I'm of increasing belief that, for all the talk of steadfastness, the Bush administration is going to find a way to "cut and run" sometime before his term is up. It's bad on so many levels:
1. The thing that is awful and scary as much as anything else, is how much history is repeating itself. Our history after WWII, unfortunately, is of meddling in the affairs of people on the other ot the globe and them leaving them up shit creek with a turd for a paddle. What happend to the Kurds has been noted a few times in the past few years, but so often, people forget about the near genocide for which we were almost entirely responsible with the Hmoung people who so courageously and heroically risked their lives assisting our troops in Vietnam, only to be left helpless and unaided after we withdrew. Anyone who has a problem with their immigration to our country needs to remember that we owe them lots.
2. The other thing for which I am now "calling my shot" is how our withdrawal will coincide with a PR blitz by the right wing and all it's subservient talking heads about how "our job is done," with no shred of credible evidence that it is, indeed, the case. Expect this turn of events to begin unfolding in the early spring. This administration has shown no hesitancy to have a policy of purporting absolute contradictions to reality, and a certain segment of the population is more than happy to eat it all up. The rest of the world will NOT eat it up. Our credibility is nearly shot and I'm afraid this will be the nail in the coffin. Iraq is not close, not close to being able to counter the "insurgency" and maintain a stable, democratic government on their own. I fear for the Iraqi people (think all those people with "Liberate Iraq" signs really care about the well-being of the Iraqi people for one minute?). And I fear for our nation's standing in the world, as well as for our safety. The damage wrought by this adminstration will take years and years to undo. Perhaps generations.
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We'll be gone long before the end of his term. We'll probably be gone before the midterm elections in 2006 - at least mostly gone. Remember, they do EVERYTHING for political reasons. They don't have policy.
Getting out or staying is a very sharp two edged sword.
Staying: we destroy our military and reserve/national guard by forcing 4th tours onto the troops. We fail to defeat the insurgency because we don't have enough troops (keep in mind Sadaam had 500,000 military and police to maintain control of his country - we have about a third of that)
Leaving: Iraq becomes dominated by a vengeful Shiite majority that kills/tortures/represses the Sunnis that did the same to them under Sadaam (there is evidence that this is already happening) and pledges allegiance to Iran, becoming a haven for Al Quaeda and similar terrorists. Subsequently the Kurds splinter off and Turkey goes crazy.
We've done an indescribably bad job of preparing Iraq to control itself. We're building a security infrastructure from scratch. It's one thing to train soldiers, but we also have to create officers, and even tougher, command and control, logistics and all the other background stuff that make militaries work (or not).
We've seen in the space of about two weeks the administration begin to turn this big lumbering behemoth around. Bush says stay the course and almost immediately Condi is saying troop reductions are likely soon. They reject timetables, but are going to create easily achievable milestones in an effort to justify a hasty retreat. The soft bigotry of low expectations is such an understatement, it almost blows my mind.
(I read the James Fallows article in The Atlantic Monthly last night about why Iraq has no army - very enlightening, although completely dispiriting)
I've said it before, I'll say it again. This administration will go down in history as the worst, ever. And it will hopefully be a long time before we have to suffer their like again.
Cheney believes he knows the way to succeed and is willing to go to any means to achieve it. He is evil.
Bush is an incompetent, self-righteous, megalomaniac. Talk about a trifecta.
We will spend GENERATIONS fixing this.
On a side note, do you ever get sick of people playing right into the hands of those who are pulling the strings? Specifically, I'm thinking of people who are keeping issues open for discussion that are non-issues at all except for that they have been artificially elevated by a calculated campaign.
I just overheard a conversation-one of those "if I had a nickel every time I've heard someone bringing this up" about how "consumer protection laws need changed to keep people from being protected for being idiots." The whole "frivolous lawsuit myth." Why is this any issue whatsover? Similar to blonde, attractive kidnappings, there's only a handful of them a year, nationwide. But the publicity they get (i.e. the boiling cup of McDonalds coffee), make it seem like it's some out of control phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. So much so that Bush & Co. was actually able to use it as a campaign theme, playing on the lowest common denominator of people's fear of other people "taking advantage of the system."
In reality, an insane percentage (something like 85%) of all lawsuits are filed by CORPORATIONS. Home Depot has an entire legal department soley dedicated to creative prevention of their getting sued for things like people's legs getting crushed by skid movers and racks of home improvement shit falling on people's heads.
In reality, when people are wronged by large companies, their options for legal recourse are amazingly limited.
I can't type the retoric that you guys can, but I second your comments about this being the worst administration in history. However, to give a balance view, you have to say that 911 didn't help things one bit. 911 opened the doors for Gw to run amok.
Indeed T-Clog, it did. And we all rolled over and played stupid.
Dan is entirely correct about 'frivolous lawsuits'. It's maddening that people buy this line.
I suppose. He was on vacation for the majority of his first year in office. He was well on the road to being an ineffectual, unpopular boob. Without 9/11, it's possible his approval rating would have been crappy from the get-go, rather than peaking at over 90% and having the long, painful descent it has had, since.
Think about it: the only thing he has ever had going for him is the worst foreign attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. We're all worried about terrorism and he's LOVING IT. It's all he's got. That's sick.
I just threw up! :)
More reading on this.
http://www.slate.com/id/2131125/
Pretty much exactly was I was saying.
And Lord help us.
I wish the ring had never come to us.
We can only do with the time we are given.
We need some giant eagles.
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