Acting Next-Presidential
George Bush gets to leave the mess for the next Oval Office-er. From a NYT editorial:
President Bush said last week that he told his Iraq war commander, Gen. David Petraeus, that "he'll have all the time he needs." We know what that means. It means that the general, like the Iraqi government, should feel no pressure to figure a way out of this disastrous war. It means that even after 20,000 troops come home there will be nearly 140,000 American troops still fighting there -- with no plan for further withdrawals and no plan for leading them to victory.It means, as we've always suspected, that Mr. Bush's only real strategy for Iraq has been to hand the mess off to his successor. Mr. Bush gave himself all the time he needs to walk away from one of the biggest strategic failures in American history.
...Whoever wins the presidency will not have the same luxury. He or she will have to start quickly planning for an orderly withdrawal. Even Senator John McCain will have to realize that America's forces cannot sustain this pace for much longer. Earlier this month, The Times reported that repeated battlefield tours have so debilitated American troops that Army leaders fear for their mental health. Last week, Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, warned Congress that the demand for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan "exceeds the sustainable supply."
Mr. Bush cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12, but the Pentagon said that will not relieve the strains on troops and their families or allow the United States to send the reinforcements it desperately needs to Afghanistan.
The faltering American economy also cannot afford this never-ending war. Mr. Bush's description of his latest emergency spending request as a "reasonable $108 billion" proves just how out of touch he is with fiscal reality. His attempt to justify the overall $600 billion cost so far by comparing his war to the cold war and the need to stop "Soviet expansion" shows that he is even more out of touch with strategic reality.
We believe that the fight against Al Qaeda is the central battle for this generation, but Mr. Bush's claim that Iraq is the main front is wrong. That is Afghanistan, and the United States is in real danger of losing because Mr. Bush's failed adventure in Iraq is eating up the Pentagon's resources and attention.
Oh yeah, and while you're at it, how about making the Iraqis pick up some of the check for this? This is welfare, but welfare for an entire state, and we've seen how well that works out on a small scale for self-determination.
. . .and no plan for leading them to victory.
I like that, no plan for victory.
Given we were victorious in . . .
invading Iraq,
overthrowing Saddam,
finding Saddam,
trying Saddam,
killing Saddam,
killing Saddams kids,
securing the oil ministry,
securing half a dozen citys,
transfering control of those cities to Iraq,
re-securing said cities after Iraq let them fall to local warlords,
securing the country long enough for elections(even though ballots didnt have names and there was no campaigning),
procuring arms for Iraqi police(even though they sold those weapons on the black market),
Just how many times do we need to re-define and re-attain victory for it to be good enough for the assholes who did everything in their power to avoid military service and have no fucking clue what life in the military is like?!?!
lujlp at April 13, 2008 1:08 AM
lujlp - if you keep moving the goalposts, your opponent can never win the game.
That's the Democrats long-term strategy to regain power.
It isn't working. Obama and Hillary are going down in flames. Flames of their own causing, no less.
brian at April 13, 2008 6:09 AM
I have a friend who's a civilian interpreter with the Marine corps in Iraq. He's Palestinian, and was quite anti-American when I first met him. He isn't any more.
He has many stories. My favorite is this one. While listening to an Iraqi man be polite to a Marine officer, while saying nasty things in Arabic, my my friend could stand it no longer. He asked the Iraqi why the Kurds took US money and built a successful commercial culture, even attracting tourism dollars in the midst of the war, yet the Arabs couldn't even feed themselves. That silenced the Iraqi.
Cultures are not equal in their ability to provide for their people, or even to reason effectively. Iraq is messed up because Arabs are messed up. They have a degenerate and unworkable social culture that is incompatible with modern life. I highly recommend The Arab Mind for more discussion.
Still, Bush has not well prosecuted the war. I'm still unsure about nation-building, its prudence and even its possibility. A nation is not a state.
Jeff at April 13, 2008 6:32 AM
brian it was the bush administration that kept 'moving the goal posts' not the democrats.
lujlp at April 13, 2008 7:04 AM
lujlp - right. I must have missed all those administration members writing for the New York Times. And when did Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton join the administration?
I think your mind is clouded by your hatred of GWB. What are you going to do with all that hate once he leaves office next January? Direct it at McCain? Certainly you can't use the "chickenhawk!" argument against him.
Although the Democrats have accomplished at least one thing in the last eight years. There will never be a war in which America finds herself embroiled that will outlast a President's remaining time in office. It has now become unconscionable that a war might take more than eight years to complete.
After all, the American Public demands that their war be tied up in a nice bow. You know how TV audiences hate cliffhangers.
brian at April 13, 2008 7:21 AM
So, George and his buddies don't want us out of Iraq until "victory" is achieved. But, they won't, or can't, define what "victory" will entail.
My polite term for the Bush, Cheney crowd is "cranially insphinterated."
Jay R at April 13, 2008 8:34 AM
Jay - unless you've been living under a rock, the definition has always been there.
Victory is a stable, democratic, and secular Iraq. Bush has said so on many occasions. You choose not to listen is all.
You may not believe that such a thing is possible, and it's a fool's errand to try.
Bush doesn't believe that. He believes it IS possible. Furthermore, he believes, as do many of us, that "stability in the middle east" as the most desirable diplomatic goal in the universe is what got us 9/11 in the first place.
Because "stability in the middle east" is what allowed them to remain insulated and living in their little bubble of 7th century Earth while the rest of us have moved on. And, like so many insular societies, once they realized that they were an anachronism they determined that the proper solution was to destroy everyone else, because it was obvious to them that they weren't the ones who were out of touch.
It is not Bush and Cheney who have their heads stuck in a dark, moist place. It is the lifers at State and the pushers of Realpolitik who have, for 50 years, treated the "leaders" of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, et. al. as though they were respectable brokers of power acting on behalf of the good of the people.
The post-2001 Bush policy of smacking the middle east hasn't been as aggressive as some of us would like. Personally, I think we should have told the Saudis to go piss up a rope. But because of some black liquid that they happened upon by accident of birth, we have to at least pretend to treat them like human beings.
brian at April 13, 2008 8:51 AM
> ...Whoever wins the presidency
> will not have the same luxury.
> He or she will have to start
> quickly planning for an orderly
> withdrawal
Says who? That's not analysis, that's a prayer. Saying it doesn't make it so
Crid at April 13, 2008 10:41 AM
Father knows best:
" * Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome."
o A World Transformed (1998) by George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft; also as an excerpt in Time Magazine in 1998.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 14, 2008 10:31 AM
Can anyone seriously trust anything the NY Times editorial board has to say concerning Bush and Iraq war? They are blinded by seething hatred of Bush and the war and their bias clouds their vision. Instead of listening to these NY Times journalist in sitting in their air conditioned offices in New York take the word of journalist actually working in Iraq on the front lines. He says we are winning the war! But you won't get that point of view from the haters at the NY Times.
Read Michael Yon who is actually in Iraq and get the truth first hand from a guy who is reporting from Iraq.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120787343563306609.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Brett at April 15, 2008 7:46 PM
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