What'd he say?
OK, the president spoke to the nation tonight, and announced the expected escalation of the conflict in Iraq, but did not make clear what he expected this to accomplish or how long it might take. The statement that victory will not look like what we are used to, was telling. (I have to admit that I was a bit put off by his acknowledgement that there would be no ceremonies on battleships, no surrender documents, but that is, I suppose, in the past). I don't know if he or his advisors know what victory will look like, or when we reach, or pass it. This is not much of a strategy in my estimation, it is more like a reaction to changing circumstances, (something that he noted, we may do yet again...).
It really must suck to be him right now.
I don't have too many good things to say about the man, but sometime he will have to realize that he has put the country and an untold number of lives (American and Iraqi) into the toilet for reasons that he knew at the time to be irrelevant, and that the situation that he created will far outlast his presidency.
The way that history will remember the man is a lot like the way it remembers Herbert Hoover. I believe that this operation was intended to be like Grenada during the 80's, a quick show of force, (against a hopelessly incompetent military opposition), sweep up and get out that would elevate his and his parties stature in the eyes of voters.
Not even close Georgie.
What he got instead was a situation that changes from day to day. There are no hard and fast loyalties in the region, or in this war, only that which is expedient. It is really hard to be expedient and right at the same time, and that is what we are going to have to do.
For the time being, the president has more of a battle on his hands than the troops in the field. He has to sell this plan, and make it work. Like the Democratic Congress, he has to show some progress real quick, and, like the Congress, we have to recognize it as progress.
This is going to be a rough year. 2008 will be an election season, and George will be inconsequential.
He'd better be right on this.
It really must suck to be him right now.
I don't have too many good things to say about the man, but sometime he will have to realize that he has put the country and an untold number of lives (American and Iraqi) into the toilet for reasons that he knew at the time to be irrelevant, and that the situation that he created will far outlast his presidency.
The way that history will remember the man is a lot like the way it remembers Herbert Hoover. I believe that this operation was intended to be like Grenada during the 80's, a quick show of force, (against a hopelessly incompetent military opposition), sweep up and get out that would elevate his and his parties stature in the eyes of voters.
Not even close Georgie.
What he got instead was a situation that changes from day to day. There are no hard and fast loyalties in the region, or in this war, only that which is expedient. It is really hard to be expedient and right at the same time, and that is what we are going to have to do.
For the time being, the president has more of a battle on his hands than the troops in the field. He has to sell this plan, and make it work. Like the Democratic Congress, he has to show some progress real quick, and, like the Congress, we have to recognize it as progress.
This is going to be a rough year. 2008 will be an election season, and George will be inconsequential.
He'd better be right on this.
posted by eccentric recluse at 4:59 PM
18 Comments:
Have a look at crooks and liars and Keith olberman's rant on Bush's credibility. It's right on the mark!
Bush has zero, zip, no credibilty on much of anything.
All he's doing now is hoping to pass this mess off to someone else, IMHO.
JB
you are probably right, but the man has a very sensitive, if overinflated, ego, and his 'legacy' is something that he takes quite seriously.
the hell that he is constructing for himself may be the only justice that comes from the whole mess.
E_R
It pains me to wonder how the Iraq front could have been much less costly (lives and money) and maybe even resolved (for our part) by now.. if the enemy had seen a united America coming at them... instead of being able to count on morale support and a constant, every-step-of-the-way undermining of the war effort by the democrats and media *sigh*
You can impeach him, you can try him for war crimes, you can shoot him in the foot and I'll hold him for you...but first we gotta win this war..
Kindly describe "win this war"
JB
Well.. if you want MY take on it.. let's look at history.
What did we do to the last, zealous, suicidal, "religious" enemy who didn't pose a realistic, immediate threat to our border or future... but did indeed threaten to drag us down a long, drawn-out, costly (lives/money) war path ?
I'm not (directly) suggesting a Hiroshima/Nagasaki approach.. But I am suggesting taking the gloves off.. an all out, no prisoners, civilian casualties be damned assault on every single support for this insergency...
A pure definition of victory is impossible, other than progress, assessed as we go. That's not possible until it's a united America, and a media whom, if they must propagandize, does so on OUR behalf..
Clear,victory is, if at all, far off. Question is.. Are we gonna (as a nation) pursue it; or retreat and hope for the best ?
In other words.. for now (plenty of blame to pass around) the only victory in front of us is the opposite of being clearly defeated.
The last, zealous, suicidal, "religious" enemy who didn't pose a realistic, immediate threat to our border or future started that fight, by sailing to and attacking our border. That war was about economics, and the road to domination in the region.
This war, now, is partly ideological, but mainly defensive.
This enemy did nothing more than rant on television and hurl insults at us. They had nothing to do with 9/11, and the government in place wanted nothing more than be the big man on the block. This war was intended to be window dressing for the 2004 election cycle. Big mistake.
Yes, we are in it now, and there is a good case to be presented for an acceptable outcome, but I, like many people, don't know what that is, cannot get a rational explanation of what that is, let alone how to achieve it, from any source, and have no confidence in the government to obtain such an outcome.
It wasn't any of us that backed W into this corner. He is, at best, an ineffectual leader, and if he cannot demonstrate progress soon, he will be replaced, by a Congress and electorate that go around him (constitutionally speaking), or by sterner measures.
If you can divorce the powers in play, fighting us in Iraq, right now, from the powers that inflicted 9/11.. and what it will mean to us when either victory or defeat is defined.. then we're trading opinions from different planes.
And.. Japan was a thoroughly vanquished foe posing less of a threat to us then, than the enemy we're fighting now.
capture the oilfields and let the rest of the country rot.
And let's forget about what W did or didn't do.. right or wrong. Doesn't matter whether you like or hate him. Doesn't matter who wins power politically here; a few months ago, or in 2008. Doesn't matter if you jail him for war crimes or he ends up pardoned. What matters is whether we want to fight and defeat terror, or retreat and hope it goes away.
"capture the oilfields and let the rest of the country rot. "
I like it !
I agree that what he did or didn't do is not the primary consideration, it is simply that I have no confidence in him or his yes-men in bringing about an "acceptable" resolution to this.
We are on the third round of commanders, who have been praised by the President in the same glowing terms that the first two rounds were. The President really is going this alone, even his party is, albeit quietly, nervous about this situation, and many will break ranks and support a phased withdrawal if W does not show progress, quickly.
When we leave, whenever that is, the country will descend into a civil/factional war, and the real path that Iraq will take will be determined then, by the people who have a stake in it.
Well, I guess I got a response to my homily to anonymous posts here.
Bring it on!, no, wait, that's been used. Thanks for dropping in...
A lot of rambling here...hey George is that you??
JB
Melbourne Age.
Talking about Gordon Brown, the presumptive next British PM, Jonathan Freedland writes :
“He will have to make a clean break from this most terrible chapter in British and American foreign policy and set out a new, radical strategy for the war against jihadism, one that understands that you don’t catch the terrorist fish by machine-gunning them from the sky, but by draining the sea of grievance in which they swim.
That work will be long and slow and will require enormous political brainpower. And it is the polar opposite of everything George Bush stands for.”
Food for thought!
JB
Their sea of grievance is the existence of western, non-Islamic civilization.
These people have been finding reasons to be barbarically terroristic for centuries.
"These people"...ahhh there it is! Which these people? Turks, Kurds, the Iraqi people, Saudis, Iranian..(mostly Persian).
No distinct difference? Well let's just bomb them all back to the stone age. That will show em....(cowboy diplomacy)
JB
I don't want to show or bomb anyone anything.. but the goal of the radical Islamic is something they don't try to hide.
Convert or kill everyone !
(wonder what sort of historical, middle-eastern caricature can be assigined to that "diplomacy ?)
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