Surge--Slurge

Everyone seems to be leaving the party. Is it time to go home?. Tom Friedman proposes that the date of Dec. 1, 2007 be set for leaving. Put the price of gas at $3.50/gal and see what happens. The gas price obviously is to hasten our efforts to find alternate energy sources. The Iraqis have had ample opportunity to get thing in better shape. It doesn't seem to be happening. Would our leaving be the needed stimulus or would the ensuing blood bath be intolerable, to us, to the world?????
Nothing seems to go right for the Administration. Walter Reed Hospital!!!!!! Support the troops, until they get shot up and become a liability!!!!!! The answer of course is the same all the time. "We never anticipated this scenario". What did they anticipate from a bloody war??? How wrong from stem to stern could anything be???
Now with the jury deliberating "Scooter" Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice trial it has become patently obvious that V.P, Cheney is really the culprit in the whole mess. Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, "Hubris" has accurately portrayed just about everything that has happened from early on to present. There have been more books published about this fiasco than one can readily read, or care to. I've read my share of them and have not been disabused of my strong aversion to Bush and his crowd from before he was first elected.
It is going to be a long presidential campaign and it is quickly becoming not so pretty. At this point I don't have a strong feeling for any of the candidates. It will be interesting to see if the "Unity '08" movement gains traction. The internet may prove to be a very potent tool. The idea to have a bipartisan ticket is different.
As I feel is the case in most things, it is more a qualitative than a quantitative difference.
It is uncomfortable to see the legislature thrashing about attempting to control the "Decider" who probably will defeat any means to control him. We will just have to wait out the next two years. McCain is starting to make interesting comments about the way things have been mishandled and how Rumsfeld and Cheney have ill served the President. From across the seas, where Cheney is hiding from the Libby trial,he fires salvos of vituperation at all his critics and insists he's still a top dog. More like "dog in the manger". The Bush administration's notion of diplomacy is to monotonously intone the mantra "all options are on the table". Incredibly, the N.Korean talks have the appearance of actual negotiations. Multilateralism has lost its stigma.
Wouldn't it be fun if Libby gets convicted and decides to rat the whole crowd out to mitigate his situation. He may have been assured already that come what may he will be pardoned just to keep him quiet.
Enough cynicism for now, keep tuned all you out there that wait breathlessly for my next pronouncements.

So the Colts finally did it. Good for them, they worked hard at it. Just wait till next time tho, the Pats will shake their teeth.
I recently composed a satiric letter to the Editor thinking it was just an exercise.
This actually got published.

Dear editor

We surely should count our blessings. In today’s chaotic world we have the world’s most intelligent leader. George W. Bush alone knows more about everything than most of the other world leaders. He’s more knowledgeable than our current legislators, both Democrat and Republican. Recently several CEO’s of giant U.S. corporations recognized global warming to be detrimental to their company’s best interests and are lobbying Congress to control emissions. Governors of several states are likewise promulgating policies of conservation and pollution control.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence that U.S. citizens demand cessation of our part in the Iraq Civil War the U.S. President knows in his heart that his opposition to all the above is a “principled” position and as long as his wife and dog are at his side he will stand firm in his superior intelligence and stay the course.
Our good fortune in having so astute a leader makes us the envy of the civilized world. Ha!

Even my mailman left a note thanking me for the article. Of course sympathetic friends do too. The non-sympathetic friends don't.

Beside the Iraq mess we hear of the unravelling of the leak case. Scooter is in the frying pan but it seems clearer all the time that Cheney and Rove are the real culprits. Can't imagine how this will play out. You can bet that bush will renege on his statement that "leakers will be removed from the White House".
He's a fish out of water now, what would happen if his handlers were expelled?

The headline today said the troops in Bagdad felt the "surge" would do no good.
The opposition, of whatever stripe, will simply melt out of gun range for the interim
and return at a more propitious time to resume the Civil War. It doesn's seem to matter when we deploy, soon or late the result will be the same for them. The difference will be many more Americans victims of IEDs and other causes. While the legislatures plays word games the poor kids in the battles are being sacrificed.

McNamara wrote his mea culpa book about the Viet Nam War. Don't hold your breath waiting for Rumsfeld to confess all his sins. The last few years has seen the proliferation of books detailing the severe failings of this administration right from its start. It is excruciating to realize that months will go by without anything happening to bring the troops home. An important reason they should be brought home is to give them a rest before the next big browhaha. The Islamic jihad is not a short term phenomena. It will fester and break out in many places before it dies out, if it ever does. Sort of like fire in a peat bog. If the consequences of Bush's ill conceived adventure ever dawn on him he may do himself harm.

Showdown

The SOTU speech received the usual partisan responses. What could the Pres say under the circumstances? He acknowledged the takeover of the House and Senate by mentioning issues that are agreeable to both Dems and Reps. Then he launched into his defense of the decision to send additional troop to Iraq. In all the rebutals the theme was the unreliability of the Iraqis to show up. Benchmarks are supposed to measure if the Iraqis are living up to our expectations.

After four years of fighting the Pres is still talking about the need to train Iraqi troops to lead the fight against the insurgents. The "surge" is supposed to give the Iraqi government breathing room to do what it was supposed to do in the first place.
Sending our troops in first to see if the Iraqis will "step up" is dumb to begin with. How about the Iraqis showing up in sufficient numbers first, and then bolster their forces to tip the scale if necessary?

Those against the escalation argue that it has little chance of working and if it does where does that leave us? Our presence at this time is ludicrous because it puts us on one side of a civil war. We can't be an impartial referee when we have the aim of bolstering the Shia dominated government. We make demands on this ineffective body as if it could implement them while at the same time claiming that the government is sovereign.

We have been sold a bill of goods concerning the "failure" in Iraq. All sorts of dire consequences are predicted if we withdraw from the civil war. Agreed there are dire times ahead, but this is so regardless of our withdrawal. General involvelment of neighboring countries such as Iran and Syria is already a fact. So, they will continue to exert influence but not cause a conflagration worse then is occuring now.

Finally, the Pres keeps insisting on victory. There is no victory such as he envisions short of exterminating everyone he doesn't like. That is not likely. However if the Shia dominated Iraqi government is consolidated it is most likely to ally with Iran. Then where are we? Bush has opened a can of worms that is beyond recall. 9/11 was a much greater coup for Bin Laden than he could ever have imagined. Bush has played into his hand at every turn and Bin is taking all the tricks. There is a lot to be said for staying in a cave. Now if we could find one for Bush.

What the hell, even the Patriots lost an important game.

 

Viewing Bryce Canyon- 2005

 

Super Bowls and Surges

The Patriots did it again. They pulled out another win on the way to a SuperBowl game. It has been very exciting to follow this team as they muddled their way thru this season. When it comes to "playoff time" they seem to rise to the occasion and defy all odds.

Speaking of defying odds, the "Current Occupant", as Garrison Keiler calls Bush, once again has exhibited his inimitable stubborness and decided Iraq needs one more "surge". After three plus years of under manning the troops and leading us into a seemingly bottomless quagmaire, his deliberations with his "Selected" confreres has allowed him to conclude that perhaps more troops, especially in Bagdad, would turn the trick and bring a democratic government into being in Iraq. This time he is again depending on the Iraqis to show up. Their past perfomance leads me to be very skeptical of this scenario. Bush seems to have a simplistic notion that an election, then a government formation, equals democracy and democratic government. That does not appear to be happening in Iraq. The present Prime Minister, a Shiite, beholden in office to the support of a renegade cleric, alSadr, who controls a formidable Shiite militia, seems more intent on eliminating as many Sunnis as possible rather than establishing a "unity" government.
Bush claims suppression of violence will buy the time necessary for the formation of that "unity"government. I suspect also that Bush is moving in this direction to cover his ass when things don't work as predicted so that he can say it"ain't my fault, the Iraqis failed to do their part".

In a candid interview Bush gave for "60 Minutes" he exhibited very clearly his blind belief in his position. When asked if he were stuborn, he paused and replied "I am very flexible". When asked how he reacted to the families of killed soldiers he was very pensive but replied that he felt the sacrifice of those lives was very noble. Asked if he felt the war was a mistake replied "definitely not" and that the Iraqi people owe a great debt of gratitude to the Americans for liberating their country. Bill O'Reilly has a psychologist analyze the body language of various people. I wish someone would do that on Bush. His logic is so out of sync with reality that I suspect he has a deep personality disorder. It has%2