Re: NYT Editorials- Bush and the future of the war

Ralph Nader has come out for impeachment. I think I'll vote for Nader
this year.



On Apr 13, 7:26 am, McSweegan is INSANE
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Subject: NYT- Bush and the future of the war

Date: Apr 13, 2008 7:20 AM

TIMES EDITORIAL BELOW ABOUT THE FUTURE OF IRAQ.
========================

You people need to remember that Richard Perle taught George W. Bush
all he knows
about the history of the world and the state of world affairs as of
the year 2000.
Perle admitted that Bush was his student in the Delusional School of
American Grandiosity
vs Emerging Monsters.  This hysteria/flattery conditioning happened to
work well
with Cheney... as the Director of the CFR.
Rockefeller flatters Kissinger.
Rockefeller flatters Cheney.
The NeoCons flatter W.
"Oh, ***, you da man!"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnpN07J_zg&feature=related

No one has ever asked George W. Bush what he envisions when he says he
thinks history
will look favorably upon him, and that he therefore does not care
about polls.

What is that future vision, George?
What scary thing might have happened if the Amazing George W. Bush had
not arrived
on the scene to rescue the world?

- - -
And Frank Rich and our apathy?   The torture psychology was applied to
us - we were
never heard in 8 years, and that's particularly true due to the
airheaded, brainless,
wimpy media.  The Democrats inadvertently played along, suffocating
us, smothering
what was left of civil concern among us, so that (in the Dems' view)
there would
be enough outrage against this administration so as to assure a
Democrat in the
White House in 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13rich.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Now apathy is the dominant national disease, ahead of Lyme, drug and
alcohol abuse...

Since all these things happened and are true, and the media lags
behind national
sentient sentiment by about 3 years, let me tell you where we, the
Watchers, now
are:
1) What's next with NAFTA, since they lost Iraq and did not get the
oil in time
to postpone our economic collapse?
2) Who will retaliate and in what way if we attack Iran?
3) What exactly is going on with our currency, TODAY?
4) Is there going to be a replacement for Spitzer as regards
investigating who has
what money offshore and did they acquire it in an illegal way?  We
know for a fact
some of these criminals belong or run the Council on Foreign Relations
and they
have exempted themselves from investigation by the IMF since they
happen to run
the IMF.  The only thing we can do about their assets is prove their
gains ill-gotten,
which we can do with the Lyme RICO complaint:http://www.actionlyme.org/USDOJ_COMPLAINT_RICO.htm
There is more data on my homepage.

You'll (as in, some general "you," the imaginary staff of some *real*
media, or some background, imaginary, justice/FBI department that we
haven't
heard about yet... you-know-like-some-fantasy White Knights...) have
to find some
very very smart scientific investigators, though.  I guarantee none of
these very
smart investigators will be in receipt of a dot guv paycheck, since
that's
the other national epidemic; the acquire retardation of government
employment.

That's where we are, we among us who predicted this bomb-worshipping
Shock and
Awe war and the recession before Bush was not elected the first time:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.diseases.lyme/browse_thread/th...http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.diseases.lyme/browse_frm/threa...

You want to throw blame around?  It *does* go around to everyone.
Where was the AMA?
Where was the APA?
The entire DHHS?
Where was the print/e-media?
Where was television news?
Where was the DOJ/FBI?
The Governors?
Where were the Democrats?  Where was Ted Kennedy?  Where was Chris
Dodd?
NONE OF THEM did what they're paid to do: tell us the truth and expose
the lies
behind these wars, and prosecute them for the crimes that they are.

So, the national mood is we're sick of hearing about the war.
That was soooo 2005.

Kathleen M. Dickson
- - - -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13sun1.html?hp

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

April 13, 2008
Editorial
All the Time He Needs

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.

*

General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad,
did not try
to hide any of that in their Stay-the-Course 2008 Tour. There were the
obligatory
claims of military and political progress, but with a lot less
specificity than
during Stay-the-Course 2007. Mr. Crocker did not even bother to bring
charts assessing
Iraqi performance on political benchmarks. General Petraeus's charts
showed that
American troop numbers would come down to around 140,000 this summer --
but showed
nothing beyond that.

When members of Congress pressed him to explain what would have to
change on the
ground for him to agree to further withdrawals, the general did not
have an answer.
He certainly is not getting any pressure from the White House to come
up with one.
As they say in the military, Mr. Bush is a short-timer, so why should
he worry?

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.

It is clear that Mr. Bush has no intention of coming up with an exit
strategy, but
even now there are things he could be doing to give his successor a
better shot
at containing the chaos after American troops leave.

Press for Real Political Reforms The surge was supposed to give Iraqi
politicians
breathing room to make necessary political reforms. They still have
not agreed on
a law to equitably divide the country's oil wealth, or rules for this
fall's provincial
elections.

The performances in Washington last week merely confirmed what the
Iraqis knew:
the president is just playing out his string. Mr. Bush might have more
luck telling
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki the truth: if the Democrats win in
November,
the days of enabling will certainly be over, and that is likely to
happen even if
the Republicans hold the White House. If they know the Americans will
not be there
to guarantee their survival, Iraq's leaders might be more open to
compromise.

Make the Iraqis Pick Up the Check Even some of the war's most
enthusiastic G.O.P.
backers on Capitol Hill are joining the Democrats to demand that the
Iraqis start
paying for military training and the fuel bill for American soldiers.
We suspect
that has a lot to do with voters' fury over high gasoline prices, the
mortgage crisis
and the lagging economy.

The Iraqi government is estimated to keep $27 billion in reserves in
its central
bank, $30 billion more in American banks and tens of billions of
dollars elsewhere.
If they have to pick up more of the check, Iraqi leaders may be more
eager to focus
on political reform and improved military training.

Really Talk to the Neighbors Mr. Bush announced that he is dispatching
senior American
diplomats to the region to urge Arab states to do more to help Iraq,
starting with
reopening their embassies in Baghdad. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice will also
attend a conference of neighboring states and another aid-pledging
meeting.

The problem goes far beyond embassies and aid. Foreign fighters are
not the war's
main driver but they are a lethal problem. And once American troops
withdraw, the
temptation to meddle -- by Iran and Syria but also by Turkey and Saudi
Arabia -- will
be immense.

All these countries need to understand that chaos in Iraq is a threat
to everyone,
and there is no guarantee that it will not spill over Iraq's borders.
More bullying
and bluster from the president is not likely to get that message
across. Nor are
canned speeches at conferences. Mr. Bush needs to send his top
officials for serious
one-on-one discussions with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran
and Syria.

Refugees There are now an estimated 2.4 million Iraqi refugees --
mostly in Syria
and Jordan -- and 2.7 million more Iraqis displaced within their own
country. The
United States bears direct responsibility, and it needs to do a lot
more to help
these people survive and find safe refuge, back in Iraq or in other
countries. It
also needs to -- humbly and urgently -- ask its allies in Europe, Asia
and the region
for help.

Beyond the intolerable human suffering, huge flows of refugees could
spread Iraq's
conflict far beyond its own borders. This is not a problem that can
continue to
be ignored.

An Honest Assessment of Iraq's Army This White House has been spinning
on Iraq for
so long that we suppose we should thank Mr. Maliki for his recent
reality check:
his decision to send Iraqi forces into Basra to oust militias loyal to
the radical
cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

It was not a pretty sight. One thousand Iraqi soldiers and police
officers refused
to fight or deserted their posts. The battle ended with no winner and
only after
the Iranians helped broker a cease-fire. President Bush and General
Petraeus owe
the country a rigorous and honest assessment of the American training
program, starting
with what went wrong in Basra. What needs to be changed now to
increase the chances
that the Iraqi Army will eventually be able to fight its own battles?
How long,
realistically, will it take for that to happen?

*

Mr. Bush's capacity for denial is limitless. Perhaps he believes that
the next president
will continue this misadventure without any end in mind, let alone in
sight. Even
then he owes it to his successor to use his remaining nine months in
office to try
to address Iraq's myriad problems. That will not excuse Mr. Bush's
serial failures.
But it may increase the chances for the inevitable withdrawal to be as
orderly as
possible.

Mr. Bush has all the time he needs, but Iraq's suffering civilians do
not, and neither
do its masses of refugees, the bloodied and strained United States
armed forces,
or the American public.

Home

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