Monday, June 20, 2005
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Flypaper
Jim Henley reminds us that maybe, just maybe, when the president of the United States tells the people of Iraq that the purpose of the Iraq invasion was to turn their country into a terrorist swamp it becomes a little more difficult to win the hearts and minds.
[Conservative blogger]
It's all the fault of anti-war bloggers who are REPORTING what the president is saying because otherwise the Iraqis wouldn't know about it! And besides, leftwingblogger posted up a picture of a dead Iraqi child, and that's going to cause much more of a problem for our troops than the actual dead child or the statement by the president that we're in Iraq so they get blown up instead of us, and besides that's the most brilliant strategic policy I've ever heard of because there are a finite number of terrorists and we just need to kill them all! Take that treasonous moonbats![conservative blogger]
[Conservative blogger]
It's all the fault of anti-war bloggers who are REPORTING what the president is saying because otherwise the Iraqis wouldn't know about it! And besides, leftwingblogger posted up a picture of a dead Iraqi child, and that's going to cause much more of a problem for our troops than the actual dead child or the statement by the president that we're in Iraq so they get blown up instead of us, and besides that's the most brilliant strategic policy I've ever heard of because there are a finite number of terrorists and we just need to kill them all! Take that treasonous moonbats![conservative blogger]
"Generational Commitment"
Rice is probably the most shameless liar I have ever seen. For some reason the press is enamoured with her lies. They covet the shiny little dishonest baubles of untruth, embrace them, pet them, and ask for more.
But, no, this country was not told that we'd be in Iraq for 30 years. I guess now we know.
...Rep. Conyers adds:
But, no, this country was not told that we'd be in Iraq for 30 years. I guess now we know.
...Rep. Conyers adds:
As Republican Senators publicly proclaim that the situation if Iraq is eroding, we learn that there is no "exit strategy" because no exit is planned.
Seismic Shift
The fact that Harold Ford Jr. kicked off his Senate campaign by running a commercial with a "let's bring the troops home" theme tells us the dialogue has shifted massively in the past couple of weeks.
He isn't pushing any sort of "bring them home now" message, but nonetheless invoking the basic theme.
He isn't pushing any sort of "bring them home now" message, but nonetheless invoking the basic theme.
Last Throe
So, who should we believe? Five deferment "other plans" Dick Cheney or the US commander in Baghdad:
General William Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, said on Saturday a month-long sweep known as Operation Lightning had halved the number of car bombings in the capital.
But he added: "Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point."
Iran
This seems like a good topic for Monday's gaggle:
(caught by kiga in comments)
A former Pentagon official, journalist, and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, a man with considerable political and military knowledge, came back from a fact-finding trip in Iraq talking about the ''gap between those who work there, who were really careful of every word they uttered of prediction or analysis, and the expansive, sometimes, I think, totally unrealistic optimism you hear from people back in Washington."
In a report to the council, Gelb was scathing about America efforts to train an Iraqi army. ''If you ask any Iraqi leader, they will tell you these people can't fight. They just aren't trained. And yet we're cranking them out like rabbits." As for plans to train a 10 division Iraqi army by next year, Gelb was scathing. ''It became very apparent to me that these 10 divisions were to fight some future war against Iran. It had nothing to do, nothing to do," with taking Iraq over from the Americans and fighting the insurgents.
Americans have statistics for everything in Iraq, yet little of it reflects reality. ''The information seeps in, and you wonder" about its reliability," Gelb said. " You wonder if you really know what's going on, because essentially what you have are the statistics. It reminds me so of the Vietnam days."
(caught by kiga in comments)
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Completely Disconnected From Reality
Hagel:
Silly Chuck. The Bush administration CREATES reality.
Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."
Silly Chuck. The Bush administration CREATES reality.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)