Tuesday, January 09, 2007

There is something seriously wrong with this

Front paged at Booman Tribune, ePluribus Media and My Left Wing. Recommended at Daily Kos

In November, there was an overwhelming and sweeping rebuke of this administration’s failed foreign policies (not to mention corruption and other republican “values”). Voters’ number one concern was overwhelmingly the mishandling of the Iraqi occupation. We wanted a different direction – a way out of this debacle.



Prominent Congressional republicans were joining the ever increasing majority of Americans who wanted to start thinking of withdrawal. At a meeting yesterday of around 30 Senate Republicans, Thad Cochran (MS) thought that he was the only one who was outwardly supportive of an escalation.



And despite what lying liar Tony Snow says, there is only a high end of 15% or so support by the American public for an INCREASE in troops in Iraq. And yet, here we are, not discussing the what, when and how of an exit strategy in Iraq but whether we should send in more troops or keep them the same. This is not what America’s mandate in November wants.



I was originally going to title this diary “Who elected the American Enterprise Institute anyway?” because, in essence – it is these warmongering fearmongering living-in-an-alternate-reality lunatics, many of whom never served in the military (shocker there) who are not only dictating our disastrous foreign policy, but are making the decisions against the advice of our own military generals (in addition to just about everyone else) to send our own citizens off to kill and die. I'll say it a little differently:



A tax-exempt organization (which by proxy since it pays no tax is supported by us taxpayers), very few, if any of whose members have military service is behind the decision to send more troops into harm’s way, despite the fact that they were not elected, are not part of the administration or the military structure, are doing so against the advice and will of the electorate and our military.



Clearly this is not any part of a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. We know that the primary author of this horrific idea is Frederick Kagan who has most certainly NOT served in the military, and (while it may be so), I have been unable to even find any reference of his even visiting Iraq or talking to the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the true situation on the ground.



What is truly amazing is that this man, with his “pedigree”, was the author of a document that was so overly simplistic and unfounded in reality that there isn’t an overwhelming cry of “Bullshit!!!” by the Democrats in Congress as well as more of us on the left. Yes, there are members of Congress who are decrying the proposed escalation – but what if the tables were turned? What if this was a nonprofit Democratic think tank, with little to no military experience, chock full of radical extrermists funded by wealthy donors, who was going against nearly 90% of the population as well as the decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Generals Abizaid and Casey - two of the top commanders in Iraq?



You bet this “plan” would be derided and mocked from the very start. It wouldn’t even get to the point where a debate was happening as to whether we should add more troops or keep the same level. It would be smacked down all across America – every hour of every day on every channel and every newspaper. The equivalent of Kagan (whichever strawman “author” you want to use) would be held up as a farce and unqualified to even give an opinion – let alone dictate the course of history.



Yet, here we are – with a report that was prepared outside of the military, outside of the true experts – outside the advice of the same “commanders on the ground” that Bush has said time and time again that he would listen to. And here we are, debating how many more troops and how many more tens of billions of dollars to sink into this worsening situation as opposed to what we should be debating – how to get ourselves out of it.



But this document which will be used as a blueprint for the latest attempt at a “do-over” is about as comprehensive as the original plan for post invasion “victory”. Chock full of phrases such as “national commitment to victory”, “assigning responsibility and accountability”, “success in Iraq will transform the international situation”, “the United States has the military power necessary to control the violence in Iraq” (so why has it taken 4 years to present even the bare framework of a plan for that?) – all long on so-called vision but short on detail or reality.



Not that a long-on-vision/short-on-reality isn’t enough for Kagan, Bush and the neocons, it also is highly dismissive (with no detail as to why) of practical alternatives such as “engaging with Iran” (which only 75% of republicans polled and a larger number of Democrats and independents are in favor of), “phased or complete withdrawal” (which is why the republicans were swept out of power and Bush has a sub-30% approval rating on Iraq), “troops not getting involved in civil sectarian conflicts” (which is one of the worst uses for our troops)…..well you get the point.



Our military leaders have spoken. Our troops have spoken (as we have seen from many diaries posted over the past few years from servicemen and women, their families and their friends). The American public has spoken. Our leaders in Congress have spoken.



So why is a right wing think tank who has a vested interest in more war, no accountability to the public (or the IRS for that matter), and has little, if any experience with global conflicts imposing its will on the other 90% of the country? And why are more people NOT calling :bullshit” on this?



And why are we debating how much of an escalation instead of a viable exit strategy?


3 comments:

Undeniable Liberal said...

The president is not king of America.
Bush is like the gambler who goes into the casino & after losing his first hand, he doubles down, loses again & doubles down again, hoping against hope that at some point he will win a hand & be ahead. Unfortunately, Bush has now lost 439 hands in a row & all his doubling down has only resulted in $350 billion down the drain, 3,000+ dead American soldiers, 45,000+ wounded American soldiers and untold hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.
George needs to learn that all the luck in the world won't help him at this point.
This is a political move plain and simple. Twenty thousand troops will do little to nothing to help the situation in Iraq. Bush and company hope the Democrats will oppose this so that they can then blame the disaster in Iraq on them. It’s disgusting that such a shameful approach is embraced by Bush, a game played with our soldiers’ lives. Just a thought: What happened to the”coalition of the willing?” Can’t they produce some soldiers for the escalation?
Without a “surge,” the war is about to push our forces out. A surge won’t win the war, but it will prolong it. Our new operational commander estimates an extension of two or three years. He’s probably on the low side, but you get the idea: prolong the war until somebody other than George W. Bush is president.

Anonymous said...

This time the Congress actually has a chance to do something about it. I will repeat the hackneyed phrase here because it is so applicable: "Evil triumohs when good people do nothing." NOw of course, the Democrats have not proven themselves to be good people at all, having failed to grow a single vertebra in almost four years of warfare. However, we have reached a pivotal moment in history where the Dems can actually thwart this bewilderingly simplistic 'surge' which is doomed to failure and death before it even begins. By the way, have you started reading Chomsky yet?
Sherm

Anonymous said...

"And why are we debating how much of an escalation instead of a viable exit strategy?"

For the same reason "we" were debating "valuuuuuz" after Kerry lost in 2004, instead of questioning vote fraud.

Not to worry, "we" will be debating how to bomb Iran very soon.

That should help alleviate Americans from thinking about Iraq, Afghanistan, loss of freedoms, Neocon's reign of terror, monopoly media manipulation, torture, rape, murder, economic ruin, and impeaching Bush.

If you believe the same guys who were running the kuwait, iran/contra, and vietnam war profiteering schemes...then surely you don't need to ask these questions.

Find out how many felons are in the bush "cosa nostra" and it should be clear what the "plan" is.

I'll tell you what is going to happen next.

In the next two years you will see the concerted effort to discredit, defame, and destroy any Democrat who challenges Hillary Clinton for 2008. If you haven't noticed, it's already started.

If you don't already know why, it's because Hillary has already stated that, like S. Korea, the US will be in Iraq for the next 50 years...and that's good news to the men behind the curtain.

The only thing that may stop the next 6 years(at the minimum) of American despair, is if the casualties coming from Iraq become so large, it becomes a political liability to support it.

Untill the body bags on the assembly line of death start to effect the psyche of the American people, you can be sure that the names might change, but the "plan" won't. That is why it's imperative that no coffins are shown, military resistance is margianilized or punished harshly, and the monopoly media provides just enough anxiety, along with relief, to manage the perceptions of the American people.

The fact that Bush is sending more troops is good news for peace, because escalation, means more failures, more failures, means it will be harder to hide them, failure to hide the problems, sets up the inevitability of the truth to become self-evident to all and the fog of war to be lifted.

Of course this may mean the collapse of the United States...but that's also good news to the men behind the curtain, because then property will be a bargain...just like in New Orleans.

See the history of the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent rise of the oligarchs for more insight or the rise and fall of any "empire" in history. It's no secret, many of the founders of the US tried to warn the American people early on.

A Republic is not defeated via external threats, but from within, as was attempted in 1933 in the plot to seize the white house.

"You know, the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everybody can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second."
- bond salesman Gerald C. MacGuire to Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, 1934(THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE, Jules Archer 1973)

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. (*) ME 1:193, Papers 1:125

"The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty." Farewell Address of President George Washington, Sept. 17, 1796