Bush getting ready to cut-and-run from Iraq?
Published September 27, 2004
That's a bigger mistake than invading Iraq instead of fighting terrorists in the first place. Yet Bush continues to pretend that nothing is wrong.
Bush and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who visited the United States last week, said voting for a national assembly would go ahead as scheduled in January.
Days earlier, however, administration officials dealing with Iraq appeared resigned to a delay. "The way things are going, the fact that the U.N. has not come forward with its support means we may have to settle for the spring," said a State Department official who declined to be named.
Independent specialists following Iraq worry that an election so flawed that its legitimacy becomes a major issue could set back, rather than promote, democracy in the region. [ibid. 09/27/04 subscription]
The idea of leaving early first started circulating towards the end of last year. Things weren't going to well, so there was the possibilty of leaving when "sovereignty" was handed over. I wrote an open letter to the president telling him what I thought:
Not so fast, Mr. President: "Here, take it" is not the way to leave Iraq, no matter what your advisers may be telling you...
Remember that these are the same people who got you into this mess for all the wrong reasons in the first place.
It's not a West Texas bar game that [you] can turn off. It's not going to be: "attack, get Saddam, clean things up, then leave with no further consequences and everyone living happily ever after." [An open letter to the president 11/17/03]
That still applies.
It's time for everyone - right, left, and center - to take stock: do we want the president who made the biggest mistake in foreign policy in at least a century make it even worse?
My answer is: No, Bush must go.
What do you think?
- 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".