BUSH - & - IRAQ REDUX - [IRAN] - OR - I RECKON ON WRECKIN' IRAN TOO

IRAQ - IRAN, IRAN - IRAQ


WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?


THEY BOTH HAVE OIL!!!











March 20, 2003 we invaded Iraq. Baghdad "bagged" in 3 days, more or less. Close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead. God knows how many Iraqis killed since then - estimates are close to 200,000.

Now after all that, we have to face the Bush War Machine and still another "Pep-Talk" about the absolutely urgent need to "Surge-On". Never mind the Maliki government has all but disappeared [Sunnis officially have resigned in all meaningful capacity] as all six ministers from Iraq's largest Sunni bloc tendered their resignation from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led coalition government.

Enter the picture, General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Clark Crocker. Petraeus has recently been spouting off about the positive effects of the "surge" and the marked decrease in violence since its inception. Backing up Petraeus will be Ambassador Crocker. Bush met privately at the Pentagon on Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary Robert Gates with the intent of deciding how to proceed forward on Iraq.

"Petraeus did not participate in Friday's session,
but one senior U.S. official said the general, along with Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, probably would tell Bush and Congress in mid-September that the buildup had succeeded in making slow but sure progress on both the military and political fronts."
http://www.pr-inside.com/military-chiefs-tell-bush-of-concerns-r216267.htm

Offering an opposite analysis are Pentagon Generals Peter Pace[soon-to-retire Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]



and George William Casey, Jr. Chief of Staff of the Army. They have both weighed in on the undue strain being placed upon the Army from the 15-month tour of duties and the all too short 12 months leave before the next reassignment back to Iraq. In effect, they have argued that the Army simply cannot sustain such a level of troop deployment.

Now enter the White House and "All Bets Are Off". Brings to mind that popular movie a short time ago - "Sideways." That's the only way to characterize the Bush Administration - whenever they are confronted with reality or attacked head-on --- they just go "Sideways." Disassemble is a better way to put it but the effect is the same. Truth/Reality get squashed and propaganda rules the day.

To refer to another blog source on this point ---

Despite the common belief (and statements to that effect) that the September report on the progress of the "surge" in Iraq would be written by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker (U.S. Ambassador to Iraq), the report will actually be written by the White House, with input from various agencies. This was reported today in the Los Angeles Times, but it was buried deep within a story on the expected content of the report itself. In fact, it was nearly at the end of the story, rather than being front-and-center where it should be.

And finally, on the Keith Olbermann evening news show [Count Down-MSNBC] he asked MSNBC analyst General Wesley Clark his thoughts on the White House downplaying the meaningfulness of the Iraq benchmarks - benchmarks that Bush himself chose way back in May as a yardstick to measure U.S. progress in Iraq:

"Does that not make it difficult for the White House to argue now that this GAO report will not present a true picture of the situation in Iraq?" Olbermann asked MSNBC analyst General Wesley Clark

"Exactly right," replied Clark. "They should not be able to squirm out from underneath these standards. ... The American people are making a judgment every day as they see the results of the war. The benchmarks confirm that judgment, and this is a huge problem for the White House."

Well, by now, I think the reader is starting to get the picture. As the Bush Administration would put it - "don't confuse me with the facts, please!"

Come September 15 and the official Iraq Report [date now cited as September 11 or 12] - the "die is cast". No matter what the final official assessment --- or no matter which direction this administration will proceed on [withdrawal or "surge-on"] - INERTIA has set in. The end is already a foregone conclusion. The laws of Physics rule from here on in. The U.S. Army is Dog-Tired. They are War-Weary. They're not gonna be doing anything appreciably better --- their time in Iraq has come and gone. It is now up to a Political Settlement [LIKE THEY DID - FINALLY - IN IRELAND] - aka - "THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT"].

BUSH COMPARES IRAQ TO VIETNAM - THIS FROM A DRAFT DEFERMENT GUY!

WE CAN'T JUST "CUT & RUN!"


[OKAY, OKAY .... I DID IT MYSELF --- WAY BACK IN THE LATE '60's - BUT THAT WAS DIFFERENT - I HAD A COCAINE HABIT & BESIDES --- I HAD TO WORK ON MY DAD'S , FRIEND'S ELECTION CAMPAIGN - MAYBE THAT'S WHERE I STARTED SNORTING & TIPPING A FEW WHISKIES - FREELOADING ON PARTIES - PICKING UP BROADS, ETC., ETC., ETC.]

George, you're nothing but "Toe-Jam" as Rhea Perlman used to say as wasp-tongued waitress Carla Tortelli on "Cheers". You're just diseased and you infect everything you touch or handle. God what a monster your mother brought into the world. Speaking of Monsters, how is that old battle ax managing to stay upright these days - with those humongous, 1920 granny platform shoes. And, of course, her famous Katrina quote - those folks in the Super Dome never had it so good!

Comparing Vietnam to Iraq just puts the crowning touch on your "French Algiers" dilemma. Iraq is no Vietnam. Vietnam is certainly no Iraq.

Vietnam saw a regular, professional Army - the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong attacking the South. They did use proxies but the war was - from start to finish - a North Vietnam Regular Army Production.

Iraq, on the other hand, is just a pell-mell, free-for-all, open-ended Civil War, pitting religious tribe and/or ethnic group against religious tribe and/or ethnic group. Besides, these "feuds" are hundreds, if not, thousands of years old. Short of the reappearance of the Prophet Mohammad, Iraq is like a jar filled with several poisonous spiders. You get the picture.

Bush made his remarks in front of the safest of safe audiences - the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Before long, not even these folks will continue to provide him with a venue to spew forth his blather - aka - Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" (1973). Instead, he'll have to hunt down the "back-to-the-land" white Supremacists tribes in remote Idaho to continue his speechifying antics.

Major General Paul Eaton/Retired made his views on Bush's comparison of Iraq to Vietnam well known this past week.







Eaton: “My father’s name is engraved on the Viet Nam War Memorial. Killed in action after - missing in action for 38 years. I thought it was a bad idea to start going down this uh - this slink to Viet Nam during this speech. It was - it did not serve the country well, it does not serve the American fighting man and woman in Iraq well, and it certainly doesn’t serve the veterans well."

Even Republican Senator John Warner/Virginia - Secretary of the Navy under Nixon - said - of Bush's remarks on the Iraq/Vietnam comparison:

“I read it very carefully,” said Mr Warner. “I feel that there are no parallels, really. It’s a different type of situation.”

However you slice it or dice it, Mr. Bush is fast becoming what Joseph Stalin became just prior to his death. A doddering, disembodied, disconnected old ghost of a shadow. Mr. Bush needs to "Come to Jesus" like the good Christian he professes to be, fall down on his knees and ask the Good Lord for Forgiveness and Absolution.

Then have the decency to leave the White House [like Nixon] & fly back to Crawford, Texas and finally fix that damn white, paint-peeling shed we always see in the background! T for Texas - is now - T for "Toe-Jam".

KARL ROVE - aka MR. SLINKY - HEADS FOR THE EXITS

Bush apparatchik Karl [let me hurt you] Rove announced his intention to leave the White House at month's end. Obviously he and Tom Delay want to jump start Tom's Termite & Bug Business and aim it towards any and all Democrats. Or perhaps he'd like to devote the next few years - in private practice - to track down those 5 million e-mails that suddenly went missing from the RNC servers in the White House.

Whatever the real reason for Rove's departure the fact remains that he managed to single-handily destroy the Republican Party. What remains is not even a shadow of its former shell. What he did to the GOP was akin to what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans. That dream of GOP national hegemony was pounded to dust by the Rovemeister and his Monkey-Man in the White House.

Perhaps the fact that Senator Patrick Leahy's Senate Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena compelling Rove's attendance before that Committee to answer the allegations of White House complicity in the firing of 9 U.S. Attorneys lies at the root of Rove's quick trip back to private life. It seems that Rove was personally involved in the dismissal of New Mexico's U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Republican. Telephone records of conversations reveal that Rove made suggestions that efforts be undertaken to have him replaced when prosecutions against alleged Democratic voter fraud in that state were not forthcoming.

Rove's foot prints are also evident in the dismissal of Bud Cummins, U.S. Attorney in Arkansas who in turn was replaced by Tim Griffin, right hand man to Karl Rove. Griffin did not last long as a U.S. Attorney and resigned hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.

Karl Rove presided over two stolen Presidential elections [2000 + 2004] and countless smear campaigns against countless candidates. His most infamous exploit will no doubt be his public revelation of the identity of - at the time - covert CIA operative Valerie Plame during a telephone conversation with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003. While not mentioning Valerie Plame by "name, Rove did clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency" - an obvious reference Cooper interpreted to mean the "CIA." Rove also added that she was working on "WMD" - aka - Weapons of Mass Destruction. The conversation concluded with Rove stating "I've already said too much."

His short-term legacy will be his exploitation of the cultural divides within this country, pitting the conservative religious community against virtually everyone else. This was brought to full fruit in the 2004 Presidential election as Rove crowed that he was able to turn out millions of conservative evangelicals to re-elect George Bush to a second term. Using God, Gays, Guns & Abortion as the main ingredients in this diabolical concoction the hate monger in the West Wing did succeed at generating over 50+ million votes for Bush.

Unfortunately for Rove, the 2006 election showed just how short-lived this New GOP majority was. Like the Mississippi River - a mile wide but an inch deep. One thing is for sure, those 9-11 swing states that figured so prominently in the U.S. Attorney firings will be in play for the GOP in the 2008 Presidential campaign. Rove can direct this battle from the sidelines, hence his early departure in his quest for a 3rd Presidential Trophy. Only a massive Democratic turnout will quash any Republican machinations at election gimmicks and reinstall a Democratic president.