I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Hmmm, staying the course apparently is compatible with (paraphrased) subordinating ideology to the schedule.
Which tells you a lot about what the course was all along.
Re initiatives to 'fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation': maybe the 'conservative strategists' should have a very close look at US society and see what needs to be done there.
yes. the main course is roves plan to get bush elected in 2004. as long as iraq doesnt fall apart till january 05, they think they are ahead of the game.
Shorter WaPo: This whole operation has been a failure. All that's been accomplished is the U.S. is several billion dollars in hock, we've alienated most of the rest of the world, and we've lost more than 400 young Americans.
Now, tell me again, how is GW Bush such a strong leader and exactly how is he keeping us safe from terror?
"ideology has become subordinate to the schedule."
It always was.
So they've come full circle - accepting failure.
In the beginning, there was ideology.
This is how we screwed up planning in the beginning (New Yorker), including flushing commissioned plans down the toilet.
Then, all hell broke loose. The advantage we'd hoped to have, we did not have. We had to do our best to keep even the tiniest semblance of order, and the people of Iraq were not fully behind us, ambivalent, or even against us, because our short window of time to win the hearts and minds was missed.
We were always catching up, but still drafting up big ideological plans.
Now everything is changing, as a reelection beckons.
In the end, ideology is out the window, as we have a schedule to meet.
While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule." Then the official muttered to himself, "And, of course, the schedule has become subordinate to politics."
Oh, and this l'il story also brought to mind a gem from earlier this year, something Bush apparently said to (then) Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas:
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.
(so said Abbas, anyhow, as reported in in Ha'aretz)
So, the Bush doctrine, as publicly stated, comes to something like this: Freedom, democracy, and establishing the safety of the US ... unless it gets in the way of my rëelection.
This is just so damn depressing-- how many people have lost their lives or lost their limbs in this sorry misadventure? Is it just me, or was this whole war just all about politics? This administration doesn't even seem to care about what is good for this country and the world-- all they care about is power and staying in power, and fuck the people whose lives get ruined. It is beyond disgusting.
Shorter US: We need to get the fuck out of here in time for the elections.
I think I need to go have a glass or 3 of wine. These assholes are pissing me off.
Is it just me, or was this whole war just all about politics?
No, it's not just you. They are beyond despicable.
Well, the way we screwed up in the beginning was by getting involved in this war in the first place. We managed to divert our attention from the real problem and now Pakistan is one Musharrif assassination from the Al Queda bomb. It must have been agonizing to the writers of this story to keep mentioning the June 1 deadline without saying "This deadline exists because Karl Rove believes that getting Bush re-elected is more important than Iraq." Let us remember all of the impassioned rationalizations for the war that the conservatives threw at us when Iraq dissolves in chaos.
Operation Get the Fuck Out of Iraq So Duhbya Can Declare Victory Before the Election is now in full swing!!!!
Just hand off the country we fucked up to the Iraqis by July 1. Anything bad that happens after that date will be their fault! Not our fault! Their fault!
Hmmm... more proof that contrary to popular myth, Duh-bya is the president most likely to withdraw our troops too early, and not the Democrat who runs against him and wins. Well... except for Kucinich.
contrary to kirkpatrick, i blame conservatives/rebublicans and not america.
At least the socialism is safe, the lefties over here can declare victory.....and they wonder why they are going to drag the Democrats into a slaughter next November 
God, Four Legs Good and Alex, this article is very fucking depressing. There's not much comfort in being right about this. This time it's brandy without the eggnog.
I don't usually respond to trolls, but kindly shut the fuck up and go back into the hole you crawled out of Dreagon, or better yet, volunteer for Iraq, it can't be too late for such a brave macho guy like you to save Iraq.
Dammit, you go and by a really expensive $87 Billion gift, and they toss the present aside and they just want to play with the cardboard box.
Changing plans, changing directions, adapting to changing circumstances.
Why are you pretending that these are bad?
Another Bruce,
At this point I'll settle for the brandy without the eggnog. Unless you've got some turpenhydrate with codeine...frickin' depressing.
Rofl Blair is still hoping to find WMD.
"In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue - without realising its source was Blair." (source: Guardia online)
Poor Tony :p
a
If I was Dean I would be screaming that this is cut and run, because that is excactly what it is.
^^ Guardian
a
Declare victory and retreat.
Oh well, at least Halliburton got the oil.
And the pipelines through the what-the-fuckistans,
and the feed, cloth, pack and stack contracts for all those soldiers,
Did I mention the oil?
No Bruce, why don't you crawl back into your's and give this party a chance next November. I'm kinda fond of our two party system and seeing the Dems not only lose the Presidency but even more members of Congress because of a bunch of knotheads who can't update their ideology from the seventies, just makes me sick. Karl Rove must be doing cartwheels
Changing plans, changing directions, adapting to changing circumstances.
Why are you pretending that these are bad?
Because they didn't have a fucking plan in the first place and they're not adapting, they're bailing. We're not pretending, it is a bad thing.
Dreagon, what Another Bruce said. Squared.
""In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue - without realising its source was Blair." (source: Guardia online)"
Nice. I was wondering what happened to all those underground labs that were making WMD they told us about before the war. Just more bullshit I guess.
Kudos to Steve Gilliard, who has had this nailed from the start.
Selah.
P.S.-Dreagon: Blow me, asshat.
clenis, what circumstances have changed? Why not stay five years, or ten, or twenty, "as long as it takes to get the job done," as your mongoloid leader Duhbya said?
The only circumstance that has changed is that the war is going much, much worse and much, much, more unpopular than anyone in charge expected.
The only thing that went remotely according to plan was the initial invasion. Everything else has gone wrong. No flowers, no being greeted as liberators, no legitimacy in the eyes of the world, no WMD finds that would have justified the war.
Thus, the firm July 1 timetable. Got to declare victory, no matter what, well before November. A purely political calculation.
Really, the Misadministration is beneath contempt. It is almost literally unbelievable.
Draegon-- why are you so daft?
Why is it the right thing to support the unneccessary death and destruction this war has caused? You think the dems should just go along with the crowd because the Iraq war is the "cool" thing?
Here's a clue:
THE IRAQ INVASION WAS, IS and WILL BE FUCKED UP and this IS NOT HOWARD DEAN'S or ANY OTHER DEMS FAULT.
"Nice. I was wondering what happened to all those underground labs that were making WMD they told us about before the war. Just more bullshit I guess."
yep- the latest spin from the British includes the "possibility that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction after all - but believed he did after being misled by his own advisors."
Guess they are desperate in the UK to justify the WMD claims. The public in the UK hasn't forgotten the reasons to invade Iraq and Blair knows he will be held accountable. Capture of Saddam =/ Mission Accomplished.
a
In the eyes of Bush, IX-XI entitles the USA to occupy the Middle East. He thinks WTC is equivalent to the cumulative acts of aggression of Germany and Japan preceding and during WWII.
But it is not WWII, and Bush does not recognize that the enterprise is doomed to failure. I give the US seven years, then it's over.
The only good thing is the Iraqis, if they ever manage to form a stable, democratic government, will get to decide issues like the form their economy will take for themselves.
I've never understood why we think we have the right to decide those things for them. As for the rest, the war started out a SNAFU, then quickly devolved into a FUBAR. A FUBAR, by definition, is hopeless. What a shame.
And Dreagon? What Another Bruce said, cubed.
Invading Iraq was the neocon (read: Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld; the PNAC clowns) dream...oh but they don't call themselves idealogues: they are Pragmatists.
It should be obvious to all but the supremely stupid that this war is not a subset of the far larger and more imporant War agaist Terrorism, but rather the complete and utter failure the results when imperialistic goons have an ignorant and stupid President's ear. This creepy attempt to resurrect a red, white & blue Roman Empire resulted in the deposing of one dictator at the cost of thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars (quick, more tax cuts!), the near-complete loss of US credibility on the international front, and massive political partisanship.
The Bush administration's adolescent greed is overshadowed only by it's infantile incompetence.
Dreagon - If the Iraqis (once they have an elected government in power) choose to create a Milton Friedman-style economy, that's their choice. IT'S UP TO THEM, understand? If we try to impose it on them, we'll have half the country shooting at us.
"But it is not WWII, and Bush does not recognize that the enterprise is doomed to failure. I give the US seven years, then it's over."
I am afraid of what "its over" might mean. In seven years we are going to need Mideast oil much more than we do now, especially since we are not doing a damn thing about our energy problems now. Remember that the article states that we are not withdrawing all of our troops. Of course not, the main reason for the war was oil all along, or more specifically, control over ME energy supplies. For that we need military bases in the Middle East. We have been slowly painting ourselves into a corner over this for the last thirty years, waiting for the free market to save us, but depending on the military to do our dirty work.
The timing next year is just a coincidence. Of course the boy emperor isn't just focused on getting elected (that's already in the bag, note to boy emperor, don't forget the regular payments to diebold).
Yeah right.
And a pox on the American sheeple for not being more outraged at this.
"A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," Mr Bush said. "Instead of threatening its neighbours and harbouring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both." --February 20, 2003
"Or not."--December 27, 2003
To be fair, he did say "can", he didn't say it would be.
Maybe this is what you get when you have a President who didn't really care all that much if he got elected or not.
Operation Pre-Ejectculation!
so, is iwaq a case of premature wargasm, or warjaculation?
I think what the Administration has done in Iraq is literally unforgivable, for so many reasons...
FIRST: The Administration had nothing like a realistic plan for providing a secure post-invasion Iraq. An occupying power is responsible for security. Gen. Shinseki truthfully said it would take thousands of soldiers to secure Iraq, and was fired for it. Wolfowitz just couldn't believe it would take more troops to keep the peace that it would to accomplish the invasion. In actual fact, it would take far more troops than the US can field to secure Iraq. In other words, it was literally impossible to invade Iraq and maintain security afterwards -- but they invaded anyway. We are just beginning to see the consequences of this heinous act.
SECOND: The Administration does not count the Iraqi dead, and has ordered Iraqi counting efforts to stop. This is in character for an Administration that will go to any length to prevent accountability. They govern in the dark because they are criminals who do not want to be caught.
THIRD: What could justify the brazen campaign of deception over WMDs? They were just freely making shit up, they had no interest at all in being truthful -- about the decision to take the world to war! What could be more irresponsible?
FOURTH: The invasion was an illegal war of aggression, Perle has admitted that already. After WW2 the Allies hung Hideki Tojo and Hermann Goering for that particular offense.
Ahem. Operation Premature-Ejectculation
"take thousands" should be "take hundreds of thousands"
Here's some topical reading:
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/n...mberg/judgment/
Why do I have the sinking feeling that this was the plan all along? "Sorry guys, it doesn't look like we're going to have time for democracy and constitutional protections after all, but at least Iraq will be secular, pluralistic, and, most imporant, market-driven. (Of course it goes without saying that it will be pro-American as well.) The US will at last be able to forge close economic ties with Iraq, and thus achieve a great victory over terrorism."
(By the way, has anyone else noticed that their strong commitment to secularism doesn't seem to have influenced domestic policy?)
Maybe this is what you get when you have a President who didn't really care all that much if he got elected or not.
so, is iwaq a case of premature wargasm, or warjaculation?
pansypoo
That's pWemature...
dunno how that one got in twice. oops
To be fair, he did say "can", he didn't say it would be.
GWB to Dianne Sawyer...
Yet. Yet!
--
"anyone but Bush!'
the story of the day.....
Bush's man rejects Blair weapon claim
Luke Harding in Baghdad
Sunday December 28, 2003
The Observer
Tony Blair was at the centre of an embarrassing row last night after the most senior US official in Baghdad bluntly rejected the Prime Minister's assertion that secret weapons laboratories had been discovered in Iraq.
In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue - without realising its source was Blair.
It was, he suggested, a 'red herring', probably put about by someone opposed to military action in Iraq who wanted to undermine the coalition.
'I don't know where those words come from but that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said,' he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. 'It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me.'
With the Government's policy on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in apparent disarray last night, insurgents inside Iraq yesterday launched another major attack, this time in the southern city of Karbala.
Four Bulgarian and two Thai soldiers were killed and 37 coalition troops were injured after Iraq's increasingly well-organised resistance attacked, using mortars, machine guns and a car bomb. At least seven Iraqi civilians were killed and up to 135 were injured in the attacks.
'It was a coordinated, massive attack planned for a big scale and intended to do much harm,' said Major General Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, head of the Polish-led multinational force responsible for security around Karbala. 'Four car bombs were used, grenade launchers and guns. In all cases, the suicide drivers were shot dead before they could strike their targets.'
Yesterday's offensive in Karbala marks the end of a disastrous Christmas week for coalition forces in Iraq following Saddam Hussein's capture a fortnight ago.
Last week guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad; lobbed mortars at the 'Green Zone', the coalition's riverside HQ; hit the Turkish, Iranian and German embassies; and killed four US soldiers in Bequba, north of Baghdad, using their favourite weapon: the remotely detonated roadside bomb.
A massive anti-insurgent offensive by US forces in Baghdad appears to have made little difference.
With confusion apparently growing between London and Washington over WMD, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said he would be pressing Ministers when Parliament returned in the New Year on what precisely the Government knew. 'It is high time the Prime Minister cleared this matter up once and for all,' he said.
Blair made his remarks
What's the rush?
/naive
Oh I told you people that Paul Bremer was not a bad guy - he call Tony Blair out on his lies...The Guardian
Luke Harding in Baghdad
Sunday December 28, 2003
The Observer
Tony Blair was at the centre of an embarrassing row last night after the most senior US official in Baghdad bluntly rejected the Prime Minister's assertion that secret weapons laboratories had been discovered in Iraq.
In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue - without realising its source was Blair.
Bremer isn't lying for George W. Bush or Tony Blair-- and Gee wasn't Blair another of Clinton's boys?
And what was that Wes Clark said about letting Bremer join Kissinger...Maybe we should let Clark join Kissinger.
The Clinton Administration folk wanted to shut Bremer up the same as the Bush Administration does...wonder why that is.
considering how twisted their panties were about invading back in March despite having the UN inspectors in there, you know RoveCo's got to have one of those big wall calendars with the whole war plotted out
oops sorry here is the link.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/
f...1113227,00.html
Well Bremer apparently didn't know that Blair was the source of those remarks. My guess is that he would have been more 'subtle' if he knew otherwise.
This is indeed embarrassing for Blair.
a
This whole thing makes me angry in so many ways. This guy should be impeached, if not tried on crimes against humanity, and what will we hear from our politicians and the media? Excuses, praises for a mission accomplished and for him having the good sense to know when to call it quits, and insults and threats against those who ask for accountability or criticize him.
God bless Amurca.
Ha ha...
"In recent days, senior Whitehall officials have raised the extraordinary possibility that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction after all - but believed he did after being misled by his own advisors."
Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes...
The plan is changing?
"What's the difference?" -GWB, as he scratches his balls.
A Man Called Another Bruce sed: I am afraid of what "its over" might mean. In seven years we are going to need Mideast oil much more than we do now, especially since we are not doing a damn thing about our energy problems now.
I sent both the Dean and Clark camps the notion that they should come out real soon now with the idea that the Dems need to advance the idea that by 2025, the U.S. will not be using fossil fuels at all. An Apollo-like mandate given to our scientific community to replace all use of fossil fuels needs to be Priority #1.
.
yeah, get Al Gore to head it if he doesn't go for the SCOTUS gig
"This guy should be impeached, if not tried on crimes against humanity"
it will pass - he may get another term but if he does it will be the end of it. People will be so sick of the Republicans by then and those tax cuts fo jobs BS just won't cut it anymore. Take the UK -Thatcher's party held power for 18 years. She was so strong at some point she crashed unions and everyone else who stood in her way - the result of her policies? A public exhaustion with the Conservative Party which continues to this day. The new Labour party (which is a member of the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists -the social democrat bloc in the European Parliament) won a landslide majority both in 1997 and 2001 and looks to win the next one.
-------------
Bit of background history: The Labour party formed its first minority government with Liberal support in January 1924, with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister. The Conservatives returned to power nine months later following a hoax "Red scare" over the Zinoviev Letter.
Sound familiar? winning an election on imaginary threats and lies?
a
No, Jeffraham, it shouldn't be "an Apollo-like mandate." It should be a "Manhattan Project" mandate. But your point is well-taken.
Back in the mid-80s I worked for a substance abuse not-for-profit. America's craving for fossil fuels reminds me of all those former heroin and coke addicts I spoke with. Hmmm, I wonder of you can get a buzz from mainlining hydrocarbons?
Nice post Aria, but never assume that the pendulum will swing back of its own volition.
Bremer tomorrow: "Oh, you mean THAT system of clandestine laboratories! Yes, of course we know about it."
Actually, thats a crappy analogy, never assume that there is a pendulum.
Metropolitan99 sed: No, Jeffraham, it shouldn't be "an Apollo-like mandate." It should be a "Manhattan Project" mandate. But your point is well-taken.
In practice, it will be the equivalent of a Manhattan Project, but needs to be sold, ala JFK, as an Apollo-like project. Get the PR bang out of it -- no need for it to go "Top Secret" -- in fact, if we have any allies left after Bush's reign, invite their scientists to hop on the train. But make it MORE than PR. Make it Priority #1. Sorry not to have been clearer about that previously.
Back in the mid-80s I worked for a substance abuse not-for-profit. America's craving for fossil fuels reminds me of all those former heroin and coke addicts I spoke with. Hmmm, I wonder of you can get a buzz from mainlining hydrocarbons?
What, you never heard of huffing?
.
The article has at least one piece of good news: The Bushies aren't going to rapidly privatize the food-rationing program.
I've read in several places (BBC, globalpolicy.org, Baghdad Burning and others) that the approaching privatization of the food rationing program was a disaster in the making.
BTW, the WaPo's wording is kinda strange: An unwillingness to assume other risks has also scuttled, at least temporarily, plans to overhaul a national food-rationing program that was a cornerstone of Hussein's welfare state.
Isn't it worth mentioning that the food-rationing program was the UN's Oil-For-Food program? I mean, yeah, Saddam turned it to his political advantage, but still...
Interesting commentary on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post.
One Man's Fortune
Saturday, December 27, 2003; Page A24
THE PAST WEEK has given the Bush administration more cause to reconsider its heavy reliance on a single general, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, to maintain stability in one of the world's most dangerous areas. On Thursday Mr. Musharraf narrowly escaped another attempted assassination -- the second in less than two weeks and the fourth in less than two years. One day earlier, Pakistan's self-appointed president announced that he had struck a deal with a coalition of Islamic militants that will legitimize his continuance in office until 2007 and ratify his rewrite of the constitution at the price of further empowering a movement that seeks Taliban-style rule for both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. More than ever, Mr. Musharraf's ability to deliver on his promises to stand with the United States against terrorism and Islamic extremism is in doubt. His sudden death would trigger a crisis both for Pakistan and for U.S. security. Yet if the Bush administration has a fallback plan, it shows no sign of it.
and last part...
Bush administration officials appear to bank on the assumption of power in a crisis by another friendly general -- which, even under Mr. Musharraf's constitution, probably would require a coup d'etat. Other forces, including the secular democratic parties and civil society movements, might be allies of the United States, but the Bush administration's strategy doesn't encompass them. All its chips are on a man whose evasion of two suicide truck bombs was, for the second time this month, a lucky chance.
Are we any safer, not under the Bush administration we're not.
JP, you mean a big government project like the railroads of the 19th century, the freeway system in the 20th. You mean big government projects like the TVA, which brought electricity to an entire region, or the Marshall plan, which helped launch an entire continent into an era of peace and prosperity? Do you mean a big ineffecient program like NASA, which landed us on the moon a few short years after Kennedy's promise and televised the historic pictures back to earth that made us all truly proud to be Americans?
Er, sorry, Uncle Ronny told us that government isn't the solution, its the problem. And the Republican Party has been proving it ever since.
Ooooooh, I just love sitting back and criticizing those actually taking action!!!
Yessss, everything you're doing is wrong!!! Just look at the Gallup polls! I, myself, know what's best for Iraq. Yes, me - Jane American Student - from behind my ergonomically correct keyboard.
Did you hear that just now?!! No, it wasn't an educated thought, it was a fart. I ate too much couscous at my friend's pot-luck tonight.
Oh, did I mention Bush is bad?
Oh, did I mention Bush is bad?
charasmatic vomit |
Amen Vomit!!! You said it all!!!
Go in, mow'em down, and start from scratch.
Convert their leaders to christianity and start them on the way to understanding the love of the virgin Mary's god-spawn.
MYOB'
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Another Bruce, More Sarcastic, sed: JP, you mean a big government project like the railroads of the 19th century, the freeway system in the 20th. You mean big government projects like the TVA, which brought electricity to an entire region, or the Marshall plan, which helped launch an entire continent into an era of peace and prosperity? Do you mean a big ineffecient program like NASA, which landed us on the moon a few short years after Kennedy's promise and televised the historic pictures back to earth that made us all truly proud to be Americans?
Sure, point taken. I'd rather hope that some of the tinfoil hatters are right, and as soon as we suck the last drop of crude oil from the bowels of Planet Earth, one of these compassionate conservatives at Exxon will pull out some o' those miracle energy devices for which they've been buying patents left-and-right for 50+ years...
... but hey. I don't like the idea of my grandkids having to go back to riding horses and cooking on wood stoves. Can you imagine what $87 billion would do for solar cell efficiencies (given materials science these days)? Biomass?
Feh. If this project needs someone handy with Photoshop and Dreamweaver, tell 'em to give me a call. I have modest needs.
.
Charismatic vomit, you sound really stupid. What's the point of visiting a comment board if your whole premise is that people shouldn't comment?
And anyway, the notion that people posting here aren't capable of forming 'educated' thoughts is ludicrous. Come on, you can do better than that.
The Bush Administration is cutting and running to cover their asses before the election heats up and it's as plain as the nose on anyone's face. They have failed and people have died on both sides in far greater numbers than necessary -- and is there an end in sight?
And idiots like you want citizens of this country, whose tax dollars paid for it and whose relatives died for it, to shut up.
Fuck you.
Imagine if you can that Karl Rove has invented a machine that can look ahead in time and see what is to come. Call it a crystal ball. He sees that Dubya is going to lose the 2004 election.
What better "fuck you" present to the new Dem president could there be than the premature withdrawal of forces in Iraq?
Hmmm. This will take longer to clean up than replacing a few missing "W" keys...
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The peaceniks were right - the chickenhawks were wrong.
Choke on it, brownshirts.
So the terrorists have won?
Well, how much more proof is needed that Bushco didn't have a fucking clue as to how to proceed in Iraq after the bombs stopped falling. Now, in another time, the press would have been all over this, and weekly press conferences in Washington would be a free-for-all by now. But, sadly, as I had said, in another time. Now, the useless media will just go along with the Bush regime and probably blame the ungrateful Iraqis (not to mention liberals in this country)for not getting with the program and bowing before the awesome might of the US of A.
Kerry Says Dean Has No Chance Vs. Bush
Anyone but Bush!
(or Lieberman, or Kerry, or...)
One more thought, if I may. Even if the Bush regime does cut and run in Iraq (assuming that in doing so they can sweep under the rug all the needless deaths and suffering inflicted, not to mention the astronomical costs to US taxpayers), it certainly won't reverse the damage that has already been done. That region has now been severly destabilized, and I can't help but think that all it would take to send that entire region into the depths of anarchy would be for one of our puppets in the region (either Musharraf in Pakistan, or Karzai in Afghanistan) to get rubbed out. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the situation in that region, but I really don't think it's going to be as simple as cut and run. We're there, and we're going to have to stay there (which is pretty much what opponents of the war have been saying since Day 1)
"The Americans are coming to understand that they cannot change everything they want to change in Iraq," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a senior leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite Muslim political party that which is cooperating with the U.S. occupation authority. "They need to let the Iraqi people decide the big issues."
Translation: "Americans, thanks for getting rid of Saddam for us. Now please go home so us Shiites (65% of population) can enjoy our new democracy, i.e. kick the crap out of the Sunnis (30% of population) who held us down for so long."
The Shiites welcome democracy, or at least the semblance of it, since they're a 2-to-1 majority. They're going to bide their time and nod their heads and mouth the things the Americans want to hear, and when we finally leave, or when enough of us have finally left, there's going to be one hell of a civil war in Mesopotamia, and I'd hate to be a Sunni during it.
I meant to add this final line to my post:
"Payback's a behotch"
MattG
Let's not forget the Kurds. They're going to want their own territory in Northern Iraq (an area which is also coveted by Turkey). So, what I imagine is a nightmare scenario where Shiites and Sunnis are going at it, while the Kurds are squaring off with the Turks to the North. Not good. But try explaining this to the wingnuts in this country.
I especially loved this bit:
Plans to privatize state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.
English translation:
"Plans to further pillage Iraq's substance by turning state-run entities over to Halliburton and Bechtel have been dropped over the past few months as Iraq's resistance has made it clear that no Halliburton COO will be able to get a good night's sleep in even the Al-Rashid hotel."
Have the carpetbaggers even been able to pump the oil yet?
Ah, I've answered my own question:
Production is allegedly around 1 million barrels/day, but between a quarter and a third of that is being 'reinjected' back into the ground, and will probably be lost forever.
Production
As of mid-August 2003, Iraqi oil output was fluctuating on a daily basis, but generally was averaging just under 1 million barrels per day (bbl/d). Some Iraqi oil -- perhaps 200,000-300,000 bbl/d -- was being reinjected into oil reservoirs in the North due to constraints on both domestic processing ability as well as export outlets. According to the U.N. Joint Logistics Centre (JLC), as of mid-August 2003 "about 40% of [northern Iraqi] production is transferred to the Baiji refinery, with the balance reinjected into the fields, ostensibly to maintain pressure. This is a most unusual practice but extraction of the surplus crude is necessary to produce much needed LPG. It means, however, that crude oil production is overstated by the volume reinjected (it not being available for refining or export, but counted as production). The reinjected crude may be lost forever."
On August 13, Iraq's main oil export pipeline from its main northern oilfield of Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan reopened (see below for more details), but the line was shut down once again shortly thereafter due to sabotage on August 15 and 17. Iraq currently is aiming to increase its production to 2 million bbl/d by December 2003, and 2.8 million bbl/d by April 2004, but this goal may not be attained if problems continue in both the north and the south of the country.
Historically, Iraqi production peaked in December 1979 at 3.7 million bbl/d, and then in July 1990, just prior to its invasion of Kuwait, at 3.5 million bbl/d. From 1991, Iraqi oil output increased slowly, to 600,000 bbl/d in 1996. With Iraq's acceptance in late 1996 of U.N. Resolution 986, which allowed limited Iraqi oil exports in exchange for food and other supplies ("Oil-for-Food"), the country's oil output began increasing more rapidly, to 1.2 million bbl/d in 1997, 2.2 million bbl/d in 1998, and around 2.5 million bbl/d during 1999-2001.
Having just read David Brook's latest crime against language, I can't help comparing it to this.
Evidently privatizing a socialist economy is our duty as Americans... but figuring out how to guard the museums and protect our troops is an affront to the dignity of the Iraqi people.
Of course, that is if you assume that such low things as facts play a role in the frothings of right-wing psychotics.
What's the point of visiting a comment board if your whole premise is that people shouldn't comment?
To spout freeper drivel in vainglorious hope of making other people as stupid as him.
When a troll is at least so kind as to offer a fact, it might be worth the bother to explain how said fact is incorrect or used out of context.
This pathetic degeneracy deserves no response.
For Christ's sake, he can't even properly spell his own pseudonym
I think Vomit's passed out with a lap full of couscous.
Damn. At this rate I'm going to have to pay my dad $20, because a year ago I told him that Li'l George would soon be presiding at the opening ceremony for the new Baghdad Wal*Mart.
Char-ass-matic vomit makes one of the big fallacies that Bush-supporters always make. That Bush is doing something. He's taking action.
Yes, he is. However, one should never mistake action for accomplishment. Just because he's acting doesn't mean he has accomplished anything.
Well, actually he has. Most of it negative. Thus, the point is, yes he has acted, but has acted in such a way to worsen the situation. A real leader takes action that means to accomplish a goal beneficial to everyone.
Is it becoming clear enough now--maybe even to Bush's ass-kissing supporters- that he is utterly and completely clueless? Beyond that, I am wondering if this will maybe begin to put a dent in the "strong and decisive" leader bullshit...the "makes a decision and sticks to it" bullshit....the "speaks with moral clarity" bullshit....the whole "straight-talkin' man of character and integrity" bullshit that Bush's handlers keep trying to peddle. It is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that this moron has no principles beyond his own interests...like re-election. I thought we were going to stay in Iraq "as long as it takes"...I must have missed the part where he said "or until it might affect my re-election". This man is a complete phony and fraud.......God help our country if enough boobs fall for his lies and propaganda.
If Saddam kept pace, and had an average year, in the absence of U.S. / British intervention, he would have killed roughly 20,000 of his own people by today.
Does the human rights argument stand on its own two legs? Or do the human rights a them brown-skinned folk just not matter to us?
(I realize that a consistent foreign policy based in part on actually doing something about human rights would bind us to a lot of other interventions... like Kosovo or Bosnia, for instance.)
Al Maviva-- show me where Saddam was killing 20,000 Iraqis a year post 1991. I do not know that he had an active genocide program when we invaded. And how many Iraqis have we killed so far? Do they not count as well?
In any case-- the anti-war argument was never that Saddam should be ignored-- just that invasion was not the best way to deal with him. Not to mention that progressives cared about human rights in Iraq long before GWB came into power and decided to pre-emptively attack Iraq.
The mission now for Rove is to get the American reporters to leave Iraq. They are in a rush to make this huge disaster yesterday's news. I fear`they are going to be successful at distracting the electorate with some bogus issue like gay marriage as the rallying point for for the swing voters. We will then quietly escalate in Iraq immediately after the election. Pakistan is the wildcard. The underreportered fact of 2003 is that every significant AQ arrest was accomplished in Pakistan. If Pakistan as a coup AQ will get a break.
The wingers are so desperate now explaining around the Iraq quagmire, they're suddenly concerned about the brown-skinned people under Saddam. I'm touched. Maybe they've truly grown a heart, after all.
The wingers are so desperate now explaining around the Iraq quagmire, they're suddenly concerned about the brown-skinned people under Saddam instead of the pretext of WMDs. I'm touched. Maybe they've truly grown a heart, after all.
If Saddam kept pace, and had an average year, in the absence of U.S. / British intervention, he would have killed roughly 20,000 of his own people by today.
Al Maviva
The most pathetic element of this entire sorry episode is the pretense that this action had anything at all to do with the plight of the iraqi people under Saddam. The fact is that this administration - and all previous administrations - supports corrupt and tyrannical regimes all over the globe. We will gladly support a leader like karimov in uzbekistan, if we believe that it is in our interest to do so.
I believe that we are all happy to be rid of saddam but the "we got rid of him because he is a bad man" justification, is problematic because it is dishonest, inconsistent, and mostly obfuscates any real public debate about our foreign policy.
"like karimov in uzbekistan"
And the House of Saud, and Mubarak, and Musharraf, and of course Li'l George's good buddy Hu Jintao.
Damn, ITV1 and Juan Cole laid the smackdown on Blain and Bremer!
http://www.juancole.com/
2003_12_...259804613660175
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsi...ms/
s1017054.htm
Basically, they didn't mention to Bremer that a quote about massive clandestine Iraqi chemical weapons labs had come from Tony Blair, and Bremer totally denied it -- saying that it was probably from "someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down."
And then, "Jerry Bremer, you've been Punk'd!", Jonathan Dimbleby says, oh by the way, that was Tony Blair who said that, and Bremer ran for his spider hole, covering his bare-nekkid ass the whole way.
Amazing piece of "gotcha" journalism. Take that, American press, you bunch of administration toadyin' windbags!
Preznint's Note: It will never happen again.
If Saddam kept pace, and had an average year, in the absence of U.S. / British intervention, he would have killed roughly 20,000 of his own people by today.
Not to worry - "U.S. / British intervention" more than made up for it.
This story is important news which is why Fat Tim is talking about Barney & his holiday party schedule on MTP & not this.
"Jerry Bremer, you've been Punk'd!", Jonathan Dimbleby says, oh by the way, that was Tony Blair who said that, and Bremer ran for his spider hole, covering his bare-nekkid ass the whole way."
Puwhahahahahaha.... priceless!
a
What the fuck is "the civil occupation"?
God bless Sadaam, or did I misunderstand you?
Or maybe Cheryl, we should send you to have tea and crumpets with Kissenger. I think you two might have a lot more in common than either of you, you in particular, might have guessed.
Yes, by all means, Paul Bremer is the real hero of Iraq. And Clinton and Gore are ten times worse than Mr. Bush.
And with supporters like you, the Democratic party and liberals are probably already sunk, from the sheer weight of the hubris that anchors all your statements. Do you ever spend even a second of time looking into your own soul, wondering for a single nano-second if you might just be wrong about all those on the left you constanatly attack? And do you ever attack anyone who isn't on the left, anyone, that is, who might ever actually be in a position to do something about anything? Aside from the usual anti-Bush comments that don't accomplish a lot. And what an awful thing that would be; what would you have to grouse about and feel superior to, if anything actually improved in this country?
You wanna know why Clinton/Gore weren't better liberals? Because they were under constant attack from the right before they even took office, and good left wing folks like you were just too pure to stand up and try and do anything about it.
So you prefer an American imperial viceroy who has diligently carried out the program that you, apparantly find compatible with your own values, consisting of treating the Iraq people like they are children, supporting Saddam's anti-union rules, so like the Republican party's feelings on the same topic...
I'm actually too angry to continue. Suffice it to say that you find Bremer a person who better represents your values than Wes Clark. Fine. Can I suggest that your time might be better spent working for the Republican nominee. And to be utterly frank, good riddance. It wouldn't bother me so much if these kinds of comments about Clinton, Gore, Clark had and didnt't continue to do so much damage. And, BTW, I think that Howard Dean would agree with me.
I like to think of myself as a fairly ecumenical person, and I regret leaving a message so tinged with anger, but yours are one set of shoulders I don't think I want rubbing up against mine at the barricades.
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