THE PATRAEUS REPORT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO COME TO FRUITION. THERE IS NO REPORT. THERE WILL BE NO REPORT.
BUSH IS GOING TO TAKE THE INFORMATION FROM MEETINGS WITH PATRAEUS AND PASS IT ALONG TO THE CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
ALL OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE ANYTHING BUSH SAYS, ESPECIALLY ON IRAQ, PLEASE SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTERS FOR ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE.
For months now all of America has been waiting with baited breath until General David Pe traeus returns from Iraq to give his report to the Congress on the progress of the surge.
First of all, we are just now learning that there will be no Petraeus Report. He will discuss his findings with President Bush who will, in turn, make a speech to the American people about what Petraeus related to him. In other words, the White House advisors to the president will prepare a speech that parses the general’s words and thoughts and condenses them into a form the president can safely pass along to the American people.
Yes, the General will testify before the Congress, but he will submit no written version of his remarks. The only written version will come from George W. Bush.
What is even worse, the Congress through the Government Accounting Office has already received a report from their own people which says that some progress has been made in the military side of the ruler, but only five (5) of the eighteen (18) benchmarks established for Iraq’s government have been met. 5 out of 18—in any class I have ever taught, 5-18 is a dreadfully failing grade.
What makes this even worse, the surge or the so-called surge appears to most people who are knowledgeable about the war to be nothing more than the same old thing rehashed. As the Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton said on Yahoo News on September 8, 2007, “This so called surge is not a strategy, it is a tactic…”
Bush is going to hype this Petraeus non-report to the heavens. Even as he left Iraq during the week of September 2-8 and headed for the Asian-Pacific Cooperation conference in Australia, he allegedly told the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile that the U. S. “was kicking ass,” in Iraq. This poor, poor man is either surrounded by a bunch of incompetent military liars or a bunch of ass-kissers who are telling the president precisely what he wants to hear.
God forbid that we would have a U. S. General with the balls to stand up to this messianic National Guard Airman who has been missing in action ever since he went to Alabama to complete his military duty campaigning for his father’s friend and say, “We are losing, George. More people have been killed outside of Baghdad since the “great surge” began than before. The action has just shifted from the capital to other parts of Iraq. There is a semblance of improvement in Baghdad since we have thousands of troops walking the streets of the capital city, but in the other provinces the death toll has increased. More people are dying now than before.”
Retired generals are saying this, but those who remain on duty have been trained their entire careers to salute and say “Yes, Sir!” to every expressed wish of the Commander-in-Chief. Petraeus is no different.
If Colin Powell did not have the guts to stand up to Bush before we invaded Iraq and to tell him “Your plan to invade Iraq is wrong. The strategy is wrong and you are going to get us bogged down in a war from which we may be unable to extricate ourselves for years. Mr. President, this is simply wrong.” If Colin Powell could not muster the strength to tell the president he was wrong, Petraeus will not even come close.
We are about to hear what Petraeus thinks about the war in Iraq and where we are in relationship to the benchmarks the Congress has established. Has the Iraqi government met its agreed upon commitments since the surge was first recommended by Petraeus? Has the government agreed upon a basis for sharing the revenues from the oil? Has the government changed the constitution to more equitably divide the power between the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis? Has the government made any strides to restore the infrastructure to an acceptable level that the people can resume a normal life? Has the government done what is necessary to reduce the corruption that appears to consuming the government ministries?
In other words, is the GAO report correct when it says unequivocally that only five of the eighteen (5-18) of the benchmarks have been met? And if, as General Petraeus indicated at the start of the surge and Bush has reiterated since the surge began, that there is no military solution only a political solution why should the United States continue to pay for a lost cause and allow its soldiers to be targets of a sectarian civil war?
Again, we have been in Iraq for over four years. The Bush government made all the wrong decisions at the outset of this venture and has spent nearly $1 trillion dollars of our precious assets and watched nearly 4,000 of our young soldiers lose their lives.
How long will it take the generals and the president to comprehend that this is still a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The people want this war brought to a screeching halt. Bush has no right to expect the American people to pay for his administration’s monumental failures while the urgent needs of own country—health care, infrastructure repairs, economic downturns, education, alternate fuel sources; air and water pollution, and homeland security upgrades, go unattended because we cannot afford them.
We can afford them, but we cannot continue to spend billions every month in Iraq and afford them simultaneously. I choose to spend the money on our own needs which have been neglected for over five years.
How much longer must we wait to for the Iraqis to meet the benchmarks that will allow our troops to come home?
It is now believed that Petraeus will concur with U. S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker that we should continue the surge that was begun several months ago in order to reap the full benefits of the progress just realized by the increase in U. S. combat troops.
What difference does it make if there is no military solution? Even if some progress has been made in Baghdad, the enemy has shifted the thrust of the battle to cities outside the capital.
The question that surrounds the Congressional debate is just how much progress has been made with the insertion of 30,000 more troops in the green zone in Baghdad, if deaths and genocide are now being executed in other provinces?
Iraq is definitely Bush’s war. He demands victory and will not consider bringing the troops home until victory is accomplished. Viagra may cause erections lasting as long as four hours, but Bush has had an erection relative to Iraq for over four years. Like most men he is thinking with the wrong head. In fact, he seems to be saying that even if all the rest of the world believes this war is “unviable,” he has enough testosterone to last for the rest of his presidency. His legacy rests upon his success, one way or the other, in Iraq.
So the Petraeus non-report will have impact on our countries policy on Iraq. Bush’s speech writers will write it and he will deliver it and never the twain shall meet.
However, since the Democrats do not hold enough seats in the Senate to pass a bill that refuses funds other than for the purpose of beginning a withdrawal from Iraq, we American will be forced to live with this war until January 2009. If America votes another Republican into the presidency, we can count on an even longer war, even more of our tax dollars being spent on Iraq, and interminable delays in the urgent needs of our own country.
Therefore, we must deliver the presidency to the Democratic candidate, we must vote into office a Senate with sixty-seven Democratic votes, and a large Democratic majority in House.
We will just hold our breath until January, 2009 and hope that our Viagra will give us an erection that will last for 18 months. In other words, we want it when we are in the mood, not when Bush tells us he is flaccid on the subject.
7:54:41 AM 
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