Iraq, we’ve been told, is at a turning point, with the U.S. military surging and the next few months crucial to securing the country. Much is riding on the ability of Iraqi leaders to step up and make key security and power-sharing reforms.
So U.S. lawmakers are rightly steamed to hear that the Iraqi parliament is planning a two-month vacation this summer.
Do you sense a disconnect?
“Our armed forces are up to 150,000 troops; we’re over $600 billion appropriated for this, lost 3,300 lives, 25,000 wounded fellow citizens. . . . And the Iraqi answer? We’re taking a summer off. Goin’ fishing,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said Iraqi leaders will do things their way and don’t “take kindly of (U.S. officials) telling us when to recess.”
Where do Iraqi leaders go to vacation, anyway? Fantasy Island?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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33 Comments
That’s awful. What if one of their advisers is going to give the Prime Minister a document about a terrorist attack and he just ignores it? Or what if a huge city falls victim to a flood and the leader is just out playing a guitar while thousands drown? Perhaps I’m taking all this wrong. After years of neglect there’s probably plenty of brush that needs to be cleared somewhere.
Maybe this is just another publicicity stunt by our corrupt government to show that Iraqi’s just aren’t doing enough to finish the war we started and justify our withdrawal.
Maybe this is just another publicicity stunt by our corrupt government to show that Iraqi’s just aren’t doing enough to finish the war we started and justify our withdrawal.
A billion Chinese are doing just fine without a representative democracy. Exactly what does a hand-weaver on the streets of Calcutta have in common with their democratically-elected government that seems hell-bent on dropping a nuke on Pakistan? Three decades after the Vietnam war, most peasants are still tending rice paddies and a few are generating a semi-capitalist income. Cuban children go to schools and doctors and are generally pleased with the arrangement.
The people of Iraq don’t expect anything from their “elected” government. All most of them want is to live their lives without the risk of getting blown up.
George WMD Bush told us all we needed to do is to get rid of Saddam Hussein and Iraq would be a land of teddy bears and rainbows. Just how has that prediction worked out?
America has stirred the pot in Iraq, but the only outcome will be the result of what Iraqis end up with. On their own. The longer America stays, the more animosity we’ll engender. It’s not gonna be prety to look at, regardless if Americans leave Iraq tomorrow or ten years from now.
They are gonna have to figure it out.
Iraq’s national security adviser stated recently “It is the annual vacation” but there is a move to consider shortening it. Annual vacation? Does that mean that the corner stone of any forming democracy is vacation? Funny I do not recall hearing about this last year! Oh perhaps it was that the Government had not been formed as of last year and you had to have a government in place in order for it to go on vacation! But then if one looks at the slow pace they have been enacting they most major and critical legislation. Being on a vacation could perhaps explain it…..
What do you want to bet we’re financing their vacations one way or another?
In ancient Assyria, the leaders traveled to a cooler part of the country, moving the capital north, from Ninevah to the highland city Susana (sp?).
When it’s 120 degrees in the lowlands, this is sensible. Baghdad doesn’t have full-time electricity and A/C. We destroyed its generating facilities in the Shock and Awe Show. How much work could you get done at 120?
You can say, “Our young men and women are over there putting up with the heat.” Actually, they have the benefit of generators and A/C, but even when they don’t, it’s not a valid argument: the Iraqis didn’t ask us to invade their country.
If they want to be less than fully cooperative, what’s the take-home lesson? They’re not willing to sacrifice to get their country ready for our men and women to transfer military and policing duties to the Iraqis. They’re saying, “If you want to do your thing in the middle of the broiling season, fine, but we aren’t going suffer it.”
Which leads to a reasonable conclusion: we shouldn’t make our men and women suffer. So let’s bring them home.
I believe the proper term for the Iraqi Parliaments upcoming time off is anal vacation.
Mark,”the Iraqis didn’t ask us to invade their country.”
Well sure they did, having them Talibans in Anchovistan an threatening the presinit’s daddy and waving around them WMD. Them Iraqis was just begging for it.
Besides, we had to protect them from their oil.{Sarcasm Off}
Someone asked where these people are going on vacation. One thought comes to mind – Dubai. Isn’t that the mecca of oil and wealth? Isn’t Dubai the place and people George W. Bush wanted to give our port security to?
Matt Lauer from the Today Show recently went to Dubai and could not stop praising about it. This is a place where there are no taxes – which is why Halliburton is going to transfer their headquarters there. If these Iraqi government people do go to Dubai – then there is something rotten in Denmark.
This entire war is about the oil. Dubya can stammer all he wants in his explanations for the war, but it is quite simple really. The oil is there, Dubya and Cheney want it, they sent our troops to go secure it.
But then the Iraqis had the audacity to come to our Congress and try to apply pressure because they do not want the US to pull out. Well, duh, I wouldn’t either. The Iraqi government sounds to be just as crooked as Saddam.
So what exactly did we accomplish by invading Iraq?
The US Congress and the US President often go on vacation for extended periods during war. They also leave work that they should have completed undone and go off to Marthas Vinyard and eat caviar. So who are we to bitch about the Iraqi politicians taking off a few months of the summer? That is IRAQ’S government and we should quit trying to dictate their vacation schedule to them. What if Maliki said “the US Congress has no business taking a summer vacation”? We would be furious and rightly so at the nerve of another nation telling our Congress not to go on vacation.
Long Time Poster,”A billion Chinese are doing just fine without a representative democracy.”
You are kidding right? Either you are misinformed, a purveyor of Chinese Communism or just stupid.
=================Parts of Iraq are doing incredibly well, like Basra and other port cities, those areas that are populated with Kurds as well as those areas that border Saudi Arabia.
Of course the Main Stream Media won’t report the success of these places as it is an inconvenient truth.
It was under a 1998 law under the Clinton Administration that there was a declaration for the Democratization of Iraq. I guess Clinton really didn’t mean it, huh?
Great point Kev. Let’s see…July. Bush is going to broil himself chainsawing brush in 100 degree Waco. Right!
I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts he takes his summer vacation in the lovely upper-70 degrees Bar Harbor Maine family digs . (I’m not going out on much of a limb here, cuz that’s what he’s been doing since 2001.)
‘Course, a lot of us will have to stay in our unpleasant zone this summer. Nigerian insurgents have made Shell and Chevron decide to pull people out, and cut back oil production by 20%. Nigeria is one of America’s top oil suppliers. How far can most of us heartlanders afford to travel on $3.60-$3.80/gallon gas? Do we think the Preznit is going to calculate the fuel costs of Air Force and Marine One to take him to New England, and decide, “Oh I should be a good steward of the taxpayers’ dollars. Laura and I are just gonna stay in D.C. this summer”? Riight.
Of course the Main Stream Media won’t report the success of these places [Kurdish north and Basra] as it is an inconvenient truth.Posted by: Republican | May 13, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Translation: it’s inconvenient to the war effort.
Truthier: It’s not inconvenient, it’s irrelevant (if true).
Kev, you want to go live in China? If you think China does just fine…yeah. See if you like being so used and broken by the industries that work young girls to the bone as slaves sold by their parents. Try having an opinion while you’re there. That has to be the most ignorant statement EVER.
And anyone who defends the Iraqis taking vacation in the middle of this need to sign up to go fight in Iraq right now.
Do our soldiers in Iraq also get a 2-month vacation? If so, then I have no problem with the Iraqi government taking their 2-month vacation. If not, then HELL NO!
The US Congress and the US President often go on vacation for extended periods during war. They also leave work that they should have completed undone and go off to Marthas Vinyard and eat caviar. So who are we to bitch about the Iraqi politicians taking off a few months of the summer? That is IRAQ’S government and we should quit trying to dictate their vacation schedule to them.Posted by: Kev | May 13, 2007 at 09:58 AM
The key difference here, the difference that’s so obvious I can’t believe I’m typing this, is that while our Congress goes to Martha’s Vineyard and eats caviar (lol), THEY DO NOT DEPEND ON ANYBODY TO MILITARILY HOLD THE COUNTRY TOGETHER WHILE DOING SO.
Defending the Iraqi government in this situation is fatally open to the same criticism of other government assistance efforts (valid in the Iraq case) at the heart of Reagan’s famous “welfare queens driving welfare Cadillacs.”
There is help, and there is enabling. Shedding American blood in Iraq for a cause the Iraqis discount so far as to vacation through the summer: that’s enabling.
“Kev, you want to go live in China? If you think China does just fine…yeah. See if you like being so used and broken by the industries that work young girls to the bone as slaves sold by their parents. Try having an opinion while you’re there. That has to be the most ignorant statement EVER.”
Think you got me confused with somebody else. I never said anything about China. I just stated that we should not be trying to dictate the vacation schedules of people in the Iraqi government. And the Chinese, if they are, should not be dictating their schedules either.
“Do our soldiers in Iraq also get a 2-month vacation? If so, then I have no problem with the Iraqi government taking their 2-month vacation. If not, then HELL NO!”
Tha standard paid leave in the armed forces is 30 days a year and, if your C.O. deems it necessary, he can approve any additional time you might need for things like a family illness or other emergency that does not count against your 30 days of paid leave. People in the service do get a significant amount of off time and I would support giving them more if it is necessary for their health and happiness.
Nobody’s dictating vacation schedules for people in the Iraqi government.
We are, however, saying that taking the summer off while American soldiers die to prop up the government is wrong.
Make that obviously wrong.
I apologize Kev. It was LTPFTL who wrote that.
The “Iraqi government” governs nothing.
So why not go on vacation?
How we be able to tell if the Iraqi government is on vacation?
Maliki and the rest of the Iraqi government are playing both sides of the fence and the longer we stay in Iraq and do their dirty work for them, the longer they will drag their feet in resolving their country’s problems.
If one Iraqi government person takes their 2-month vacation, then I’d like to see the Democrats make Bush send them monthly written reports on what successes we have seen in Iraq. Bet Bush would never agree to that either. George W. thinks he can do whatever pleases and has to answer to no one. Well this is America and the Constitution is still in place (in spite of the Bush Administrations’ efforts to erode it). The President is not the full power of the US. Even his own Republicans are beginning to see the writing on the wall on this one. if the Republicans have any chance at the White House in 2008, they need to make Bush a really lame duck and tape his mouth shut.
How is the Iraqi government going on vacation any different from all the time that Bush, Cheney, Brownback, etc take off from their “jobs”? If anything, the Iraqi government is warming up to US type government rather well! It is another milestone of MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
CORRECTED: Republican Senator Slams Iraqi Government
By REUTERSPublished: May 13, 2007Filed at 4:27 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate on Sunday expressed frustration with the Iraqi government, saying Republicans were “overwhelmingly disappointed” with the lack of political progress.
“The Iraqi government is a huge disappointment,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN’S Late Edition on Sunday.
“I don’t know what their problem is but this country has made an enormous investment in giving the Iraqis a chance to have a normal government after all of these years of Saddam Hussein and his atrocities,” he said……………Citing media reports, McConnell said some lawmakers in Iraq’s parliament wanted a vote to ask the United States to leave.
“I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we’ll be glad to comply with their request,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-iraq-republicans.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Someone wake me up….no I’m awake must have drifted into the Twilight Zone. A republican saying we will “cut and run” if they vote to ask us to leave!!! Tell me when the next elections are again…..
It isn’t just he top-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate who is willing to ‘cut and run”. A few days ago several other ranking Republicans told the White House that if progress was not forthcoming by September (omygosh! a timetable for withdrawal from Republicans!?) then they would have to reconsider their support for the Iraq War…in other words “let’s cut and run”!!!!
Happy, here’s someone who is not “Happy”.
Conservative pundit Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday this morning criticized the wavering on support for the Iraq war by some Republicans as “extremely stupid.”
“The idea that they will get credit for deserting the war at this point, they voted for the war, they voted to fund the war, now they’re going to what? Vote for withdrawal, for surrender,” he mocked. “Then they’re going to go to voters, Republican congressmen, in 2008 and say, ‘Hey, re-elect us!’”
“Conservative pundit Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday this morning criticized the wavering on support for the Iraq war by some Republicans as “extremely stupid.”
If anybody here is stupid it is Kristol who did his best to get us into this war and is doing his best to get us into the next war with Iran. He has no credibility and anybody that would listen to him does so at their own risk.
“He has no credibility and anybody that would listen to him does so at their own risk.”
Better: “He has no credibility and anybody that would listen to him puts us all at grave risk.”
I imagine being in the Iraqi parliment, where one may get blown up either on duty or off, is what GW would define as “hard work”!
I like what one commentator said about the Iraqi government going on a two months vacation.If they do, there will come back needing another U.S. military! They will be like the cheating husband who goes on a out of town trip…. They will come back to a empty house with the locks changed!
We could only wish they will come home with locks changed. I don’t expect Bush to do anything but bless their 2-month vacations because they deserve it.
Bush will NEVER leave Iraq as long as he is breathing and in power. His own Republicans are turning on him and he is like Napoleon marching headstrong into his Waterloo. And I’m afraid it won’t be until AFTER he has invaded Iran.
The day will come when Bush will have to answer for his warmongering. The God that Bush professes to love so much, will be the final judge as to the righteousness of a president who has been hellbent on war since he became president.