Monday, October 30, 2006

"Do you want America to win in Iraq?"

The Abstract Factory

Apparently this is the latest sound-bite for Republicans trying to defend the Bush Administration --- see this Oct. 27 Lynne Cheney interview...

Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tapes of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?


...and O'Reilly in this Oct. 27 Letterman interview...

O'Reilly: But they don't want to hear about the bad world that we live in. It's an evil world that we live in. Let me ask you something. And this is a serious question. Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?

The clarion call has been sounded, the marching orders have been given, and all the little troopers across America are no doubt repeating this mindless sound bite --- "Do you want America to win?" --- even as we speak.

The proper sound-bite response to this sound bite is: Yes, and I want the Mets to win the World Series this year too. But that train has left the station, and we were not on board.

Bonus additional sound bite, in case you don't like that one: Yes, I want America to win. I also like puppies and apple pie. But none of those things has anything to do with continuing the war in Iraq.

The United States has already lost in Iraq, in the only sense that matters: we have failed disastrously in every single one of our war aims. The Bush administration's holding out because it cannot admit failure, and it knows that if it delays long enough then the next administration will come in and the failure can then be blamed on them. As long as America does not withdraw from Iraq under his watch, the President can continue to indulge in the delusion that history will judge him kindly. Or, in other words, the United States continues to spend untold blood and treasure, more or less, to protect George W. Bush's frail self-esteem. [...]

Georgie's 'self-esteem' is gonna get a lot frailer before this is over.

If anyone asks me that question, I feel like deckin' his ass and sayin', "Sure, but since we're not gonna, I thought I'd just go ahead and win that one."

We won the war part of the Iraq clusterfuck. It was easy. What we're losing is everything that came afterwards, and everything we had before.

That outcome was pre-ordained the day Bush committed treason and lied us into an unnecessary invasion of a nation that posed us no immediate threat. As bad and previously-un-American as that was, it was compounded and exacerbated by an order of magnitude by the incompetence of the Bush administration and by the subsequent piling-on of degradation after degradation of the Constitution, and lie upon lie, in the futile attempt to avoid having to admit their failures and answer for them.

What goes around, comes around, Bushie boy. Stand by for a ram.

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