Re: If you really wanted to win this war...

On 8 May 2007 00:18:47 -0700, mg <mgkelson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 7, 5:59 am, NoName <NoN...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 6 May 2007 23:23:51 -0700, mg <mgkel...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On May 3, 4:46 pm, Florida <demeter547op...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Cenk Uygur 05.02.2007

The Republicans Don't Even Want to Win This War

If you really wanted to win this war (whatever the hell that means),
you could put some real effort behind it. Twenty to thirty-thousand
more troops? Who are the Republicans kidding? If you really thought we
absolutely, positively had to win this war, you'd start a draft and
put a million guys smack dab in the middle of Iraq.

Were we having questions about surges or drafts in World War II? No,
we put on our boots and went to kick some Nazi ass. Why aren't we
doing that here?

Because the Republicans are full of ***. They don't really think this
is an "existential" war. What a laughable thought. What, if we don't
win in Ramadi, we're going to cease to exist here? Why aren't these
guys laughed out of the room already?

Here we are negotiating with contemptible fools. How much of a surge
would you like? How long would you like to stay? Oh really, you think
the Iraqis might take over Cleveland if we leave?

"They are going to follow us home." John McCain says this. God,
remember when John McCain was a man. He was a damn hero, a patriot and
as honest a guy as you could find in politics. Where have all the
heroes gone?

If John McCain and Bush and the whole Republican Party thought they
were actually going to follow us home - that the Iraqi Shiites and
Sunnis would get on a boat, come here and fight us in San Antonio and
Detroit and Boca - they'd start a draft in a second. And so would I.

If we had a real existential war and we would be taken over if we
lost, who wouldn't fight? Really, Iraq is going to take us over? Come
on, who but a contemptible fool would say something like that?

This war has always been optional. And at this point, winning and
losing (when someone figures out what those mean by the way, please
let me know) is completely optional. How would your life change in
Minnesota if we "lost" the Iraq War? Not one bit. Not even one percent
of one percent difference. You couldn't tell the war was over on a
bet.

This is not to argue that what happens in Iraq is irrelevant or that
"losing" is equal to "winning." (What the hell would a win look like?
How would we know if we won? Doesn't it drive anyone else crazy that
Bush doesn't even provide an explanation of what victory is, let alone
an exit strategy?) It is to argue that the war was a leisure sport for
the Republicans. They thought they'd just go hunting for a little bit,
then come home and sip some brandy. They never thought it would make a
difference.

Existential? Please! If you thought it was that important, you would
do everything in your power to win, not just half measures. My God
man, Sacramento is in jeopardy, get some troops to Iraq.

They started a war for shits and giggles. So, Bush could have Saddam's
head on his wall. They treated this like it was a game all along. Now
Bush is sore that he lost. He's like a kid that loses a game to 11 and
insists that you play up to 15 instead.

So, are you going to cowboy up and start the draft? Of course, not.
You know that if we all had to send our kids to fight in this
completely optional war, it would be over in about five seconds flat.
(God, doesn't that make them lose sleep at night, knowing for a fact
that they wouldn't send their kids over, and yet they send other
people's kids to die for their intellectual adventures and political
romps. Have they no conscience at all?)

Bush won't even raise taxes to collect the money he needs to fight his
lousy war. He doesn't even care enough about this "existential" war to
trouble his friends to chip in a couple of extra percentage points off
their investment portfolios.

We should all be embarrassed at what we have done. The intelligentsia
in this country blithely lobbied for this war because they thought it
might an interesting thought exercise. And now they criticize it
comfortably from their dens as if they never supported it in the first
place. I fought against it tooth and nail from the first day - and I
know a lot of you did. But we should have done more. We let them soil
the earth in our name. Now, we sit and have academic debates about how
the politics is going to play out.

All those dead and dying, while we fiddle.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-republicans-dont-eve_b_4...

It occurred to me the other day that I'm not even sure who's in charge
of the "war". The consensus seems to be that success in Iraq depends
on 3 factors:

1. Military
2. Economic
3. Political

We always hear about the military part and about what the latest
general says, etc, but we never hear anything about political efforts
or initiatives, etc. Actually, we don't even hear about who's in
charge of the political effort. Is Rice in charge? Is Bush directly in
charge? Who exactly is in charge of addressing the political problems
the Iraqi "government" is having?

Come to think of it, precisely what are the "political" problems
they're having? I don't believe I've ever heard anyone in the Bush
administration address this question with any substance.

The political problem, in a nutshell, is that the majority Shiites
want to run the show and keep most of the oil wealth for themselves.
They want to shut out the Sunnis, keep them out of the political
process and kill Sunni insurgents but hands off Shiites insurgents
and their militias.

The U.S. occupation early on supported, indeed decreed, that
Sunnis be excluded from government jobs and power sharing but
after this resulted in escalating violence saw the error of its
ways and tried to reverse its early decision.

So the U.S. shares responsibility for this situation, indeed
caused it in the first place but the Shiites having gained
the upper hand are not about to give up.

They stall by having the Legislature meet to do business only
sporadically, most recently planning a two month vacation
while Iraq burns.

So there we have the Bush administration wringing its hands
and asking the Shiites to play nice at a game in which they
themselves gave them the winning plays.

That is it in a nutshell.

I remember reading once that Chalabi, the guy that gave Bush the phony
WMD info, is a suspected Iranian spy. It sounds like the Iranians
outsmarted Bush by tricking him into toppling Saddam and turning Iraq
over to the Shiites. Now as soon as our troops pull out, we'll wind up
having two Irans instead of just one. So now Bush, as you said, wants
to hang around and see if the Shiites are willing to give back some of
their power. If we wait for that to happen we could be waiting until
hell freezes over or until Allah comes down from heaven and tells the
Shiites and Sunnies to kiss and make up.

Bush, Cheney and their neocon supporters wanted to install
their pet Iraq exiles in positions of power. The shadowy but
powerful Grand Ayatollah Sistini and other religious Shiites
balked and have in effect had a strong control over what
goes on in the Iraq legislature. Maliki has been allowed to go
just so far in dealing with the Al Sadr militias, for example.

Now the Sunnis in the Legislature have said they will withdraw
and the chance of a political settlement is even further from
possibility.

Many Republicans now are coming around to assessing the success
or failure of progress to reach a political settlement by
September. If there is not progress then they want to know what
is Bush's Plan B.

The Republicans in Congress are very fearful of having to face
re-election in '08 with Iraq still in the condition it is in
now.

Perhaps self-interest will lead them to demand withdrawal
begin if conscience does not.

I was thinking about Bush last night and wondered how this one
stubborn and clueless man can be allowed to cause the death
and destruction he has brought to Iraqis and to U.S. troops.
It is amazing we haven't seen some kind of insurrection --
his approval rating is now 28% and yet he goes on in office
with his usual arrogance. Amazing that people don't boo and
stomp their feet and wave their arms at his every public
appearance.

Have we become a nation of docile sheep being led to the
slaughter?
.

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