Apparently he gave one last night, but I don’t know what he said, and, more importantly, I don’t really care. I expect he wants to escalate the War in Iraq, but I guess I don’t know that for sure.
Why anyone listens to a word the man says anymore is beyond me. Everything he touches turns to shit. He’s been wrong on so very much that he’s no longer entitled to the benefit of any doubts.
Agreed. I “watched” the speech while I was working on my laptop, and didn’t really “hear” a word he said. The Press had already picked apart pretty much what he was going to say before hand, so none of it was news.
The Surge is a farce and its just not going to work. Someone on the radio the other day pointed out that in 2004 we had roughly 100,000 troops. In 2005 we had roughly 160,000. And those extra 60,000 troops didn’t help a damn thing to get resolved. Another 20,000 now, when the situation is a lot worse, is just giving them targets.
And any comments about sudden Iraqi help to make this situation better is bull too. We’ve heard it all before, and the Sadr tells Malaki how its REALLY going to be, and he balks at the Bush administration. After all, WE are going to leave someday. Sadr will always be right next to him.
In about 10 years, I predict we’ll be right back in theater again, removing Sadr and his cronies from power.
Congress needs to stand up and bring this failed Presidency back to order, before he ends up killing us all.
Doug: You’re being overly kind.
We’ve turned so many corners, we’re going in circles.
What IS the solution? I don’t care for the plan myself, but can’t think of a better one. I know “Iraq needs to take care of it on their own”. Fine, but how do we do that? Just pack up, leave, and hope for the best? I think we’ll end up with something worse than Saddam if we do that.
I agree, not going would have been the better option looking back. We’re there though, so now what?
Jason, you say you don’t like the plan. I presume that means you don’t think the plan will result in accomplishment of our objective(which I think we all can agree would ideally be a peaceful Iraq governed by a non-sectarian, democratic government). If the choice is between a) a plan that won’t fix Iraq but will result in a bunch more dead young Americans and b) a plan that won’t fix Iraq but will bring our troops home, it seems like a no brainer.
I am a firm advocate of a strong military and believe that there are occasions in which we can and should use military force to advance our national interest. At the same time, if we cannot accomplish our goal, there is absolutely nothing cowardly about calling it a day, and nothing honorable about prolonging a war that cannot be won. That we will look bad to the world and emobolden the terrorists if we acknowledge defeat is not, in my mind, a sufficiently compelling reason for sending more young Americans to their deaths.
Doug, you are right on all accounts. And then the Indy Star editorial this morning said we should give the president time to put together a plan to win in Iraq. Shitty paper.
The great problem I have with the whole mess is that we have made a huge mess in Iraq and the region, and neither adding 20,000 nor pulling out is going to help bring about stability.
I’m not saying that I have an answer, although I will say that I was against the invasion from the beginning, so I’m glad to stand on my ‘I told you so’.
Doug– why don’t you tell us what you really think? :-)
No, you are spot on– stopped listening to this man ages ago. But the truly sad part is that even stupid Midwestern hicks like me knew that this invasion was stupid. Too bad I don’t have respresentatives or senators with the balls to stand up back then.
Who knew an administration would be allowed to circumvent civil rights and get us into this much of a mess– with the loss of 1000s of lives — for — uhm..what?
I get a bit tired of hearing people ask “What is the solution”? There isn’t one! To be fair, commenters on blogs are free to ask it. But when Republicans ask it, or their press enablers, it makes my blood boil. Failure to plan on their part does not constitute a need to solve the unsolvable (or if unwilling to, then remain silent) on my part. These same people would jump out of a plane without a parachute, and spend the entire descent screaming “What NOW?” They’ve managed to create a problem without a solution. If they want to be helpful, they can apologize and agree to not touch anything else, ever. If they’re unable to do that, perhaps they could just kill themselves. Can they say with certainty that that wouldn’t help? It’s as worth a try as anything they’ve proposed.
I think this is a bed that can’t be unshit. So, it’s a choice between a destabilized Iraq with additional loss of American lives and money or a destabilized Iraq without additional loss of American lives and money.
At this point, I think we’ve made such a hash of Iraq that any American involvement is a poison pill, making problems worse rather than better. I guess maybe we could do our best to encourage other countries to assist in mitigating the fallout once we’re gone, but our diplomatic machinery also seems to have been broken by the current administration.
Never heard it summed up better. As far as pulling out, the only issue I have with that is that I think we’re going to be fighting this battle even if we leave. Do we fight it in another country or in our own? With the oil money available there, I think another Osama would be even more effective at terrorist attacks here.
I guess I think 20k more troops MIGHT fix it, and pulling out MIGHT result in attacks at home. I’m just a simple sandwich man, though. It isn’t about honor or not wanting to be a coward. In some ways, it is more cowardly to continue to fight. If it is in the USA’s best long-term interest to leave, then we should do so.
However, would we have had this war if we removed Saddam the first time? My fear is that every time we start and don’t finish, we make the problem worse. If we pull out, later USA generations will have to pay for it in Gulf (or world) War III, IMHO. I don’t agree with doing that.
I assume it also makes your blood boil when Democrats that voted for the war say the same thing. Some did object, but not many.
I’ve been playing the “so it was a bad idea but we cant leave, so what now?” game for too long now. That was a fine Iraq War conversation stopper.
Where someone could say it, sound intellecual and fair-minded, everyone whould pause and pretend to look internally. But it really just shut down any discussion. We need action.
I think the best course of action a clear declaration of American de-escalation (No permanent bases, a private timetable/benchmarks to be set with the Iraqi govt) accompanied by a action that solidifies its verasity – the removal of several brigades from in-country.
Quickly spend 6-12 months training the Iraqi forces, engaging in diplomatic regional efforts, political pressure on the Iraqi govt, begin redeployment of forces to the borders and regional bases (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).
Remain battle ready with ground and special forces in ME theater to discourage (and act swiftly to block) foreign intervention by either Shia (Iran) or Sunni (Syria) fighters while ramping up economic/humanitarian aide with engaged European and ME alliances engaged by American de-escalation and ther own strategic intersest for ME stability.
Or something like that.
Why not bolster our defenses here, and continue satellite and airplane surveillance of Iraq, and actually do some human intelligence to protect us from further attack? The last attack could have been prevented if our CIA and FBI talked, if our NSA chief wasn’t put there simply to bitch about our lack of a missile shield, if our Attorney General wasn’t spending his pre-9/11 time trying to shut down New Orleans brothels, and if the President hadn’t tasked the Vice-President (too busy with his “energy task force”) with terrorism prevention. We did EVERYTHING wrong, and came damn close to preventing 9/11 anyway. I refuse to believe that we have to physically occupy Iraq to prevent further attacks, or that that would even be sufficient. The “flypaper” argument is an excuse, which has been amplified as all the other excuses for our invasion have been shot down. The reason it still gets any respect at all is that it’s hard to disprove–although the global uptick in terrorist attacks since our invasion should tend to disprove the notion.
Actually, no, the Democrats saying the same thing doesn’t bother me. They voted for the war for a couple of reasons. One, they were lied to about the intel. Two, they felt compelled to because the vote was timed to affect the midterm elections. Sure they should have voted their consciences. But the American electorate was so stupid at that point that it would have made Democratic congressional losses even greater and put even more Iraq hawks in congress which wouldn’t have exactly been helpful in any way. There was a lot of voting for the war to save their seats from going Republican. Blame Bush, Rove, and the Republicans in congress. Remember, a party of draft-dodgers was able to make a triple-amputee Vietnam vet out to be a cowardly enemy sympathizer, and America (in belligerent “put our boot in your ass” mode) happily played along. So no, the Democrats do not deserve a bit of my wrath. The Republicans skewed the board, and the Democrats took the less bad of the two bad moves that were available to them.
Good idea, Brian. Sounds like a better plan to me as well.
There was already a global uptick. The first WTC attack, embassy bombing, USS Cole, and then 9/11. It has been getting worse since before the 2nd Iraq war. By being in Iraq, the attacks against the US have been concentrated to a single point rather than being where we do not expect them.
I fail to see how NOT going to Iraq would have changed the global uptick in terrorist attacks.
So they were stupid before, so the Democrats lied in their votes. But now that the Democrats have been elected, the American electorate has suddenly had an IQ hike. After all, they are saying “The American People have spoken!”.
If we are too dumb to properly decide what to do, fine. Act that way. Don’t tell me that the fickle mob is worth listening to sometimes and ignoring other times.
And yes, BOTH sides are doing this. Democrats back when the people wanted war, and Bush now that the people don’t want war.
Yup. It’s all equivalent. No matter how badly the Republicans fuck up, you can sleep well at night assuring yourself that the Democrats are as bad, or worse, thus exculpating yourself from any responsibility for rational, informed judgment.
T,
I wouldn’t say the electorate was stupid in 2004 — I’d say they were ignorant, thanks to the successful propaganda campaign by the GOP (their character assassination of Max Cleland, as you note, was just one example).
You can’t fix stupid — we don’t live in the Flowers for Algernon world where a medical treatment can make us smarter. But ignorance can be corrected, and to an extent, it has. That’s why the Democrats retook Congress last fall.
I wouldn’t say they’ve had an IQ hike. Unfortunately, no one was in the mood to pre-think how the war would go. Now that they’ve had it demonstrated to them, they’re against it. Our electorate is capable of learning, if slowly.
You could argue the same about a number of issues. I suppose we might know that massive debts are bad, but we probably need our creditors to balk at loaning us more money on easy terms, and have interest rates skyrocket, to actually “get it” enough to do anything about it. I suspect the same is true of global warming. Having the vast majority of all the experts tell us something just isn’t all that compelling. People have to die for us to notice. Being told the stove is hot doesn’t seem to make it any less likely that we’ll reach out and touch it.
Although to be fair, not everyone has the time to ferret out all the information they need to be informed voters. Those wanting war had millions and millions of dollars to spend on political advertising. The press did an abysmal job of asking why, how much it would cost, etc. I don’t recall anyone ever asking what could possibly go wrong. There were a few people talking about years of war to secure Baghdad, etc. And of course the millions of marchers worldwide who got minimal press here. Asking why and what if just wouldn’t have been as much fun as covering “shock and awe”, etc.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts’ desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H.L. Mencken
Precient guy, that Mencken
On C-SPAN I watched the slimy John Boehner (Republican Minority Leader) claim that he hasn’t heard any other plans. If someone has another idea then they should say so.
Of course he abruptly ended the press conference after that sentence because he would’ve been torn to shreds otherwise.
Let’s ignore the fact that the New Republic recently asked numerous foreign policy types for their solution and published 17 separate ideas.
Let’s focus on the Iraq Study Group. While I don’t agree w/ everything they said they DID provide numerous ideas from which Bush could choose from. And what did he do? He picked about the only idea that hasn’t been talked about by ANYONE – except the neo-clowns at the American Enterprise Institute. Of course they’re the same group that perpetuated the nonsense about how hunky-dory the original invasion and occupation would go. I mean w/ THAT kind of track record why wouldn’t the President listen to them?
Clap louder . . . or Tinker Bell will die. You don’t want her to die? DO YOU!?!?
Mike Kole,
That a moron occupies the White House does not necessarily mean that the U.S.’s democracy has been perfected.
In general, syllogisms are not valid when run backwards.
Let me just say there is an agenda in Iraq. It has been the agenda since Day 1. That agenda is simple. Allow western oil companies to control Iraq oil fields. You can’t do that with an unstable government. You must do it with the American Military. Don’t believe for a minute that Dem’s or Repub’s are going stop funding this war. We in this until Exxon, BP, Texaco, and other big oil companies have control of the oil fields. Thank you American capitalism.
Of course don’t forget that you civil rights have been disolved, the bill of rights gone, and any other rights it takes to make Iraq a stable country will be gone also.
If you not down with this I GOT TWO WORDS FOR YOU “NUCLEAR WARFARE!!!”