Iraq, Military, Politics
Operation Save My Legacy: As we have been saying in these pages (here and here, for starters), the “surge” President Bush will announce next week has nothing to do with “winning” in Iraq and everything to do with tamping down the violence sufficiently so that Bush and Rove can create a false reality of “victory” before they leave office. Ever the coward, Bush plans to hand off the inevitable U.S. retreat from Iraq, and the bloodbath that will ensue, to the next president.
While this president’s objectives are nakedly obvious from where I sit, 3,000 miles from Capitol Hill, Beltway media and political insiders have been playing dumb about Bush’s audacious double-down in American blood and treasure. That is, until today, when Sen. Joe Biden spoke up:
[Biden]said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will “be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof,” in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam.
“I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost,” Biden said. “They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy — literally, not figuratively
Biden’s senatorial hemming and hawing is maddening — he has reached a “tentative conclusion” that the Bushies know they have screwed up the war? “Tentative” conclusions can be withdrawn later. Sounds like wiggle room to me.
Even the Republican were occasionally criticial of Bush’s war when they held power. They never took action, of course — and the question now is, what will Joe Biden and the Democrats do to force the president to end the worst military operation in American history, if not in the history of the world.
The answer is, probably not much — not unless the American middle class finally becomes as outraged as they should be that the same president who started this war for no reason other than aristocratic whim is now planning to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more American troops for no other purpose than to burnish his epitaph.
“…the worst military operation in American history, if not in the history of the world.”
Now, now, let’s not be too dramatic. Napoleon did a great job losing his army in Russia, Hitler did the same thing; and to prove that no one learns, the Russians themselves did it in Afghanistan.
It remains to be seen whether we can turn this from a total fiasco into merely a Phyrric victory.
Aristus – Napoleon and Hitler were outmaneuvered and outgunned by nation-states with relatively vast resources of personnel and armament. Bush has put the US into a quagmire where our troops are strapped down by a relative few ragtag insurgents. The Soviets should have known better than to try to annex Afghanistan — but the operative example they should have learned from was not the French invasion of Russia in the early 19th Century but the US misadventure in Vietnam in the 20th century.
None of the disastrous wars you mention holds a candle to the sheer idiocy of this present war, from the deception used to sell the war to the American people (most of whom bought it) and our allies (who didn’t) and the subsequent stupidity of not overwhelming Iraq with our troops, the cashiering of the Iraqi Army and the inexperienced civilian team Bush sent in to manage the aftermath.
There’s an old saying, “May you live in interesting times.” We are living witnesses to the lowest point so far (and I hope ever) in the American presidency, as well as the worst war ever conducted — all thanks to one man: George W. Bush.
There is a perverse side to me wishing to be a student in 20 years just to see how W reads in history textbooks.
[...] I’ve yet to see any concrete evidence that the Empire has the political or moral will to save itself. Empire’s focus seems to be on continued expansion, at any cost, even when it’s failing. Failing to recognize natural sustainable limits will eventually determine any empire’s fate. Eventually. [...]
No one is going to get outraged except the lower and lower-middle classes — the classes with the highest number of service-people, but the lowest amount of influence. Why should the real middle class get outraged when most of them don’t even personally know someone who is going to war, or had a child going to war? That’s the difference between Iraq and Vietnam when it comes to this issue. The people with power were outraged in Vietnam, because their sons were going to war due to the draft. This time around, it’s the lower class who’s shouldering the burden because they’re the ones who sign up for the military’s benefits.
Despite the large amount of military personnel deployed, I think the majority of people are still two degrees, or more, away from a service-person. Until more people personally have a stake in the people who are dying in our military, the cost of making change is too high.
“None of the disastrous wars you mention holds a candle to the sheer idiocy of this present war, from the deception used to sell the war to the American people (most of whom bought it) and our allies (who didn’t) and the subsequent stupidity of not overwhelming Iraq with our troops,”
WWII certainly qualifies under your criteria, with much graver consequences. In terms of purely American follies, the “Civil” War would also wholly qualify – except Lincoln and Roosevelt were more than happy to practice genocide to achieve their respective goals.
Aristus… I agree with your assessment, if only for the fact that Napoleon, Hitler, Communist Russia, and the Bush regime are comparable not only by their military failures but also in their ideas of what government should be. Astute observation.
Don’t forget that Bush’s military geniuses now want to outsource our military to foreigners. Why? Because American’s will no longer support or fight his stupid wars. They need to take juniors allowance away!
Exactly! You couldn’t have stated that any better. This is exactly what bush is doing. Just making it look all good… until the next president takes over, and it all spirals out of control… or did that already happen?
If the “surge” is not effect, we will just lose more troops and more treasure.
If the surge is effective, “they” will just lie low until the “surge” subsides, in which case we have accomplished nothing–time is on their side.
The “surge” is a political ploy, and not a military ploy. All this is occurring in a very dangerous context. If nothing bad happens in context, I think that the political gain will be negative, or at best minimal.
What could go bad in context? Enemies of the US have Chinese silkworm missiles–our carriers in the gulf have no defense against these missiles. Also, if there are open hostilities, the green zone could be overrun by Iranian troops with the help of the Shiite troops that we have trained and supplied.
So one the high side, our loses would be limited to two carriers and other sundry ships plus whatever happens to be in the green zone at the time.
My opinion is that Bush feels cornered and betrayed. He can’t bring himself to leave Iraq; he knows a surge won’t work (it might buy him some time, but not two years), and the current situation is untenable. So he must do something. When the only options are getting out or doing something stupid, and you can’t bear getting out, you do something stupid and hope for the best. Bush now remainds me of Shakespear’s King Richard II:
Down, down, down I come
Like glistening Phaeton losing the manage of unruly jades
G. Anton hit the nail on the head with that last comment. Bush is postponing the inevitable, he’s just blind to the fact. I’d be much quicker to label Bush a failure than a Hitler, and much quicker to call him ignorant than devious.
The middle class indeed MUST say something…NOW.
Email, letters, WHATEVER it takes..this does NOT have to be the inevitable result here…
They fucked up…he took care of Saddam for his Dad, whatever his reason (Helliburton)
NO MORE! We CANT let it happen.
“…While the generals sat, the lines on the map, moved from side to side…”
Stupid is as stupid does, and Bush exemplifies this fact, but he is being pushed by Cheney, the PNAC (Wolfowitz-Perle,etc) AIPAC and Amer.Enterprise Inst.(Israel controls us), The Carlysle Group (Saudia Aarabia wants us in Iraq). Bush will escalate, and provoke Iran until we have to ‘RETALIATE”. It’s WWIII already begun between Muslims, Jews and Christians over who will get the resources. Cangress is not capable of stopping this, nor is the UN, or anyone else…Cuz the Decider takes his orders from God and the neo-con religious right, and they want war & the rapture. They are insane!!!
Bush will “escalate and provoke Iran until we have to ‘retaliate’….umhummm, why else is there a naval build-up going on in the Persian Gulf right now, why else does he need a build-up of ground troops in Iraq (against all reasonable advice)? He will create a new “reality” for us to discuss and it will make Iraq look minor in comparison to the huge war he has in mind.
The economy will collapse if we withdraw from Iraq, and it will improve if we send more troops. It’s simple economics. The war machine must be fed or it will die. Right now it is growing a little stagnant which the neccons cannot allow. I will be suprised and delighted if the troop surge doesn’t happen, but I bet it goes thru. The neocons are very powerful, unfortunately…
The other implication of Bush delaying withdrawing from Iraq until 2008 is that he obviously doesn’t think there is much chance of the next president being a republican, presuming he has some scruples about damaging his own party.
We need to begin impeachment proceedings immediately against both Bush and Cheney and “surge” their asses into federal prison…
I notice that “surge” is in quotes… check out this graph of the US troop levels in Iraq since the start of the war:
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=763
Just looking at the numbers, it does make one question the tactical significance of 21,500 additional troops.
Now that the war is officially lost we should look at the rights of the American people that have also been lost. The neocon military industrial complex has run away from the people and now the constitution is all but destroyed.
I (Christian Peper) have been harassed and questioned for my anti-war actives and so have so many other Americans. The scam known as the war on terror was started because of 911 and now there must be a real investigation of 911.
Detectives and The FBI put terrorist suspects in a room long enough, doesn’t feed them, keeps them awake, yells, and abuses them until they “admit†to being terrorists. The entire “war on terror†is a pure scam. This government runs on fear, abuse, and intimidation. STOP PAYING INCOME TAXES
Urgent Note: Internet vigilantes have been engaged in an organized and illegal campaign to slander my name.
They have been hard at work putting words in my mouth (sometimes posting in my name on anonymous boards), slandering me, and quoting me out of context.
My supporters will be pleased to know that I am working hard (and will never stop working hard) to lower the age of sexual consent to puberty to increase the safety and lawfulness of sex.
I will also continue to promote safer sex alternatives so that less youth contract HIV / AIDS.
In addition, I will also continue to expose organizations that promote the true abuse of children.
Unlike those that defame me I am not an internet vigilante that pretends to be a savior of the children but really accomplishes nothing but slander and defamation of true heroes like myself.