Richard WarnickIraq Has Been A Fiasco - It’s Bush’s Fault
You can lie your way into a war, but can you lie your way out? The Bush war cabinet is reportedly trying to come up with a justification for sending another 20,000 combat soldiers to Iraq. Even though they know it won’t make a difference. Even though only 11 percent of the American people support it. Even though the Pentagon is opposed to the idea. Even though they know more troops could be decisive in Afghanistan, the other war the USA is losing. Why?
From Matthew Yglesias:
Roughly speaking, the fixed point of the president’s thinking is an unwillingness to admit that the venture has failed. For a long time the best way to do that was to simply deny that there was a problem. Political strategy for the midterms, however, dictated that the president had to acknowledge the public’s concerns about the war and concede that things weren’t going well. At that point, simply staying the course doesn’t work anymore. But de-escalating would be an admission of failure, so the only option is to choose escalation.
Choose escalation. Like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did in Vietnam, just because they didn’t want to take responsibility for losing a war. President Bush wants to run out the clock and turn over the Iraq occupation to the next president in the hope that history will blame him (or her). Well, the verdict of history is already in. This was Bush’s fiasco from the get-go.
December 29th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Man, thats one sober looking crew.
Do you suppose they are disgusted by Bush or just sad because their careers are ruined and they (most of them) still have another 20-30 years left before they go straight to hell Without Passing GO.
December 29th, 2006 at 10:29 am
How come Chimpus looks so sad?
Where is all the “bring ‘em on” cowboy crap?
Yo Chimpus, as LL says, “you are a Fat Bastard.” You, too, Cheney!
December 29th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
He’s sandwiched between Iraq and that crowd standing behind him. Lucky for george, Ford set this fubar afloat. That secret will just have to go the grave at this point, along w / Saddam.
January 16th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[...] The Milblogs that Cliff likes to analyze have fallen into the “just-because” camp. After years of saying no more troops are needed in Iraq and Bush listens to the generals, they’re stymied. Bush has fired the generals and suddenly decided to send more troops because he has run out of options since the voters repudiated “stay the course.” It doesn’t make sense anymore. From “Patriot” on A Soldier’s Perspective: There is one thing that has been gnawing on my for weeks. When I first went into Iraq in late 2003, all I ever heard about from opponents of the President was how we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to stop the looting. Then we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to prevent Fallujah. Then we didn’t put enough boots on the ground to stop our Soldiers from getting killed. There were never enough boots on the ground. Finally, the president dedicates 21,500 troops to increase levels and Democrats want to complain that more boots are getting put on the ground. We’re in trouble when our elected politicians create lose/lose situations when our President and military is trying to win. [...]