Saturday, April 21, 2007

A Desperate Man

Preznut Bush says his surge policy in Iraq is working wonderfully.

Of course he does.

He's crazy.

And desperate.

He doesn't want to be forced to withdraw troops from Iraq while he is preznut.

He wants the next man or woman to have to do that for him.

He's Barbara's little boy - always needing someone else to clean up his mess for him.

You would think by the time he reached 60, he would have grown up.

But he hasn't.

So he can say things like this:

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. — President Bush said Friday that his revised military strategy was taking hold in Iraq and "the direction of the fight is beginning to shift," even as he acknowledged "horrific" bombings that killed more than 200 people in Baghdad this week.

"So far, the operation is meeting expectations," Bush said of the boost in U.S. troops he ordered and the new focus on improving security in Baghdad neighborhoods.

The president said the number of sectarian attacks in the capital had declined by half since the stepped-up efforts began.

...

Bush said U.S. and Iraqi forces had received more tips about terrorist and insurgent hideouts in the last three months than in any previous three-month period. He also said seizures of weapons had increased.

"Day by day, block by block, Iraqi and American forces are making incremental gains in Baghdad," he said.

"Direction of the fight has shifted...making incremental gains...day by day, block by block..."

Finish his next sentence for him.

I think it's "...we have to give this Petraeus plan a chance to work..."

Which is another way of saying: "Let the next guy or gal clean up my mess for me."

A desperate man is a scary man - he's willing to say or do anything to save his own skin.

And Preznut Bush is one desperate man.

POSTSCRIPT: And just to prove how hollow the preznut's words about Iraq are, here are two examples of Bush's soaring, Michael Gerson-penned rhetoric about Iraq that proved unable to stand the test of the reality on the ground:

After declaring "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down..." at least 125 times over the past few years, the United States NO LONGER believes the Iraqi security forces will be able to stand up for themselves and defeat the insurgency:

WASHINGTON - Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

So much for U.S. foreces standing down anytime soon.

The preznut has also said:


The success of democracy in Iraq would be a crushing blow to the forces of terror, and the terrorists know it. The defeat of terror in Iraq will set that nation on a course to lasting freedom, and will give hope to millions, and the Iraqi people know it. And a free, democratic Iraq will inspire reformers throughout the Middle East and make America more secure.

What the preznut fails to mention is how this new free and democratic Iraq will contain very high walls separating the free and democratic Iraqis from each other:

US troops are building a wall around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad, part of a strategy to “break the cycle of sectarian violence” in the Iraqi capital.

Work began on April 10 on the 5-km cement wall at Adhamiya, a mainly Sunni Arab area surrounded on three sides by Shi’ite communities.

“The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence,” Sergeant Mike Pryor, a public affairs officer, wrote in an article released by the US military.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that a similar project had started around Doura, another Sunni area in southern Baghdad.

You know, when I think about a "free and democratic society," I think 12 foot walls dividing the citizenry from each other.

No wonder the preznut is so desperate.

Every piece of propaganda he has uttered over the past 4 years regarding Iraq has come back to bite him on his desperate, arrogant ass.

UPDATE: According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop build-up in Iraq at the very same time that the escalation is proving deadly to the U.S. military:

More than half of the extra 21,500 combat troops designated for Baghdad duty have arrived; the rest are due by June. Already it is evident that putting them in the most hotly contested parts of the capital is taking a toll. An average of 22 U.S. troops have died per week in April, the highest rate so far this year.

"This is certainly a price that we're paying for this increased security," Adm. William Fallon, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a House committee Wednesday.

...

So far the results are mixed, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week during a visit to Iraq that he wants to see faster political progress by the Iraqis. "The clock is ticking," he said, referring to the limited time the administration can pursue its strategy before the American public demands an end to the war.

Sure the clock is ticking...in January 2009, the pull-out starts.

Until then, the casualties will continue and if Bush insists upon placing American forces in posts around Baghdad, the casualties will continue at an accelerated rate.

SECOND UPDATE: Some Sunnis REALLY don't like the wall the U.S. is building around them:

Some Adhamiya residents have said the wall will make their district a prison.

"The Americans will provoke more trouble with this," one resident, Arkan Saeed, told the BBC. "They're telling us the wall is to protect us from the Shia militia and they're telling the Shia they're protecting them from us.

"But it's the Americans who started all the sectarian violence in the first place."

...

"Erecting concrete walls between neighbourhoods is not a solution to the collapse in security and the rampant violence," housewife Um Haider told AFP news agency.

"If so, Baghdadis would find themselves in a maze of high walls overnight."

Another resident, Mustafa, said: "I resent the barrier. It will make Adhamiya a big prison."

Other residents also expressed alarm and said they had not been consulted before construction began.

"This will make the whole district a prison. This is collective punishment on the residents of Adhamiya," Ahmed al-Dulaimi told the Associated Press news agency.

"We are in our fourth year of occupation and we are seeing the number of blast walls increasing day after day."

I'm sure the preznut does not understand the ingratitude of the complaining Sunnis. After all, aren't we building the 12 foot walls with good old American taxpayer money?

Sheesh...you just can't make some people happy.

Comments:
Lots of good points. I can't help but to remember in the 2004 presidential debates that Kerry said he would train the Iraqis faster.

Sure, Bush's re-election is a disaster for the country, but Kerry's election would have been a disaster for the Democrats. He would have shouldered the blame and all the hawks and Republicans would say, "see, we told you you should have voted for Bush."

The only good thing I can see out of all this is that blame will fall squarely where it should.

What a shame so many must die in the meantime.

Finally, remember when the Rumsfeld argued that more boots on the ground would only produce more casualties? Well, I guess he was right about something.

Sorry for the long comment.
 
Thanks for the long comment, pt. It's always welcome from you.

I absolutely agree about Kerry - I remember telling my girlfriend that on election night '04 as a way to console both her and myself. I knew it was true, yet it did little to assuage the hurt that night (primarily because I knew that Bush's re-election meant the Supreme Court would become even more right-wing.)

In terms of benefit for the Dems, Kerry's loss really helped. It galvanized people on the left, in the middle and even some on the right who have become appalled by the Bush policies and. And it gave the country the chance to see Bush's management and policies taken to their natural conclusions...i.e., Katrina, Iraq, running up huge deficits, etc.

Funny thing about Rummy...he did get the casualty thing right... Unfortunately, the cost in human life is, as you say, horrific.
 
I was thinking about the shootings in Killeen -- if they had not happened, then there would likely have been no bill passed in the Texas Congress in 1993 allowing for concealed weapon carry permits. That bill passed, Gov. Ann Richards vetoed it, and the legislature overrode her veto. In 1994, she lost in her bid for re-election to a know-nothing with more money than God whose campaign strategist used that veto as a wedge issue to bring the gun-loving faithful to the polls. While the election wasn't especially close, that single issue may well have provided the margin Bush won by (53.5% to 46%). He might have won anyway -- it was 1994 after all, but...

Had Bush not been elected Governor in '94, he couldn't have been considered a serious national candidate in 2000. Beyond that, the crystal ball is cloudy -- with Karl Rove out of the picture, Gore might well have defeated McCain, and all bets are off from that point, except for the fact that we wouldn't be in Iraq.

All because of some madman with a Glock...
 
It's interesting you bring that up about Bushie getting help in '94 by using a gun law against his opponent, kicksiron, because many people in the Gore campaign think Bush/Cheney '00 used the exact same wedge issue on Gore very effectively and possibly cost Gore Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas...all states Clinton won.

Had Gore won just one of those states instead of Bush...

Boy, the "what if's" make me feel a little wistful.
 
In retrospect, that veto wasn't Ann's shining hour -- it wasn't a bad bill, as bills passed by the Texas Lege go, and it hasn't had any noticeable effect since, good or bad. Ironically, another issue that the Bush campaign used to hammer her was the fact that Ann was a recovering/recovered alcoholic. Considering the clarity of her mind, proven ability as a leader and considerable wit, most of us looked at her drinking like Lincoln saw Grant's, but there are a lot of teatotalers in the state. The fact that Bush himself had spent 20 years sloshed to the gills just didn't surface, although he did have to dodge the question of whether he had used cocaine like a Manolete.

Well, all we can ever do is move forward...
 
And just to bring it full circle, kicksiron, who helped keep the DWI arrests from seeing the light of day?

Alberto Gonzales.

I didn't know that they used Richards' recovery program against her though. Do you have any links to any articles from that time period about that? I would be interested to see how the dry drunk Bush got away with criticizing the woman who attended AA meetings in order to help her recover from alcoholism.

Geez, what scum they are.
 
rbe, I was just talking to my GF, and she pointed out that Ann's AA program had first been used against her in the '90 election, when her opponent was buffoon Clayton Williams. In '94 as I remember, there wasn't much overt (that's not Karl's style), but there were plenty of whispers directed to bluenose ears. I have nothing but my memory on that one.

GF also mentioned that Bush's recent off-the-cuff rambling speech ("chicken-plucking plant", "polls can go poof") sounds like he might be on Zoloft. It makes you feel like you're thinking through cotton-wool, and may also let you know real quick that you don't want to drink, AT ALL. With any amount of alcohol, it can cause excruciating headaches. Bush is, of course, under more stress than he has ever encountered in his life, and Zoloft would be the indicated drug, particularly for someone in danger of drinking to relieve stress.

Ain't that a kick in the head -- he's never been a mental giant, and now he may be drug-impaired as well.
 
I figured Rove and Company would use a whisper campaign against Richards. That's their style.

You know, I have a Stevie Ray Vaughan boxset that she wrote the liner notes to. She writes a little about her sobriety and how Vaughan himself got sober a bit before he died.

She was a classy lady.
 
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