Makes Me Drink Even More

I suppose you're as shocked as I am.

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

What I find galling are the smug arguments from the war cheerleader crowd to the effect that "we can't leave because that would give Iraq to the Iranians and Al Qaeda!"

Because one of the reasons I always thought this was a stupid war was that it ran the enormous risk of ending up in a situation where we could never leave without making radical Islamicism stronger. A secular Iraq friendly to the US was only ever in the cards in the same sense as a royal flush is likely to be in the cards you get dealt straight from the deck.

We can't leave. We can't stay. It's called a quagmire, you idiots.

As a political and military reality though, we can't stay forever: we simply can't have an American Palestine in the heart of the Middle East.

Harry Reid is not calling for "defeat." Liberals are not calling for "defeat." We're telling you that the bloody clown show is over. Take off your floppy shoes, doff your giant red noses, and go home. 

The GOP rallied behind a foolish president to start an unprovoked, foolish, unwinnable war. There will be no negative consequences for any Democrat who points this out. There will just be relief and a demand that the perpetrators of this deadly fiasco be held accountable.   

Comments

[R.L.Page]

We can't leave. We can't stay. It's called a quagmire, you idiots.

As a political and military reality though, we can't stay forever: we simply can't have an American Palestine in the heart of the Middle East.

There was no plan for what to do after destroying the army and the government of Iraq, and no plan for withdrawal of U.S. troops for the simple reason that these lunatics actually believe they can maintain "an American Palestine in the [bleeding] heart of the Middle East."

Republicans have only two possible excuses in any situation: either they are incompetent or corrupt. (Okay, three: --sometimes it can be both.)

But the invasion & occupation of Iraq is, for the most part, corruption at a level rarely seen then or now.

[LJ/Aquaria]

Well... I'm one of those people, who, the first time I ever played poker, I got a royal flush. I knew zilch about the game, so I was a little confused about the reaction I got when I put it down on the table, and asked it that were anything good. I thought those guys were going to kill me!

[LJ/Aquaria]

As for Iraq... Its fate is really out of our hands now. Whatever we could have done to change that is gone, not that I think we had much chance to begin with.

It's like Vietnam all over again. The longer we stay, the worse everything becomes...and the longer we delay the inevitable.

Only, this time, there won't be a country uniting under one flag. We forget that, a substantial portion of the Vietnamese people wanted a united, independent government. They'd wanted it long before we got there.

That's not the case this time.

[Red Sharpe]

R.L.Page "Republicans have only two possible excuses in any situation: either they are incompetent or corrupt."

Well I guess stupidity and foolishness can be call components of corruption.

I didn't know a lot about the differences between the the Sunnis and Shia but I did know you had two parties that had long standing and deep seated scores to settle, and if you let the majority rule the Shia, who had no or little expertise in running the country, will ascend.

What kind of an idiot could not see a very long period of instability because of the cultural dynamic that was apparent in Iraq under Saddam? I think no one can be this stupid and the real reason for the invasion was for the purpose of instability and chaos.

How those oil company profits doin?

[va]

"There will just be relief and a demand that the perpetrators of this deadly fiasco be held accountable."

I wonder if any intrepid pollster out there has included a question along the lines of, Should Congress impeach the prez and exile him to his Crawford ranch for all eternity? I recently polled myself and found 100% of myself said, Please God Yes! And what's more if these insane assholes aren't ritually exorcised from the corridors of power, American politics, along with other bodies politic we can only imagine, will suffer forever.

[grodge]

"There will just be relief and a demand that the perpetrators of this deadly fiasco be held accountable."

No, there will also be a million or more dead Iraqis as the civil war hits high gear when the US troops come home. And the distinct possibility of a grossly destabilized Arabian Peninsula.

Nobody-- and I mean NOBODY-- was more against this dunderhead we call President and this " bloody clown show" of a war than I, but I am taken aback by the glib snark with which many of my anti-war brethren voice their opinions.

We can either laugh or we can cry, I suppose, so we may as well laugh. Is that it?

Getting our soldiers home may be important, but that would be only the 2nd inning of this donneybrook. And the next 7 innings will be bloody and costly and gruesome. Wars in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc, etc are possible. Oil at $120 per barrel, $6 gasoline, China jonesing for more oil and flexing its muscle... Gnashing of teeth, dogs and cats living together...

Bush's legacy has many, many more chapters to be written.

[LJ/Aquaria]

Uh, grodge, that was kinda my point about the difference between Iraq and Vietnam, that things will get bad after we leave. But we're beyond the point of turning that back now. Just like we were beyond the point with Vietnam, from day one. The reasons for being in both places were flawed. The reasons we failed when we were there were flawed. The fact that we made everything worse every day we were there was flawed. The only difference this time is that Vietnam wanted to be united. Iraq does not. That will probably make the after effect of a US departure bloodier, and probably longer than the Vietnam exit. But it's going to be bloody if we stay in Iraq, too. It's lose/lose, in every way imaginable. There will be no graceful exit for us. There is no way we can make this better.

We messed up, and we did it so badly we can't fix it. But it isn't fair to our troops, or their families, to sacrifice them on the altar of failed policy. I doubt that any of them did anything to deserve that, any more than the Iraqis deserve to suffer for this criminally failed policy.

I don't know what, if anything, can fix this. I only know that it is insanity to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

[LJ/Aquaria]

Argh. "The fact that we made everything worse every day we were there was flawed" was supposed to read, "It was a fact that we made everything worse every day we were there." That's what I get for rearranging my sentences.

[grodge]

LJ/Aquaria,
I wasn't disagreeing with you premise that Iraq is lose/lose. It is.

You have put the argument as eloquently as possible. No doubt we have to leave Iraq, and the sooner the better.

My only argument is additional, not contrary. What happens when we leave?

To say there will "just be relief" is a bit simplistic. The similarities between Vietnam and Iraq diminish rapidly when looking at the post-war debacles.