Bush getting ready to cut-and-run from Iraq?
Published September 27, 2004
While maintaining that he will "stay the course" out of one side of his mouth, he may be planning to leave Iraq next year, come hell or high water.
This idea surfaced a week ago in a column by conservative Robert Novak:
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.
This prospective policy is based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement.
Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. [Quick exit from Iraq is likely 09/20/04]
This week, we get more in the LA Times:
Gone — at least for now — is the lofty ideal of Iraq serving as a free-market democratic model that would ignite the forces of change throughout the Middle East and lay the seeds of a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said administration officials have told him privately that they have lowered their expectations. "They've definitely recalibrated their goals," he said. "One of them told me: 'When we went in there, I thought we would build American-style democracy. Hell, I'd be happy with Romanian-style democracy now.' "
National security advisor Condoleezza Rice this month defined success in more modest terms than the administration used in the war's early stages. "Success will be an Iraqi government that has gone through the legitimacy process of being elected and an Iraqi government that can defend itself," she said.
Many experts believe the administration will be hard-pressed even to pull that off. [Heady U.S. Goals for Iraq Fall by Wayside 09/27/04 subscription]
- Bush getting ready to cut-and-run from Iraq?
- Published: September 27, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Writer: Hal Pawluk
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Will the last Neo-Con to leave Iraq please turn out the lights?
Ah, THE IRAQ WAR, cornerstone of the Bush Administration's Foreign Policy, the Prodigal Monster returning home to its Neo-Con Chickenhawk daddies.
(...and this cross between the Christ child and Rosemary's Baby is about to shit in daddy Bush's cowboy hat, which -- if there is a God -- he'll force him to wear for four more years before He sentences him to an eternity in Hell seated right next to Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Saddam Hussein... )
Ah yes, THE IRAQ WAR: The GOP'S Model for the New Century. (a hundred years forward, two hundred years back...)
AH yes, Democracy at the barrel of a gun.
(see also:
"Disaster
Catastrophe
Quaqmire
Viet Nam
Bad and Getting Worse..."
SHARK PRESENTS
One day, it's
"We're looking for *WMDs!"
(*aka "Oil")
Then it's
"Mission Accomplished!"
Whoo-hoo!
Well, um... maybe we can tell the terrorists to "BRING IT ON!"
(...since the Iraqi invasion created thousands more terrorists than it took out...)
Next day, it's...
"We're going to give Democracy to the Middle East."
Later:
"We freed them from that thug Saddam!"
Then:
"Just wait until we turn over sovereignty in July! Things will get better!"
Then:
"Just wait until the elections in January. There'll be a democracy... (kinda), they'll have a cute little Army, and we'll GET THE HELL OUT!"
A sorta democracy. Thanks, George!
A sorta Iraqi army. Thanks, George!
A lotta non-abstract dead people. Thanks, George!
A bankrupt American government. Thanks, George!
Open the 21st century with a bang of a whimper. Thanks, George!
Delegitimize the international authority of the US for decades to come...
Thanks George!
Isolate and Humiliate our allies. Thanks, George!
And the question has become: "How far can the Bush Administration move the goalposts before somebody notices WE ALL GOT FUCKED and it's time to say 'You're fired'--?"
(((The ghost of a young John Kerry sez: "Who will be the last to die for a mistake?")))
Calling the lies is too easy, Shark.
What I'm hoping is that some on the right may read this piece, then remove their Party-Glasses for at least a few moments, to consider what is happening in the real world.
At that point they'll be closer to being able to come to a rational decision.
"Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing. The slightest reversal would have resulted in a jolt to our prestige giving rise to all kinds of catastrophe; the problem was not only to conquer but to conquer again and again, perpetually; our forces would be drained off in the attempt."
Emperor Hadrian AD 117-138
Please read this enlightened new book about Bush's foreign policy:
For an excellent book about Bush's policies, see:
The New American Empire
by Dr. R. Tremblay
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/
LE NOUVEL EMPIRE AMÉRICAIN:
http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=17264
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/20321)
You have to take what Mr. Novak says about the administration pretty seriously, he is probably the most partisan columnist in practice (if not as rabid in rhetorical style as some others) currently printed in the mainstream press.
As a point in proof of this partisan bias, in his most recent column Mr. Novak reports the name of a CIA operative who's name would normally have been concealed by journalistic conventions (as Mr. Novak mentions in his own column):"Pillar's Tuesday night presentation was conducted under what used to be called the Lindley Rule (devised by Newsweek's Ernest K. Lindley): The identity of the speaker, to whom he spoke, and the fact that he spoke at all are secret, but the substance of what he said can be reported. This dinner, however, knocks the Lindley Rule on its head. The substance was less significant than the forbidden background details." FROM: 'Is CIA at war with Bush?' http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html
So journalistic conventions (nor national security in the Valerie Plame case) are no big deal to Mr. Novak if it comes to CIA sources or agents who disagree with the administration, BUT administration sources who betray covert agents are behind some sacred wall of journalistic integrity.
Mr. Novak appears to be at war with the CIA, and surprisingly enough, he appears to be on the wrong side of that war (who would think that a liberal would ever be on the side of the CIA, but thats what the Bush administration has done for America).
So we can take Mr. Novak to have some inside knowledge when it comes to the administration's intents. My question then is, what will those who support the Iraq war say if Bush does get re-elected and DOES pull out quickly? Won't this require yet ANOTHER justification for the war? "Staying the course" will have to be piled on the growing junk heap of Iraqi justifications, on top of "WMDs" and "ties to 9-11".