Thursday, September 13, 2007

BUSH HAS LOST IT AND SO HAS AMERICA   I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EARS TONIGHT WHEN GEORGE W. BUSH SAID THAT IRAQ REQUIRED A LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNITED STATES   THIS MAN IS THOUGHTLESSLY PLACING 160,000 OF OUR YOUNG SOLDIERS IN HARMS WAY FOR WHAT COULD BE YEARS SIMPLY TO PROVE THAT HE WINS AND THE DEMOCRATS LOSE   CRIES FOR IMPEACHMENT WILL POUND AGAINST THE WINDOWS OF CAPITAL HILL LIKE HAIL AGAINST A TIN ROOF ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT   This president just gave the finger to a vast majority of American voters and told us all to go to hell, do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars. This guy is unbelievable. He is the most arrogant SOB to sit in the White House since the last Texan to occupy the Oval Office—one Lyndon Baines Johnson. The urgent needs that crowd this nation’s agenda mean nothing to Bush. He could care less about Social Security, Medicare, health insurance for all Americans, dramatic educational improvements for all of our children, and an infrastructure that is on the verge of collapse in many areas of the country. George W. Bush is willing to continue to spend $2 billion dollars a week on a nation in the midst of a civil war that has been smoldering under the coals of a 14th century fire and will continue to burn as long as the U. S. remains on their soil. For those of you stupid enough to continue to back this mentally challenged president, remember what Osama bin Laden told the world prior to 9/11. He was angry with America because our troops had bases in his homeland. He did not want the U. S. to occupy Saudi Arabia. None of al Qaeda wants American troops on their soil. And the longer we remain there the more recruits will be added to the ranks of suicide bombers, car bombers and others willing to annihilate themselves for their Islamic faith and their Arabic country. We got a hint of the new Bush strategy when Petraseus mentioned before he left Iraq that it could take ten years or more to turn Iraq into a real democratic state. I suspect that is not the first time that Petraeus has mentioned it and not the first time that Bush has declared it to be the new Bush strategy. He likens our new relationship with Iraq to our long term relationship with South Korea. We have been there for over fifty years and Bush is willing to keep American forces in Iraq for at least another half century. I could barely listen to his words this evening. He has displaced his mental compass. He has ignored the will of the people. He has brazenly and unhesitantly tossed aside the idea of a government of, for and by the people and turned into a government of the president, for the president and by the president. He gives no credence to the authority of the Congress with its oversight powers and believes that the Congress has neither the balls nor the will to fight him when they know they do not have the power to override his veto; in fact, they do not even have the power to bring a resolution to the floor of the Senate that would cut off funds. Petraeus and Crocker both said that our troops were seeing a dim but hopeful vision of success. In particular, he spoke glowingly of the success the coalition was enjoying in Anbar province. The former stronghold of al Qaeda has turned and the sheiks that formerly allied with al Qaeda were now aligning themselves with the U. S. The problem is this--the very day the president bragged unabashedly about Anbar province, the Sheik who openly turned against al Qaeda and became an ally with the U. S. was blown up today. Bush completely accepted the recommendations of General David Petraeus while continuing to ignore the wishes of the Congress and the 70% of the American people  who are opposed to the Iraqi war. More importantly, Bush went further than anyone believed he would dare to go. While saying that we would withdraw 5,000 troops by Christmas of 2007, and additional 30,000 by July of 2008 which means that when the new president is sworn in January of 2009 there will still be 130,000 of U. S. troops in a position to be killed, be wounded, and with their physical capacity stretched beyond reason. Bush, for the first time, called for “an enduring relationship” with Iraq for as far as the president’s mind can see which he compares to our fifty year relationship with South Korea. He gave the clear impression that it was the Iraqi government that was calling for this “enduring relationship.” The fact is according to many reporters in Iraq, only al Maliki wants, in fact, needs an “enduring relationship" with the U. S.. The remainder of the Shiites in power in Iraq’s capital cannot wait for the United States to leave and allow them to go on with the individual and quite different agendas the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis have set for themselves and their followers. What the president did not say is that the whole purpose of the “surge” was to give the government in Baghdad the time to resolve the political conflicts that divide the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. As the GOA reported to the Congress recently, only three (3) of the eighteen (18) benchmarks established by the Congress have been met by the Baghdad government. In fact, while there have been small islands of military success, how long those successes will endure, will depend upon how quickly the political issues can be settled if ever. I happen to believe that these fighting religious factions have irreconcilable differences that neither armies nor time can resolve. So, in reality, the surge has not been a success contrary to what Petraeus, Crocker and Bush are telling us. Granted, the surge has only been in effect for several months, but time cannot determine the answer to the deep-seated hatred these factions have held for each other for over 1400 years. Put it all together, Bush wants to extend this war for the rest of his presidency. He wants to leave office having “gone to the wall,” to bring this totally unnecessary war to a victorious conclusion. Because the constitution gives the president control over the defense of the country, and because the Democrats do not have the votes necessary to override the inevitable veto from Bush should they pass legislation that puts a specific timetable on troop withdrawal, the killing will go on. Because of George Bush and the Republican members of Congress, the U. S will continue to lose the lives of hundreds of our soldiers and spend $10 billion dollars a month on a war which never should have been launched. One of the most remarkable reporters on the Iraq war is CNN's Michael Ware who did a piece yesterday, September 13, 2007 that ran before and after the president's address. Mark was accompanying a sheif responsible for buring the unclaim dead. The sheif indicated that during Saddam Hussein's reign he buried 40 unclaimed bodies per month. Since the U. S. invasion and the civl war that followed, he has been buring hundreds of unclaimed bodies evey month. He told of the condition of some of the corpses he laid to rest. One he described as looking like a porcupine. It had so many nails pounded in the body that it appeared the poor man had quils protruding from his body. Many had holes drilled in their heads with a power drill while they were still alive. Not forty a month but hundreds per month since the Sunnis--Shiite war boiled over. If that is progress, I find it hard to comprehend. Bush wants this war to continue for the remainder of his term in office so that he will not be forced to confront the terrible foreign policy disaster for which he and he alone is responsible. May God save his wretched soul!         9:36:24 PM    comment []

PETRAEUS IS A GOOD SOLDIER, BUT ONE WHO IS DOING WHAT HE IS ORDERED TO DO WITHOUT QUESTIONING THE VIABLILITY OF THE ORDERS HE IS RECEIVING   As I listened to General Petraeus testify before the House and Senate Committees on September 11, 2007 I had the strange feeling that he was not painting the whole picture for either the Congress or the American people who having been waiting for this testimony for months.. Perhaps, it was his opening comments that put me on guard, (let me paraphrase what the General said,) “These are my words. I wrote them with my own pen.  Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has seen them prior to giving them to you today.” Petraeus is a PhD. from Princeton. In other words, he is no dummy. He is intellectually bright, but he is still a general who has been trained to follow the very rigid rules of command. What I did not hear from the good Dr. were the implications of the Shiite and Sunni 1400 year old battle. You can not speak of bringing some semblance of sanity to the political problems this nation confronts without addressing this ancient clash of very old resentments that have lingered on and festered under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Unless there can be some accommodation for the Sunnis who were in control of the country under their soul-brother even though they were in the vast minority, the sectarian violence will continue ad infinitum nausea. We are making no progress in that arena. The Parliament is under the control of Shiites who only have to wait for the departure of our troops to take control of the country and the revenues from oil without having to share those revenues with the Sunnis minority as the U. S. is demanding. Both Petraeus and Crocker honestly admitted that there is no military solution to this war. Only the political parties can resolve the conflict and only the political parties can hasten the peace between the two adversaries. The Ministries that control the military and the armies must step forward and bring some sort of tranquility to the cluttered streets of all of the major cities. Those cities which have responded positively to the presence of U. S. forces will do so only so long as U. S. forces remain in place. They cannot and will not remain forever. And why Petraeus did not address that problem is an enigma to me. He glossed over it as if it were not the key to everything else. But it is the key to safety in the streets and stability in the neighborhoods. What has happened during the period labeled “the surge” is that Shiites have moved out of mixed neighborhoods to those areas that are predominantly Shiite, and Sunnis have move to those neighborhoods that are predominantly Sunni. In other words, the citizens of Iraq are creating their own partitioning of the country for their own security and safety. The reason why there have been fewer killings of Iraqi citizens during this “surge” period, is that this displacement took place before and during the “surge” and thus dramatically reduced the slaughter that was taking place in mixed neighborhoods. The other point that Petraeus or Crocker did not address fully, is the lack of public utilities accessible to the residents of Baghdad. Between 2 and 6 hours of electricity is available after four (4) years of U. S. occupation. That does not set well with Iraqis and is a major contributor to the “hate America” feeling which swells to bigger and bigger levels with every passing day. The other point that the General and the Ambassador seemed to avoid is that a year from now when they are projecting to withdraw 30,000 troops is, in fact, a farce. The thirty thousand troops that comprise the surge were due to return home between April and July of 2008 anyway. In other words, this reduction in forces is not part of a true withdrawal of troops, it is a withdrawal of troops previously determined to withdraw because of the time they have already served which requires a period of R & R and a withdrawal of those who are due to retire. Thus, the withdrawal is not a part of any real withdrawal from Iraq, it is a withdrawal defined by service regs already extended by military code that requires a return to the U. S. Petraeus disappointed me because I felt he might truly give testimony to the fact that this war is in the pits and that there is little if any hope that we can pull this out with any degree of success. Crocker, while sharply criticized for his presentation, did say bluntly that there was no assurance that the new strategy will work.  Even Petraeus stuttered and stumbled when Senator John Warner, (R-VA) asked if this surge was going to make American safer. Petraeus tried to spin his response, but Warner held firm, and forced the general to say, “I do not really know if this will make America safer.” Overall, this entire scenario was written and choreographed by the Bush administration. I do not care what the General says; his testimony was definitely run by the White House. We are told that during the break after he answered Senator Warner’s question about whether this surge would make America safer, he received a call from the White House instructing him to restate his answer and give a positive answer to Warner’s inquiry. When the hearings were reconvened, Petraeus while answering the question of another Senator, did, in fact, restate his answer to Warner and added that he did believe that this surge would make America safer. Generals report to the Commander-in Chief and the Commander-in-Chief wanted a better answer than Petraeus gave during the first go-around. On Thursday, September 13, 2007, George W. Bush will address the nation and sign on to Petraeus’ recommendations. 30,000 troops that were to be redeployed between April and July of next year because of military regulations will be redeployed between April and July of 2008 as part of the reduction in forces from the surge. In fact, nothing will happen next year that was not already planned to happen next year by following military regulations. We have been hoodwinked again by the decider. What, in reality, is happening is that Bush will retain 130,000 combat personnel in Iraq until his presidency ends in January, 2009. And the Congress cannot due anything about it, because they do not have the votes. They cannot bring legislation to the floor by overriding a Republican filibuster and they cannot override the president’s veto because they do not have the votes. This is not a do-nothing Congress, this is a can’t do anything Congress because the votes are not there. Not enough Republicans will join the Democrats in forcing the president to bring our troops home. It is pathetic that his president is willing to see several hundred more American soldiers die for a lost cause without loosing one minute of sleep out of guilt. Pathetic, indeed! May God forgive him and the Republicans for their indifference to the death and wounding of young American soldiers in a cause that cannot be won?   SOME THOUGHTS ON WAR AND GENERALS   “Don't waste good iron for nails or good men for soldiers”   History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.” Ambrose Bierce   “Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.”   “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”  Calvin and Hobbes           4:52:25 AM    comment []