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Strategy = Pin the Tail on the Donkey
Mission= Quagmire
Mission Accomplished= Premature Evacuation
Mandate= 29%
Sectarian violence= Civil war
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Habeus Corpus= So 1776
9/11? = 9/11
Family values = One million Iraqi dead
Abortion is murder= One million Iraqi dead
Stem cell research is murder=Three thousand Americans dead
Culture of life= Three thousand Americans dead
Iraqis are free= Except the women
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U.S. troops raided an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq late Wednesday night and detained several people, Iran's main news agency reported today, prompting protests from Tehran just hours after President Bush pledged to crack down on the Islamic Republic's role in Iraqi violence.
Iran released news of the raid through its Islamic Republic News Agency in a dispatch that was broadly critical of Bush's plan to deploy about 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
The IRNA report said that U.S. forces entered the Iranian consulate in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdish-dominated north, and seized computers, documents and other items. The report said five staff members were taken into custody.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry appealed to the Iraqi government to obtain the release of its personnel.
The 'surge' is itself another Bush lie. The Pentagon doesn't have the troops, so the 'increase' will just be Pentagon crooked bookkeeping (crooked bookkeeping is something the Pentagon is good at). The real plan is much worse. It is a covert change in the rules of engagement. [...]
This is coded language, but not difficult to read. Bush is calling for genocide against the Sunnis. He is following the recommendation of John Podhoretz in the New York Post (note that Uruknet misattributes this to John Podhoretz's almost equally vile father; the most infamous line is in red [bold]):
"What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?
If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?"
Now we can imagine Bush issuing such an order. We will also see the Americans go medieval on the Sunnis in Anbar (who are called 'al Qaeda'). Just to confirm who is running things, there is a tiny reference in Bush's speech to more for Israel:
"We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defence systems to reassure our friends and allies."
Patriot air defense systems deployed in Iraq would protect Israel from attacks from where? You do the geometry. If Israel wants to try something awful, it would not want to face any kind of counterattack.
The neocons have been lying in the weeds, pretending to have been soundly defeated by the all-powerful American Establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bush's speech could have been - and probably was - written by Bill Kristol. The Zionist Plan for the Middle East continues, with the next step ensuring that Iraq breaks up. You have to wonder what the Saudis, who have expressed concern about Shi'ite influence, will think about an American campaign of genocide against Sunnis. You have to wonder what the American Establishment, too decadent and weak to defend itself, will do when much of its wealth is destroyed.
My colleague Tom Friedman (yeah, yeah, button it - G.) wrote last week: "Whenever I hear this surge idea, I think of a couple who recently got married but the marriage was never very solid. Then one day they say to each other, 'Hey, let's have a baby, that will bring us together.' It never works. If the underlying union is not there, adding a baby won't help."
Some women say that the Surge will not work because it's like starting over with an old boyfriend: you think you've learned the pitfalls and can resume with more success - you can set benchmarks! - but instead you're swiftly ensnared by the same old failures. And the most maddening romances, of course, are those in which you think you have the power, you should have the power, but somehow in the end, you don't have the power.
With the Surge, as with the invasion of Iraq, W. is like the presumptuous date "who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom," as my friend Dana Calvo put it.
Teddy Kennedy gave a speech at the National Press Club yesterday about his new legislation that would require Congressional approval before troop levels can be increased. Afterward, he was asked if he would try to block the escalation with an amendment to an upcoming Iraq spending request.
"The horse will be out of the barn by the time we get there," Senator Kennedy replied. "The president makes his speech now. We're going to get the appropriation request probably the end of January, early February." He said it could take eight more weeks for Congress to act. "By that time, the troops will already be there," he said. "And then we'll be asked, are we going to deny the body armor to the young men and women over there?"
In other words, the president will ask us to the prom once he reserves the hotel room.
Nine days after Zelikow's resignation the Iraq Study Group report was released. Informed correspondents of the Washington Post and New York Times related in conversation that Bush furiously called the report "a flaming turd," (my em) but his colorful remark was not published. Perhaps it was apocryphal. Nonetheless, it conveyed the intensity of his hostile rejection. Still, Scowcroft and Baker, like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot," waited for Rice.
The State Department has been completely sidelined in the making of Bush's latest and last policy on Iraq. Its experience in the Balkans remains thoroughly ignored. And Rice does nothing to call it to Bush's attention, for that would require her to point out his shortcomings. The State Department founders like a ghost ship. Rice meanders back and forth to and from the Middle East, the shuttle without the diplomacy.
After twice rejecting the job of deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, was implored to accept it. In exchanging a Cabinet post for a sub-Cabinet one, a position of policymaking for an administrative post, Negroponte excited rumors that he would only have decided to make the switch if he believed that Rice would eventually leave and he would ascend to her job. But, once again, the logic of that Washington gossip is merely rational. Rice the irrelevancy remains Bush's indispensable devotee.
George Bush's announcement last night that he is going to pour more troops into Iraq was the last throw of the dice in a misconceived enterprise that has dragged his country, this country and the Middle East into a nightmare. [...]
In opting for a troop surge, Mr Bush has ignored the message of the mid-term elections, the Iraq Study Group, Congress, his own top generals and most world opinion. US generals have difficulty enough maintaining current levels of combat-ready troops and are not convinced that more troops will make any difference. Rather than listen to them, Mr Bush has turned to the right, to those who argue that honour and the America's national interests require fighting on. One senses that "honour" is the more important of the two.
Back at home, the president is almost alone. Only senator John McCain, the leading Republican candidate to replace Mr Bush, and Joe Lieberman, on the right of the Democrats, support his plan. Queuing up to oppose him, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and senator Edward Kennedy have all said that they intend to hold symbolic votes on the plan. They cannot overrule a decision by the commander-in-chief, but they can isolate him. There could be as many as 10 Republican defections in the Senate. The Democrats have turned up the volume of their moral outrage, presumably because they think Mr Bush will not be able to hold the line with the latest announcement. In most people's minds, the argument for withdrawal, however gradual, has already been won. The only issue that remains is how quickly it happens.
President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.
Americans needed to hear a clear plan to extricate United States troops from the disaster that Mr. Bush created. What they got was more gauzy talk of victory in the war on terrorism and of creating a "young democracy" in Iraq. In other words, a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one.
Mr. Bush did acknowledge that some of his previous tactics had failed. But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq. He described the failure of last year's effort to pacify Baghdad as if the White House and the Pentagon bore no responsibility.
In any case, Mr. Bush's excuses were tragically inadequate. The nation needs an eyes-wide-open recognition that the only goal left is to get the U.S. military out of this civil war in a way that could minimize the slaughter of Iraqis and reduce the chances that the chaos Mr. Bush unleashed will engulf Iraq's neighbors.
What it certainly did not need were more of Mr. Bush's open-ended threats to Iran and Syria.
We have argued that the United States has a moral obligation to stay in Iraq as long as there is a chance to mitigate the damage that a quick withdrawal might cause. We have called for an effort to secure Baghdad, but as part of the sort of comprehensive political solution utterly lacking in Mr. Bush's speech. This war has reached the point that merely prolonging it could make a bad ending even worse. Without a real plan to bring it to a close, there is no point in talking about jobs programs and military offensives. There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq.
Passing the grim marker of 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq briefly focused Americans' attention on the war. But we live in a big country with lots of malls.
But what if our fellow citizens were killed and wounded at the same rate as people in Iraq? Here's the math.
Last fall the British medical journal "Lancet" published a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of Iraqis dead "as a consequence of the war" was about 2.5 percent of that country's population, or roughly 655,000 people. Over 90% of those died from violence.
Comparable casualty rates in our country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia would be dead. Every. Single. Person.
And we are just now getting serious about cutting off money for this war?
Besides that unimaginable death toll, every person in Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Colorado would be wounded. Every. Single. Person.
Would that be the point we stopped politely asking our Congress members to please end the war, and began taking over their offices in every state in the union?
I'm with a group of surprised camels, a 300lb chicken shwarma and a bemused comedy writer in a wintry, wet Toronto square.
We're here for the launch of CBC's new sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, which depicts a Muslim community trying to assimilate in a small prairie town.
Set in 2010, The Trial Of Tony Blair, starring Robert Lindsay, sees the former premier plagued by nightmares about the war and fears that he will be killed by a suicide bomber.
Viewers of the More4 drama will also see Mr Blair convert to Catholicism to seek forgiveness for his sins.
Yesterday Lindsay, who also starred as the Prime Minister in the drama A Very Social Secretary, said he took the role because he was angry over the Iraq war.He said: "I still think it's an illegal war and has been a huge mistake and it's not going to get any better."
In the drama, which is to be broadcast on Monday, George Bush is in rehabilitation after being discovered comatose at his ranch.
We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.
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Please take a moment to read two very important pieces on this issue, describing why an escalation of the war is potentially very dangerous. First, this piece by VoteVets.org advisory board member, former General Wesley Clark. General Clark clearly lays out all the reasons why the president's escalation won't help secure Iraq and transition the US out. Second, please read this piece that I penned on why the proposed boost, along with other changes in Iraq, could signal the intention to launch an attack on Iran, and further destabilize the region, threatening US security.
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...Assuming the Democrats got 51 votes for a bill to stop the war (one hell of an assumption), are there 16 Senate Republican votes to override the veto? Dream on. Assuming there is, what happens when Bush flatly orders the Army and Marines to stay in the war anyway even if there isn't any money? As CIC he can make them do that. What would the Joint Chiefs do then?
Congress isn't going to stop the war with bills that cut off funding, just forget it, it's naive and counter-productive to espouse they can. The Democrats are not capable of it, period, the Republicans will not go along and already a very hostile media environment is framing the election as one that "...reflected a desire among the American people for the congress to stop fighting and work together." Yes, that's our American "journalism" corps, such shining warriors of Truth.
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