That ever elusive banner Republicans wish everyone would forget about. Every year about this time the Bush administration scrambles to define what exactly was meant by hanging a banner above our Grand Warrior Leader, who had just flown shotgun on a fighter jet while landing it on a aircraft carrier, reading Mission Accomplished. And then after changing from his combat flight suit, which didn't have a flag pin on the lapel by the way, to his thousand dollar suit spoke as clearly as he's ever spoken and declared that major combat operations in Iraq have ended while also declaring the battle in Iraq as a victory in the war on terrorism.
Since then the White House has tried to say that the banner was intended for the troops and sailors aboard the carrier, that their mission was over not that the mission in Iraq was over. That hardly matches up to Bush's words that day however. Then the spiritually ordained White House tried to say that the banner was made by the sailors and the administration had nothing to do with it. After that was proven wrong just like everything else the administration has said about Iraq, the White House admitted that it had indeed designed and hung the banner above our Righteous Leader's head for all the world to see.
Let us not forget no matter how hard the Bush administration, the neocons and the GOP try to rewrite history, that this was their war. It was a war to last only a matter of weeks; which coincides perfectly with the banner and the victory parade. This was the end, their invasion was over Saddam was gone but not yet captured and it was time for the Iraqi people to rejoice and the American people to salute its Grand Leader. Everything was going smoothly. Ahmed Chalibi was on his way to setup his American appointed government and our Marines and soldiers were switching from combat operations to a security role. To Bush and his GOP everything that has happened in the 1,800 days since then isn't relative to any discussion of Bush or Republicanism. Any mention of the 1,800 days is aiding the terrorists, or treasonous, or damaging to national security.
So today instead of honoring our great warrior patriot president, let's thank our troops for their service to this nation and remember throughout this election cycle how we got where we are.
*Update:
Just like Bush in 2003, McCain declared Iraq Mission Accomplished...can we really afford four more years of a Bush presidency?
5.01.2008
Mission Accomplished + 1,827
4.09.2008
Here's A Novel Idea...
...why not have Iraq pay for its own reconstruction?
Democrats flaunt legislation that would force Iraqis to pay for their own reconstruction. If y'all remember correctly, we were told by by the administration that Iraq would pay for itself. Why isn't that happening? It's time we take Bush & Co. up on their offer. We can't just chalk this up to another pre-war lie like we've grown accustomed to. Making Iraqis pay for this war will make Iraqis work harder to speed up the political reconciliation that desperately needs to happen to end this thing. After all, the most conservative approach to any political subject is that people should not be dependent upon other people to foot the bill. It would be hard for any serious chickenhawk war supporter that calls themselves a conservative to not support legislation requiring Iraqis to use their oil surplus to pay for our taxpayer financed nation building social welfare services.
4.08.2008
Last Throes
I think we g
ot a pretty honest assessment from Gen. Petraeus today. My more liberal and left of center friends will probably disagree with me on this though. However, I thought this time around the general was much more honest and out front with his answers than he was last time. There is no way this war can be summed up in Congressional testimony. And there's no way this war can be talked about without mentioning how we got here in the first place. And finally, I think the general laid it out best when he said the following.
PETRAEUS: It is very fair, Senator, and it's why I repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.Five years into a three week war this is where we stand. Fragile, reversible and ongoing. It boils down to what I said the other day. Republicans want to stay in Iraq forever. McCain's stance on Iraq is as long as we are incurring casualties we can't leave, but if troops aren't dying then we can stay forever. 100 years or 10,000 years doesn't matter to McCain and the GOP. They would gladly send their generals to testify before Congress every six months or so if that keeps their war going forever.
4.02.2008
Finding A Purpose
I wanted to write about this yesterday but ran out of time. This morning I've been a little busy with other stuff and I'm just now getting around to writing for the blog. I'm going to follow Yglesias' lead with what appears to be an unconfirmed email from a soldier/officer serving in Iraq. Like Matt I'll post the most relevant part.
In my opinion, what everyone fails to realize is that this is not a counterinsurgency. If we wanted to stay in Iraq, then it would be a counterinsurgency. But it is clear that our goal is to turn over power and pull out. So, in building our strategic endstate, it's pointless to set goals that relate to our presence in Iraq. If the "insurgency" is a function of our being there, then it is not an insurgency in terms of our endstate. For example, if one of our goals is to stop IED attacks on US forces, that is pointless. When we leave, there will be no more IED attacks on us forces. So our endstate needs to be different. We need to ask "if we left tomorrow, what would happen in Iraq?" and from there, we need to determine which of those anticipated results are unacceptable to us. Then we must aim our efforts on making sure those unacceptable results do not occur.The whole email can be found here and is worth a read. It's really not that long. I'm saying unconfirmed because we all know how many fake emails have turned up in this debate about Iraq. Moving along the lines that the email is genuine, I'll agree and state this is something I've been saying since 2003. Our anticipated results were we would remove Saddam, find WMD, install Ahmed Chalabi as head of government and then work on the functions of a democracy. In the beginning that was our endstate, or our anticipated results. Five years later, we've removed Saddam, found no WMD and have still yet to form any sort of functioning government much less a democratic one.
When I look at the problem that way, it becomes almost impossible to find a purpose in what we do.
Like the soldier states, we are in a position now-- five years and counting-- that we must ask ourselves what are the desired results to come out of our invasion and occupation of Iraq. From there we need to determine what results are unacceptable and do everything we can to keep them from happening. What this means is more war and more war. Like Yglesias says, "What this misses is that the U.S. presence is one of the main issues at stake in the war. It's not that peace would suddenly break out if we left, but peace is certain to never break out as long as we stay."
John McCain has been stating that a permanent presence in Iraq is fine with him. We can stay ten years or 100 years as long as troops aren't dying, he says. In effect McCain is saying that as long as we are incurring casualties we can't leave, but if troops aren't dying then we can stay forever. This doesn't give us an endstate that is acceptable. Finding a purpose for an endless war that Republicans salivate over must be at the forefront of this election.
3.13.2008
It's In The Mail
Was just informed by JFC that my copy of the squelched Iraq report was put in today's mail. I wonder if that means my name has been added to the liberal terrorist watch list?
3.12.2008
What Taxpayer Funded Report?
This is classic Bush b.s.
Remember the report I wrote about yesterday that concluded there was no operational link between Saddam's Iraq and bin Laden's al Qaida? It was the second government report in as many years which concluded such. This morning the Pentagon said it will cancel the press release of the report and will no longer make the report available online.
The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.Next to destroying the report, which would be illegal, this is Bush's best option regarding access to the report. My suspicions are that the report was ordered, conducted and financed in hopes that by 2008 some good news would be available to report. News in regard to the Grand Surge and our Leaders ability to be a war president. But that didn't happen. So since it's already completed and parts already leaked to the press, squelch it as much as possible. Of course this won't keep it out of the publics hands, but it's Bush's best legal option at this point.
It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.
On the other hand, if the report contains nothing new and nothing politically damaging, why not release it? The article I link to does say a copy of the report on a CD can be mailed to anyone wishing to have one. I'm going to take them up on that.
3.11.2008
Yet Another Government Report Refutes Administration's Iraq/al Qaida Links
A Pentagon sponsored study to be released on Wednesday concludes Saddam Hussein had no operational links to bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist group. This is the second government report in as many years to disprove one of President Bush's rationals for invading Iraq in March 2003 (the second reason being disarming Iraq of WMD).
While the study exhaustively shows no direct operational link between Iraq and al Qaida, it does show links to other terrorist groups in the Middle East. However, none of those groups had anything to do with the attacks on 9/11.President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.
This report will do zilch to convince those in the GOP Fantasy World that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Instead it will probably do just the opposite and convince them even more so that Saddam was a terrorist supporting dictator, which he was-- just not the one responsible for the 3,000 dead innocent people upon our soil.
12.19.2007
What Anti-War Platform?
The Democratic controlled senate passed a $550 billion budget to fund the federal government for this fiscal year. Included in that is another $70 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats caved with their demands that any war funding include a timetable for troop withdrawal.
Largely swept into power by a growing disdain for the war in Iraq and Republican incompetence, the Democratic Congress has done very little (well pretty much nothing) to support the platform that gave them control of the legislative branch for the first time since 1994. Whatever anti-war platform existed is gone now. George Will was right. If Congress could change something, they'd abolish it.
12.18.2007
Another Victory
For about two solid weeks now the right has tried their hardest to declare victory in Iraq once again. They’ve went so far as to claim that Iraq is no longer an issue of discussion. It’s over, let’s move on. We win, you lose. We’ve heard this all before, of course.
Now that our involvement in Iraq has lasted longer than our involvement both World Wars, the very serious and patriotic people on the right have grasped at anything to use as proof of our second victory in Iraq. Leading the charge is the very serious, tough guy and expert journalist Bill O’Reilly. As with all things American, Bill O’Reilly gets to decide who is a patriot and who is a pinhead. There’s no in-between. You either love America, like Bill O’Reilly most certainly does, or you hate it, like everyone who Bill doesn’t like does. And this week Bill delivers us the ‘Person of the Year,’ Gen. David Petraeus.
Why might Gen. Petraeus, who is the fifth general to command the multinational force in Iraq in as many years, be the ‘Person of the Year’ you might ask. As Bill puts it, “the person must have done something extraordinary, must be a world player, and must have changed history in some way.” And victory in Iraq is Gen. Petraeus’ standard. Wait; make that a near “possible victory.” Bill’s itching to call it a total victory but not quite yet. For now it’s “possible” that victory is within our grasp or it’s resolutely just as possible that five years from now Bill will still be calling everyone a pinhead who expected a little bit better from our president and his advisors than what we’ve been given with Iraq. Incompetence doesn’t begin to define it.
