration of the Dry Drunk in Chief.)
It is, frankly, as artificial to imagine that democratic structures can thrive in just any old climate, as it is dishonest to denounce someone as ‘against democracy’ or (as the Wingnuts have done repeatedly) as claiming that ‘Muslims can’t handle democracy’ for pointing out the conditionality and fragility of democracy.
For the record, SDBV, I don’t think you’re down that road. But your claim about what I did or didn’t say gets close to employing these dishonest arguments.
CF,I was calling a spade a spade as I saw it. I was mistaken. My apologies.
So to that end, the Iraqi’s will not embrace democracy as we’ve shoved it down their throats, how do we stop the violence and give power to a government so we can leave?
Do we try to let the Iraqi’s develop their own brand of government?
You have suggested having the Iranian’s and Syrians help. I (tried to) counter those points. Any further thoughts?
SDVB,
There’s still something suspect about the claim that Iraqis appear not to want to ‘embrace democracy.’ If security is a prerequisite for democracy, as it surely is, then nothing resembling democracy has been offered them, much less refused by them.
On the question of stopping the violence, bringing more violence to bear surely won’t work. The best thing we can do is leave, thereby removing at least one substantial impetus to violence. This doesn’t settle the issues between the Sunni and the Shia, but it does at least remove the pretext under which large numbers of insurgents operate.
From there, I believe the Arab League and regional powers need to consult on a collective security arrangement for Iraq. Here again, I think that Syria and Iraq, to say nothing of Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, all have material interests in maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq. Seriously. Who wants 27 million refugees pouring across their borders?
I’m not a big fan of the ISG report. I think it’s milquetoast and was designed to give the Dry Drunk in Chief the maximum political coverage. But short of my recommendation that we GET OUT NOW, I think it’s at least as plausible as any other course of action that’s been considered for mass consumption.
http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report.pdf
I think that effective diplomacy can accomplish quite a lot. The Bush Administration doesn’t think so, and has unbridled contempt for consensus-building and negotiation.
What the ISG offers is an imperfect solution, at best. But it is less bad, by a substantial measure, than the likely consequences of the Dry-Drunk-In-Chief’s desperate, delusional plea to the American people.
“With the exception of WSClark,”
SDVB – was this the partisan “KNEW JERK” that you were referring to?
And why haven’t any of you Bush supporters answering the question?
“BTW – If this is such a GREAT plan, why wasn’t it proposed three years and ten months ago?”
I am sorry that I am partisan, VB, but Bush has destroyed the future of the America that I love and that TENDS to piss me off.
Which of the Arab nations would offer up their soldiers to die without backing their own sect? Wouldn’t this just become a multinational religion war?
If we ‘get out now’ then aren’t we turning our back on the Iraqi people? We aren’t the most liked nation in the world (hahah) but wouldn’t leaving these people to fend for themselves only dig our grave deeper?
What ,IMO, Bush is suggesting is to heavily police the streets of the highest violence areas. And once ‘peace’ is established, maintain that peace while replacing American troops with Iraqi troops.
That would make it seem that we are at least succeeding somewhat in restoring order to the region. We started the mess and we are doing our part to clean it up.
Granted our presence stirs up more violence, but they are trying damn hard to have a civil war. Whether we are there or not, these people will be fighting.
There does need to be diplomacy involved, but it needs to be geared mostly towards the Iraqi government. One that I am not sure is up to the task.
I’m not saying that the Iraqis don’t want democracy; I am yielding somewhat to your points that the flavor of democracy we are forcing may be a decade or two away for Iraq.
Which question is that Clark?
The Salon editorial linked by CF suggests the way in Iraq would have been better done if we had copied the nation building efforts in Bonsnia and Kosovo. Get the social and governmental mechanisms in place and THEN hold an election. The election in Iraq has created the sectarian problems there now – it was not a benchmark of success as it was touted at the time.
I, for one, do not think there is a way to “unbreak” the broken pot that is Iraq. Us continuing to own said pot, is not going to help either.
And the question remains, VB, why the hell didn’t Bush do this about FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO?
All of this was predictable – for Christ’s sake – I predicted this in February 2003.
If an partisan idiot like me, a dope smoker, uneducated bastard, an anger management challenged fool (all terms that the Republican/reich-wing have applied to me) can figure this out BEFORE the fact, why couldn’t Bush and His Brain figure it out?
And you all accuse ME of smoking tooo much dope?
Jeez, VB, for the (insert) time….
“BTW – If this is such a GREAT plan, why wasn’t it proposed three years and ten months ago?”
SD,Iraq was a ‘cowboy’ move on GW’s part. We can pot shot his decisions all day long. Won’t move us forward.
How can we leave Iraq with out looking like we abandoned the people?
SDBV,
And, once again, I return to my point: ‘policing’ the streets against an insurgency is pointless. They’ll strike where you are not. Whack-a-mole, if you will. Or, alternatively, if there is a big fight, it involves so many noncombatants that the PR hit to the U.S. is unsustainable. We’ve tried this whole thing twice before, and this is where we are now.
To be frank, I’m increasingly thinking the REAL meat in the Dry-Drunk-In-Chief’s speech had to do with Iran, what with our troops invading the Iranian consulate in Kirkuk and having an armed standoff with Kurdish troops and all.
Think about it: if we attack Iran, the Iraqi Shia who are currently our nominal allies ALL turn on us, and we still have to evacuate 150,000 troops 300 miles through hostile territory.
In light of this exigency, I think the foreground issue really is Iran. Compared to that apocalyptic possibility, Iraq just looks like subtext.
WSC,Did you watch the speech? We were unable to go into –restricted- zones. The Prime Minister is now letting us target the Sadr militia.
Being a pissy bitch wins you no points either.
Go back to CF’s link to that blog and take a GOOD look at Bush’s eyes. What do you see?
http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2007/01/would-you-buy-used-war-from-this-man.html
Nothing. There’s nothing there. That can’t be faked. If the eyes are indeed windows to the soul, there’s no soul in the man. No compassion, no fear, no nothing.
Perhaps it was the drugs or the booze or his upbringing. Perhaps he was just born that way.
And this is the man who is leading our country. Congratulations.
“Being a pissy bitch wins you no points either.”
Yes I watched the speech, VB, and yes I was disgusted. The fact is; there was NO Maliki toPREVENT us from addressing the al Sadr issue four years ago, three years ago, two years ago or EVEN one YEAR AGO.
If this plan was so goddamned GOOD, why wasn’t it in place years AGO?
You can call me all the names you want, VB, and you can accuse me of being a traitor, like some others, but the fact remains that it was your (Republican/reich-wingers) boy that got us into this quagmire and it is damned hypocritical to suggest at this point that we should all play nice and be non-partisan.
Bullshit – I want George W Bush to stand up and say, in plain and unparsed language, that HE got us into a war with no possible chance of victory.
Then we can talk about BIPARTISANSHIP.
Until then, I guess I will just be a “pissy bitch.”
And believe me, I will not FORGET being called a traitor, coward, Defeatocrat, etc.
Sol,
Do you honestly believe that the extra troops are going to help? That we will, in fact, be able to police these areas we haven’t been able to enter in the past? We can’t police where we are allowed now. We aren’t on the offense in Iraq and haven’t been since the first days. We’re on defense, and we’re not doing a very good job. MORE is not always the answer. SMART would be.
Durbin, or whoever said it, was right. This is no longer military, this is political and involves politics in Iraq much, much more than politics in the U.S.
I can’t find a link to the Iranian consulate in Kirkuk. Can you provide one? Are you referring to Irbil?
Iran may be on his forefront. They won’t back down on the nuclear proliferation and the UN is acting as it usually does ‚Äì doing nothing.
I find it hard to believe though that even GW would be picking another fight in light of the mess we are in now.
The plausibility is in the ISG and how GW has tried to do the exact opposite of its recommendations.
RD,One of the talking heads after the speech said that the addition of our troops would enable an Iraqi task force (if you will) of 18 battalions of Iraqis and 5 American. The total number of troops would create a 50:1 ratio of civilians to military. This is supposed to be the optimum ratio. In that sense, the numbers make sense to me.
If these troops can be used effectively, then I do believe we can quell the streets of Baghdad and Sadr City (sp?).
If that can be accomplished, then I do believe we can leave gracefully.
If we leave in chaos, what will be the outcome of the region? What voice will we have when Israel attacks Iran over nuclear proliferation? What will stop the Iranian nuclear proliferation? The UN?
Meanwhile Robert Gates and Condi Rice are suggesting 500,000 troops in Iraq over time on NPR news this AM. If USA and British take majority control of Iraq oil troops will never be out of there = high dollar gasoline. 21,500 new troops= $100,000,000,000(billion). Also means putting a lot of military families through hell. How about spending money on alternative energy and fuel efficient automobiles instead of getting people killed?
CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) — U.S. President George W. Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more troops will fail to bring peace to Iraq and could aggravate a conflict in which tens of thousands of people have already died, Arab analysts said on Thursday.
Bush, taking advice mainly from a small group of ideologues, has misunderstood the nature of the conflict and is wrong to think that a military solution is possible, they added.
A few analysts in the Gulf, where the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was less unpopular than in the rest of the Arab world, said more troops might help, but it could also be too late.
Bush’s plan, announced early on Thursday in the Middle East, overlooks or rejects policy options which the analysts said were essential — dialogue with Iran and Syria, and a determined U.S. effort to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“America is no longer in the driving seat. It has lost Iraq and adding a few thousands troops is not going to help because the situation is beyond fixing,” said Abdel-Khaleq Abdullah, a political scientist in the United Arab Emirates.
Read the rest:
http://robots.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/11/bush.iraq.world.reut/index.html
SDVB,
Doh–my bad. It is indeed Irbil.
http://www.juancole.com/
“How can we leave Iraq with out looking like we abandoned the people?”
SDVB,
We can’t. Hence my earlier reference of being unable to “unbreak” the broken pot.
We do not have any good options. 1)Stay the course, 2) Escalate troop levels, 3) Withdraw. All three have adverse consequences. We are painted into a corner. Of the three bad choices, I favor withdrawal, or re-deployment as they call it now. I believe Bush has chosen the worst of the three bad options. In that escalation will foster Shi’ite ethnic cleansing of Sunnis.
It has to be the height of irony that those of us that were anti-war from the very beginning are now slammed for being partisan in our opposition to Bush and his so-called New Way Forward.
In the start of the War in March of 2003, we were accused of being cowards, traitors and treasonous terrorist appeasers for being in opposition to the war. It wasn’t just the right-wing commentators; it was average people on the streets. I was even physically attacked by Bush supporters at an anti-war protest in February of 2003. The level of filth and threats that were directed against those of us that were anti-war from the beginning is staggering.
And now that the war is going very badly, those same people that attacked us want us to be non-partisan.
We were right from the beginning. We recognized the error of the Bush war machine and dared to raise our voices against it and for our troubles; we were accused of every vile treacherous, anti-American characteristic known to mankind.
Even today, we are still accused of “supporting terrorists” as if the War on Iraq had anything to do with terrorism.
And now the reich-wing wants us to play nice and not be angry. Now they want us to forgive the insults, taunts and physical attacks. They want us to be good little boys and girls and forget the filth that was directed towards us because we stood up and expressed our opinions as Americans.
Well, I will not forget, nor will I ever forgive.
And you have a hell of a lot of gall to ask me to forgive and forget.
And lookit this: McCain, the serial panderer who has been the strongest advocate of increasing the number of troops, appears to be hedging his bet:
**********************************
“Meanwhile, after a meeting at the White House, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed both doubts and optimism about the strategy.
“I am concerned about Maliki and his strength. I am concern as to whether these are sufficient number of troops,” he said. “But I do think we can succeed.”
McCain, a 2008 presidential contender, has been among a handful of lawmakers who have called for more – not fewer – U.S. troops in Iraq.”
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070111/D8MJ8J700.html
What a shock to see “Mr Straight Talk” John McCain setting up for a flip-flop of his own McCain Doctrine of escalation, in the face of solid public opposition. He’s already setting up the ‘Stabbed in the Back’ ‘I told them how to do it but they didn’t listen’ meme.
McCain has seldom looked so irrelevant. Maybe that was part of the goal.
“If we leave in chaos, what will be the outcome of the region?”
First, Sol, thanks for your honesty.
As for your above question, the answer is “chaos.” No matter what, that’s what we’ll have.
My gut reaction to the whole mess is to “cut and run,” but my brain tells me that’s wrong. BushCo screwed up, and continues to do the same. Were we put into this chaotic mess on purpose? To stay is wrong, to leave is wrong. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
I don’t have an answer, but I also don’t believe that Bush’s latest answer is the best or right one. We’re screwed.
WSClark,
Well, after all, folks like you and me are just “dirty fucking hippies” who “hate America.”
If being right = ‘hate,’ I don’t know if America can take much more of the ‘love’ that’s been dished out by the lying, traitorous Radical Right Wing and their minions.
I HATE WAR.WAR SUCKS.INNOCENT PEOPLE DIE.BUT…..If we’re gonna’ do this, and it’s apparent that we are….let’s quit fucking around, goddamnit!Broadcast it all over Sadr City:1)Send all civilians out, for their own protection.2)Any known militia members, come out and lay down your weapons for promised amnesty.3)Anyone else still there in 48 hrs, prepare to die!
We could flatten the whole damned slum in hours if we wanted to.Is this a war or not?If it is, don’t hold back.Nuff’ said.
My humble view. The violence must be drawn down drastically. The Sun’ni and Shi’ite leaders need to be sat down and agreements made. Agreements over territory and oil revenues. The oil should be owned by the Iraqi people and the 5 American heavy players need not be involved. Sound fair?
SLDV:RE: “If these troops can be used effectively, then I do believe we can quell the streets of Baghdad and Sadr City (sp?).”
This is the problem- these guys can’t/won’t equally treat both sects. They will favor their own as they have since day one, and exploit the other! Assuming, of course, that all the people even show up for this mission!
Do you think they will going into Sadr city and disarm those thugs?
It’s a nice thought, but not well founded in reality.
Tracy, is that really you?
“Well, after all, folks like you and me are just “dirty fucking hippies” who “hate America.”
CF – I am a CLEAN fucking hippie that LOVES America…. but who am I to dispute the Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh attitude?
I don’t know about you, but I have had way too much of the reich-wing attacks and I AM going to fight back.
And I will be just as nasty and personal as they have been.
WSClark,
Oh, absolutely. It’s been amazing, watching the orchestrated shift on the Right Wing to posing themselves as the victims of “liberal anger.” Not a hint of shame or embarrassment on their part about playing the victim after twelve years of waging partisan warfare. It just goes to show that the Right has NO principles: winning is all they care about. And, like true fascists, they reduce all questions of truth to questions of power.
You’ll notice I’ve been very polite with SBDV, and he’s been very polite in response. When this happens, dialogue is possible. And I, personally, have very much enjoyed exchanging missives in an honest and respectful fashion. All too rare ’round these parts.
But you’ll also notice that I spent some time upthread kicking ffffffllllllleeeeeettttteeeeeennnneeeeemmmmmaaa in the head. I have no compunction about doing so whenever Wingnuts want to play their shitty little rhetorical games.
If they want to fuck with me, they should expect to get fucked back twice as hard.
We’re smarter, funnier, better lovers, and have a truer belief in the promise of America. We just happen to have been RIGHT about, well, everything. And, we hold the levers of Congressional power–the power of the people, expressed through their elected representatives.
Daddy’s home, Repuke bitches.
The US military is fully capable of policing the streets if given authority to act in a way that it needs to. I have no doubt of that.
What we can do. Limit and police the number of people on the streets in daylight hours. Impose curfews for the twilight hours. That should bring the violence down quite a bit.
As to the sectarians in the armed forces committing genocide, I can not speak to that, but don’t doubt it.
If Maliki doesn not allow us into Sadr City then we also have an exit. At least we will have something to point to you know?
I would like to hear from you all now, those that attacked me, verbally and physically; how do you feel now?
Were your attacks justified?
You called me a traitor. You accused me of treason. You called me a coward. You said I was supporting terrorism.
Now YOUR war is going very badly. Now YOUR war is about to end in an American defeat. Now YOUR war has lasted longer than the Second World War. Now YOUR war has created more terrorists. Now that YOUR war has killed 3,000 Americans and wounded 48,000. Now that YOUR war has spent half a trillion dollars that Bush borrowed from the Chinese. Now that YOUR war has become the disaster that I said it would be.
Do you still feel justified in your attacks o me?
I told you that this war would end in disaster.
What do you have to say now?
Hey hey hey CF. I’m still conservative. All conservatives are not vile =)
Repuke bitches even. OK, the venom has been released !!!
HAHAHAH
Some of the fights here are fun to watch, but when it comes soup to nuts, this forum is about the exchange of ideas isn’t it? Tuesday, if you look back at the threads, there were many left leaning individuals siding with a right leaning post. And vice versa. It would be extremely nice to see more of that as is demonstrated by at least SOME of this thread.
Hey, VB, I tried to ply nice with you – you attacked me for being partisan – I explained the reasons for my partisanship – you still atack even though my reasons are valid.
And you want me to play nice?
ws-I would say you are a traitor, a coward and support terrorists?So what? Cut and run if you want.
And my point is made…..
The point is that it is not solely the US that is going to patrol the streets; as I understand it, it will be the Iraquis also, and therein may lie the problem.
The people we have been training are now showing themeselves to be a large part of the problem.!
Fleettwood is willing to support W’s war as long as all he has to do is attach a magnet to his car.
When it comes to paying for it, forget it.
When it comes to sacrificing his career or a loved one’s to fight it, ditto.
If the war in Iraq actually protected our country from terrorists, the left-wing would be all for it.
You notice that even the anti-war community hasn’t protested AFGHANISTAN. Even France sent troops to Afghanistan as part of the coalition.
Bush didn’t get a real coalition going into Iraq because he couldn’t sell the threat.
And because of pukes like Fleetwood who believe everything that comes out of RushHannityReilly’s mouth, 3000 American soldiers are dead in the ground.
My definition of “traitor” would be the one who sends soldiers to die for nothing.
That’s YOU, Fleetwood.
capn-Tell that to the parents of the dead kids, not me. What was the last war you could get behind?Kumbaya, peacenik. It’s the soldiers who are protecting all of us, even you people.
The other serious problem we have is who can trust anything that comes out of George Bush’s mouth?
He claims he wants “peace” in Iraq. Yet why a car bomb was found in the possession of a half dozen British soldiers dressed up like locals has never been explained.
Soldiers out of uniform are spies, and spies can be shot under the Geneva Convention.
When the provocatuers were held in an Iraqi jail, the British military just sent in a tank and knocked a wall out.
This has never been explained.
Why is so little of the 2 billion dollars a week we spend in “reconstruction” going to Iraqis who need work? Wouldn’t having a steady job be a disincentive to help the insurgancy?
Where the hell is the Iraqi oil that was supposed to fund the post-war reconstruction according to then Assisstant Sec’ry and avowed neo-con Paul Wolfowitz before the invasion and occupation?
And today we learn that US military forces are operating covertly in Iran, with no justification or sanction by Congress.
Not only are we getting no answers to these questions, nobody even seems to be asking the questions.
Certainly not the “liberal media.”
The point is, does the Bush administration really WANT peace and democracy in Iraq?
A lot of their actions belie their propaganda.
I think a good case can be made that the special interests–OIL and MILITARY CONTRACTORS–benefit the most with Iraq just as it is, a failed state with no power.
I’m just thinking out loud here, but to believe that Bush means what he says is to ignore six years of lies, damn lies, and treasonous lies.
Fleettwood–Do you even read what I post, or is reading too tough for you.
I supported and continue to support the war in Afghanistan.
Let the record show, Fleettwood is truly a dumb ass.
fleettwood,
Put up or shut up. What have you “done for the troops,” asshole? What have you done for any of the 30,000 wounded or the families of the 3,000 dead?
Your sentiments are as cheap as you are intellectually sleazy and cowardly. Believe in war? Go fucking fight one, asshole.
For the record, I supported American participation in the Kosovo mission. A mission which, by any measure, has been highly successful.
In light of WSClark’s observations and fffffflllllleeeeeetttttteeeeennnneeemmmmaaaaa’s inability to say or do much of anything, this article from Eric Alterman puts together the price of being a liberal who happens to be correct.
**********************************
by Eric Alterman
Iraq and the Sin of Good Judgment[from the January 29, 2007 issue]
“The Bush/Cheney war in Iraq has proven to be even more catastrophic than those who had the good sense to oppose it could have predicted. It has killed Americans and Iraqis, destroyed a functioning, albeit unfree nation, increased the threat of terrorism, destabilized the region, empowered our enemies–particularly Iran and Syria–inspired hatred of the United States across the globe and will ultimately cost American taxpayers upwards of a trillion dollars. It is, almost certainly, as Al Gore has noted, “the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States.”
The problem the war creates for the punditocracy and the rest of the political establishment is twofold. First, the leaders they backed have not only been wildly incompetent but also impervious to reality. Offered a face-saving exit by the Baker Commission, Bush, Cheney & Co. prefer instead to double down on disaster. Second, there is the problem of the pundits’ individual reputations. If William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Lawrence Kaplan and David Brooks et al. are so smart, why were they so wrong about something so crucial? And why, given their sorry records, do they and their editors still think anybody ought to keep listening to them? At the very least, those they misled are entitled to an explanation.
Even those who have offered up their mea culpas have often sought refuge in what The American Prospect’s Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias have aptly termed “The Incompetence Dodge.” Almost all the most prominent prowar neocons featured in Vanity Fair’s recent report, for example, blamed the Bush Administration for failing to execute its beautiful war plans more efficiently.
Accompanying this tactic has been a corollary effort to smear the liberals who got it right rather than renounce the calumny that was heaped on their heads during the run-up to the invasion (from “pacifist” and “isolationist” to “anti-American” and even “pro-terrorist”). I first noticed this tendency when, in June 2005, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times’s extraordinarily influential foreign affairs columnist whose analysis of the war proved completely misguided, accused liberals of “deep down” wanting America to fail in Iraq “because, with a few exceptions…they thought the war was wrong.” He presented no supporting evidence and named no names. More recently, Time’s McCarthyite columnist Joe Klein explained that in “listening to leftists…it’s easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure.” Andrew Sullivan has opined that antiwar liberals were “objectively pro-Saddam.” Slate editor Jacob Weisberg dismissed those whose analysis proved correct as “the isolationist left,” as if idiotic wars were the only means this great country has to engage the rest of the world.
The purest embodiment of this tendency, perhaps, is a recent screed by Roger Cohen, formerly the foreign editor of the Times, now the editor at large of the International Herald Tribune, author of the “Globalist” column and international writer at large for the Times. According to Cohen, writing in the IHT and on the Times website, the people who tried to save America and the world from the horrific catastrophe we must now endure are nothing but “hyperventilating left-liberals [whose] hatred of Bush is so intense that rational argument usually goes out the window.” We are “so convinced that the Iraq invasion was no more than an American grab for oil and military bases…[we] have forgotten the myriad crimes of Saddam Hussein.” We are “America-hating, over-the-top rant[ers] of the left–the kind that equates Guant?°namo with the Gulag and holds that the real threat to human rights comes from the White House rather than Al Qaeda.” And for good measure, we also “equate the conservative leadership of a great democracy with dictatorship.”
To support these amazing charges, Cohen quotes exactly one person: Scottish MP George Galloway, last seen making an ass of himself on the reality TV show for washed-up gossip fodder, Celebrity Big Brother. Galloway, who was thrown out of the Labour Party, can be said to represent the “left-liberals” here and abroad about as well as, say, ex-KKK Grand Wizard and Holocaust denier David Duke represents the right.
Naturally curious about the actual evil-doers he had in mind, I e-mailed Cohen and politely asked for specifics. He was on vacation with his family and replied by BlackBerry that he would not be able to respond. A few minutes later, however, he apparently changed his mind and replied with a lengthy and rather hostile set of questions regarding my own views on Iraq, including: “What makes you think you can express an informed opinion…?”
The same Cohen column that inveighed against Bush-bashers contained an endorsement of what he called “an expression of moderate sanity,” a document titled “American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto,” which, he explained, “precisely because of its sanity…has received too little attention.” Cohen celebrates this manifesto–which, naturally, embraces the incompetence dodge–as an alternative to “sterile screaming in the wilderness, tired of the comfortably ensconced ‘hindsighters’ poring over every American error in Iraq, tired of facile anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.”
Again, on the identities of these “hindsighters,” “screamers,” anti-Americans and anti-Semites “masquerading as anti-Zionists,” Cohen was silent. Had he taken a look at the 232 manifesto signatories, meanwhile, he’d have had trouble identifying more than three, counting generously, actual liberals. The roll is dominated by the likes of Walter Laqueur, Martin Peretz, Ronald Radosh and, I kid you not, Iran/contra adventurer Michael Ledeen.
So what’s the point of the exercise? Simple: Again, it is to discredit those on the left who were right about Bush and Iraq and remain so today. Shortly after the invasion, Bill Kristol tried to smear war opponents as “the Dominique de Villepin left.” Today such smears ought to be a badge of honor. There are few forces so powerful as the will to evade responsibility for one’s mistakes. Too bad it’s our brave young soldiers who must die for them.”
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20070129&s=alterman
Interesting perspective, CF.
I found these lines particularly resonant: Thomas Friedman, the New York Times’s extraordinarily influential foreign affairs columnist whose analysis of the war proved completely misguided, accused liberals of “deep down” wanting America to fail in Iraq “because, with a few exceptions…they thought the war was wrong.” He presented no supporting evidence and named no names. More recently, Time’s McCarthyite columnist Joe Klein explained that in “listening to leftists…it’s easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure.”
This seems a clear example of the right-wing’s faith-based thinking, if one can call it “thinking.”
Let’s say for the sake of argument that the left-wing truly wanted America to fail in Iraq. How could that possibly alter the outcome?
Last time I checked, wishing does not make something so.
The reich wing seem to think that one’s INTENTIONS are more important than their what actually happens.
The 3,000 deaths of Americans on 9-11 are a horrible outrage because the terrorists INTENDED it, but when we indiscriminately drop tons and tons of bombs on Iraq and end up killing 600,000 civilians, that’s somehow just a regrettable consequence because we didn’t INTEND it.
Funny, you’re just as dead either way.
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
Mahatma Gandhi, “Non-Violence in Peace and War”
Jimmy Carter Speaks Truth to Propagandaby Paul Craig RobertsJimmy Carter, probably the most decent man to occupy the White House, received a lot of grief during his term in office, most of it undeserved. His latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid has brought him even more grief, none of it deserved.
My own appreciation of Jimmy Carter is new found. It began with his previous book, Our Endangered Values, in which Carter criticized the direction in which George W. Bush was taking America with his assaults on the Constitution and international law. His latest book, currently a best seller, shows that Carter has the courage to match his decency and commitment to peace in the Middle East.
A case can be made that while other US presidents focused on the Soviet or communist threat, Carter perceived that the greater threat to world peace and US interests was in the Middle East. With America’s backing Israel was a rising military power whose policies and existence were viewed as a threat by Arab countries. After Israel’s military successes and Carter’s success in arranging peace between Egypt and Israel, new Arab-Israeli tensions arose from Israel’s refusal to leave occupied Palestine and return to its own borders.
Over time the occupied lands have been appropriated by Israeli settlements and now by a massive wall and special roads on which no Palestinian can travel. Palestinian villages have been cut off from water, from their fields and groves, from schools and hospitals, and from one another. Essentially, what was once Palestine has become isolated ghettos in which the Palestinian inhabitants cannot enter or depart without Israeli permission.
Israel’s policy is to turn Palestinians into refugees and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel. Slowly over time the policy has been implemented in the name of fighting terrorism and protecting Israel. Had Israel tried to achieve this all at once, opposition would have been great and the crime too large for the world to accept. Today Israel’s gradual destruction of Palestine has become part of the fabric of everyday affairs.
Many people, including intelligent Israelis, believe that peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved through military coercion and that peace requires Israel to abandon its policy of stealing Palestine from Palestinians. Jimmy Carter, whose long involvement with the issue makes him very knowledgeable and credible, is one of these people.
The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-Semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews.
In Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter takes the risk of speaking truth to propaganda. Predictably, the Israel Lobby and its shills ranging from the “conservative” National Review to “liberal” media and commentators have attempted to banish Carter by labeling him an “anti-Semite.”
We must not let the Israel Lobby get away with demonizing an American president who dares to stand up to their lies.
Carter’s book is a readable and factual history of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and its various turnings. The most powerful chapter is the penultimate, “The Wall as a Prison.”
Carter makes clear that the wall has little to do with Israeli security and a lot to do with dispossession of the Palestinians. Carter writes:
“It is obvious that the Palestinians will be left with no territory in which to establish a viable state, but completely enclosed within the barrier and the occupied Jordan River valley. The Palestinians will have a future impossible for them or any responsible portion of the international community to accept, and Israel’s permanent status will be increasingly troubled and uncertain as deprived people fight oppression and the relative number of Jewish citizens decreases demographically (compared to Arabs) both within Israel and in Palestine. This prospect is clear to most Israelis, who also view it as a distortion of their values. Recent events involving Gaza and Lebanon demonstrate the inevitable escalation in tension and violence within Palestine and stronger resentment and animosity from the world community against both Israel and America.”
Zionists and American neoconservatives could care less about what the world community thinks. They are concerned only with Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. They realize that this goal can only be obtained with military coercion and have discarded any reliance on negotiation and compromise. Bush, for example, has refused the unanimous recommendation of the Iraq Study Group to talk with Iran and Syria. The US and Israeli electorates have proven to be powerless, while a handful of neoconservatives and Zionist settlers drive Middle East policy.
Carter is well aware that the “Roadmap for Peace” has been turned into a propaganda device. Carter writes that Israel uses the roadmap “as a delaying tactic with an endless series of preconditions that can never be met while proceeding with plans to implement its unilateral goals,” and that the US uses it “to give the impression of positive engagement in a ‘peace process,’ which President Bush has announced will not be fulfilled during his time in office.”
The Israel Lobby and its bought-and-paid-for minions tried to demonize Carter for using the word “apartheid” to describe the Palestinian ghettos that Israel has created. The word calls to mind the former South African government’s policy of racial separation, which was mild compared to the restrictions and dispossessions Israel has imposed on Palestinians. A number of commentators have come to Carter’s defense, including Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein and former Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni (Yediot Acharonot, Israel’s largest circulating newspaper). They point out that within Israel itself Israel’s policy is commonly called apartheid.
If Americans could read the frank discussion in the Israeli press about Israel’s inhuman treatment of Palestinians they would wonder how they, as Americans with a “free press,” became so totally brainwashed.
In an act of honest statesmanship that is rarely witnessed, Carter concludes his book:
“The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens ‚Äì and honor its own previous commitments ‚Äì by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel’s right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories. It will be a tragedy ‚Äì for the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the world ‚Äì if peace is rejected and a system of oppression, apartheid and sustained violence is permitted to prevail.”
One can add to Carter’s bottom line that the Bush administration, American neoconservatives, and the Olmert Israeli government believe that the solution lies in the use of military force to smash Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah and to inflict cultural genocide on Muslims by deracinating Islam. This is the path on which Bush with deceit and treachery is leading America.
I was opposed to this whole thing from the get go myself but as long as there is no draft, I really don’t see any reason to raise a stink about more soldiers going off to Iraq. After all they signed up for the job. Long as they don’t come and try to get my kids out of school, I am not gonna raise any stink about it.
The soldiers did not sign up for this. There is supposed to be a legitimate reason for going and there never was one. There is nothing GW can say that would make me believe that we should stay. It is too emotional for me because my 2 sons are there. As one of them says we should just be honest that it is the oil we are after and just surround the oil fields, drain them dry, and then get the hell out and let them kill each other. Whether we leave now, next year, or 10 years from now, the end result will be the same. 20,000 more Americans can’t stop what’s happening but will just be more targets to aim for.
I’m still at odds with the war. Half of me says it is needed and half of me says it wasn’t.I go back and forth, but I haven’t truely made my mind, so I’ll take it day by day.
I am sorry Brenda but your 2 sons should not be there. They ought to be in college or in a nice job somewhere making money off the war instead of fighting the war. That is what smart people do. John Kerry was right when he said stay in school or get stuck in Iraq. There is no draft now and the only people that are in Iraq are there because they made the choice to be there. And yes I served but I served in the USAF during peacetime. I would never sign up for the Army or Marines to go to Iraq and die for Bush, big oil and Halliburton. I value my life more than that.
Mr Bush isn’t going to try to convince us. He is just going to do what he wants, until enough young people come home in body bags–and Americans say, “Enough!” as with Vietnam.
Probably illegal somehow to link to a gated website and despite the fact that it’s Maureen Dowd who writes this (shudder), the commentary is surely telling. Read it before the WE powers that be pull it down:+++++++++++++++++++++++
The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd writes:
“I feel good about the new war with Iran.
How can you not have confidence in the crackerjack team that brought you Operation Iraqi Freedom, which foundered and led to Operation Together Forward, which stumbled and led to Operation Together Forward II, which collapsed and was replaced by The New Way Forward, the Surge now being launched even though nobody’s together and everything’s going backward?
I say, bring it on. If a pre-emptive war in Iraq doesn’t work, why not try a pre-emptive war on Iran in Iraq?
Although Tony Snow dismissed the idea of war with Iran as an “urban legend” yesterday, Condi Rice revealed to New York Times reporters that President Bush acted months ago to parry Iran’s ambitions, issuing orders for a military campaign against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces sneaking into Iraq. Using diplomatic passports, the agents have been smuggling in sophisticated bomb-making components and infrared trigger devices, which could be used to blow up American soldiers.
The move against Iran allows the president and Dick Cheney — who was, natch, militating for the Surge — to blow off, once more, the Iraq Study Group and Congress, to push back rather than make up.
James Baker and Lee Hamilton had recommended playing nice with the mad mullahs, which even they acknowledged was a long shot, given that the Bush administration can offer them little except acquiescence in their nuclear weapons program, which is not going to happen.
Joe Biden, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned Condi on Thursday that Mr. Bush did not have the authority to pursue the networks over the border into Iran or Syria. On Friday, Bob Gates assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Iranians they target won’t be in Iran.
We’re trying to stanch a self-inflicted wound: our failed occupation gave Iran the opening in Iraq we’re now trying to shut down.
The White House had to admit this week what has been obvious to everybody else for eons, including a list of lame assumptions they embraced during the first few years of the occupation: “Majority of Iraqis will support the coalition and Iraqi efforts to build a democratic state” has now been supplanted by “Iraqis increasingly disillusioned with coalition efforts.”
It’s a remarkable moment, W. standing nearly alone, deserted by more and more Republicans, generals and Americans, risking it all on a weak reed like Prime Minister Maliki.
It’s impossible to know what W. was really thinking as he stiffly delivered his fantasy scheme in the White House library. The whole capital was fraught, but the president may simply have been musing to himself: “I’m hungry … I wonder what time the game starts on ESPN? …Has anybody read all these books?”
W. always acts like he’s upping the ante in a board game where you roll the dice and bet your plastic army divisions on the outcome. This doesn’t surprise some of his old classmates at Yale, who remember Junior as the riskiest Risk player of them all, known for dropping by the rooms of friends, especially when they were trying to study for exams, for extended bouts of “The Game of Global Domination.”
Junior was known as an extremely aggressive player in the venerable Parker Brothers board game, a brutal contest that requires bluster and bluffing as you invade countries, all the while betraying alliances. Notably, it’s almost impossible to win Risk and conquer the world if you start the game in the Middle East, because you’re surrounded by enemies.
His gamesmanship extended to sports — he loved going into overtime and demanding that points be played over because he wasn’t quite ready.
As Graydon Carter recollects in the new Vanity Fair, Gail Sheehy wrote an article for the magazine about W. that made this point: “Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn’t lose. He’ll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him.”
W.’s best friend when he was a teenager in Houston, Doug Hannah, told Ms. Sheehy: “If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15.”
Even if it was clear who was winning, W. wanted to go further to see what would happen. It was a technique that worked well in Tallahassee in 2000, but not so well in Tikrit.
Word is that even as they Surge, the Bush team is already working on Plan C, or as they will no doubt call it, The New, New Way Forward II.”
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/opinion/13dowd.html++++++++++++++++++++++++++By the way, your polite manner is much appreciated by some (me anyway), Greg.