DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Xavier_Onassis on January 16, 2007, 04:15:11 PM
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Yes, you could say mistakes have been made
By CARL HIAASEN
President Bush's prime-time TV appearance on Wednesday night was way more than a speech. It was a séance.
The man was plainly in a deep trance, channeling Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Give us more, more, more, the president kept saying, and we'll fix this mess.
More soldiers. More money. More time.
It's what is best for the country, Bush recited somberly -- our national security is at stake.
Good morning, Vietnam!
The president didn't mention that nasty ''conflict'' by name, but he didn't need to. You remember the old script -- just scratch out ''communists'' and pencil in ``terrorists.''
Bush has been well-coached by the ghosts of LBJ and Tricky Dick to stoke fear, invoke patriotism and selectively skirt the facts. It helps, of course, to be in a delusional fog.
When the president said, for example, that Anbar Province has become a hotbed for al Qaeda, he didn't point out that al Qaeda was nowhere to be found in Iraq before the U.S. invasion.
By his own pig-headed blundering, he created a new home for the terrorists, and therefore we must stay and fight to the bitter end. It's vintage Vietnam-era logic, from a guy who never got within 9,000 miles of Saigon during the war.
Here's what happened in Iraq while Bush and his speechwriters rehearsed, communing with the spirits of dead presidents: Scores of Iraqi civilians were murdered, and the total of U.S. military casualties rose to 3,008. By the time you read this, it probably will be higher.
The Pentagon hasn't released the name of the most recent fatality, a soldier from the 13th Sustainment Command, who was blown up by an improvised bomb near Fallujah.
Borrowing a guilt-inducing line from Johnson and Nixon, Bush said that pulling out of Iraq would be a disservice to all the troops who've given their lives there.
Get us out
Only victory, the president declared, will do honor to our fallen heroes.
Victory, like truth, is a fluid concept in this administration. Attacking Iraq was one of the most vaingloriously stupid decisions in the history of U.S. foreign policy, and Bush desperately wants to salvage for himself a legacy other than that of bungler-in-chief.
A huge majority of Americans, including many in his own party, want the president to commence getting us out of Iraq -- not sinking us deeper.
The nation has turned against the war out of concern for the very troops whose valor and sacrifices Bush is using as a justification to send more. Our young men and women are dying at the rate of more than 100 a month with no end in sight, and it's nothing but patriotic to ask: For what?
Nearly four years after bombing Iraq, the president has finally gagged down his pride and said mistakes have been made.
Gee, you think? We bombed and occupied a neutral country because Bush claimed it had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be a line of crap.
Now we're mired in the middle of a bloody civil war that's costing about $100 billion a year, which is sweet for the vice president's pals at Halliburton but not so good for the deficit.
Blasted to pieces
Meanwhile, our troops are getting blasted to pieces by folks they were sent to liberate.
Yeah, you could say mistakes have been made.
Yet Bush still insists that victory lies within our grasp. All he needs is 21,500 live bodies . . . for now.
Hardly anyone believes the shaky Iraqi government will be able to stop the sectarian slaughters and stabilize Baghdad anytime soon. Even after the president's speech, seven of 10 Americans oppose expanding our forces there, according to an Associated Press poll.
Bush will send the soldiers, anyway, Congress will howl, and the flag-draped coffins will keep arriving.
Top generals who opposed the troop surge have been replaced by others who are more inclined to say what Bush wants to hear. And when he's not listening to his posse of cheerleaders -- led by Dick Cheney and Condi Rice -- he's evidently listening to the ghosts of those who botched Vietnam.
Dispirited exhaustion
''Peace with honor,'' was Nixon's mantra, though he was gone from the White House by the time U.S. troops made their chaotic exit from Saigon. Bush will be out of office, too, chopping wood down in Texas when the last American soldier leaves Baghdad.
Who knows when that will happen. The Vietnam War ended in dispirited exhaustion, and so will Iraq. There's no quick and bloodless way out.
This time, though, the deeds of those men and women who served will not be diminished by the outcome. The same cannot be said of Bush's standing in history.
To the end, he'll insist that he was right and everyone else was wrong, because that's the dreamy, disconnected nature of his trance.
And he will never snap out of it.
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I like Hiaasens books, but i did not know Nixon increased troop strength in Viet Nam, as carl claims.
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I will tell Carl the next time I see him.
He is one of my favorite novelists as well.
Some of his strangest characters are merely exaggerations of real-life South Florida loons.
I think the actual number of troops in Vietnam peaked during Johnson's term, but Nixon did send extra soldiers in for the Cambodian "incursion".
As I recall, this did not prove to be successful in the long run. Nor did the still unrevealed "Secret Plan" for "Peace with Honor".
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Olbermann said it all, and he said it much better. I think one of the liberals' problems is that they issue ringing denunciations and sit back pleased as punch with themselves.
It's a complete waste of time, IMHO, to continue to screech at Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest of those lying bastards. These clowns are so thoroughly disgraced by now by the facts which can no longer be spun or denied that further opprobrium heaped upon them is really just flogging a dead horse. Any fair-minded, reasaonably sane and intelligent human being has already taken their measure, and their remaining constituency is so mired in its prejudices and irrationality, not to mention their psychiatrically pathological needs that drove them to embrace militarism and fascism in the first place, that there is nothing that can ever turn them against their perceived "saviours."
IMHO, the rage and the eloquence of the liberal commentators should really be turned upon the Democratic Party, the big talkers and small performers, the ones who "oppose" the war but will continue to fund it because "their" troops are "in harm's way" - - as if pulling the plug on the funding that KEEPS them in harm's way is somehow contributing to the harm they might suffer. It's the logic of refusing to throw a rope to haul out a guy drowning in a sewer because they don't want to extricate him while he's "in harm's way." Go figure. A message has to be sent loud and clear to the Democrats that if they can't differentiate themselves in any meaningful way from the War Party, their supporters of 2006 will be sitting home on Election Day in 2008.
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IMHO, the rage and the eloquence of the liberal commentators should really be turned upon the Democratic Party, the big talkers and small performers, the ones who "oppose" the war but will continue to fund it because "their" troops are "in harm's way" - - as if pulling the plug on the funding that KEEPS them in harm's way is somehow contributing to the harm they might suffer. It's the logic of refusing to throw a rope to haul out a guy drowning in a sewer because they don't want to extricate him while he's "in harm's way." Go figure. A message has to be sent loud and clear to the Democrats that if they can't differentiate themselves in any meaningful way from the War Party, their supporters of 2006 will be sitting home on Election Day in 2008.
Yes Yes! Snit filled pouting is absolutely the best way to solve problems.
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The reason to heap scorn on Junioirbush and Cheney is because they are still in control. They are the ones makinf the mistakes. Congress will have a difficult time cutting the Army out of the budget. They will retire an aircraft carrier and continue pissing money away in Iraq. Vietnam was a humiliating defeat BECAUSE it took so long for them to get out.
The pressure that will effect change is the pressure people put on Juniorbush and his henchmen.
It's not like Canada, where you can call for a vote and throw the PM out tomorrow, lamentably.
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Yes Yes! Snit filled pouting is absolutely the best way to solve problems.
So true. I mean, it's not like there aren't other wars that went perfectly as planned. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure some of the folks on the left side of the aisle can name a bunch of them, right off the top of their heads. I mean, Bush should have been able to gaze into his crystal ball and forsee every possible thing that could go wrong, and have a pre-arranged plan to prevent every one of those things. I mean, that's accomplished in war, all the time, right?
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Congress will have a difficult time cutting the Army out of the budget.
All they have to do is repeal the "Authorization for the use of military force against Iraq."
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<<Yes Yes! Snit filled pouting is absolutely the best way to solve problems.>>
No, no, voting in a meaningless election between pro-war and fake anti-war candidates is the best way to solve problems.
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No, no, voting in a meaningless election between pro-war and fake anti-war candidates is the best way to solve problems.
No vote, no input. Try to keep that in mind.
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<<No vote, no input. Try to keep that in mind.>>
You're right. In that case, the Democrats should all vote Green.
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You're right. In that case, the Democrats should all vote Green.
The Greens will apppreciate it.
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<<So true. I mean, it's not like there aren't other wars that went perfectly as planned. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure some of the folks on the left side of the aisle can name a bunch of them, right off the top of their heads. >>
Mistakes are usually made at the beginnings of any war. But.
Maybe you'd like to name a war that's been as badly fucked up as this one after almost four years of fighting.
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The reason to avoid all wars which are not the actual result of this country actually being attacked (and remember Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, and this war would never have happened without 9-11 and everybody knows that) is that they are always huge screw-ups. This one was a bigger screw-up than most because the president was incompetent, the VP was a cheerleader, the Secretary of State (Powell) was ignored, and the Secretary of War (hard to call Rummy a Sec. of Defense) was one of the biggest egotistical maniacs to ever come down the pike.
And then there were all the Neocons.
Once they say that G. Bernard Shaw was at a dinner, and the lady next to him inadvertently let fly a humongous fart. Then she began scraping the legs of her chair on the floor, as if to indicate that it was a permissible chair noise rather than a socially inacceptable noise of flatulence. Supposedly Shaw turned to her and said "Ma'am, we all heard what you did, and understand that it was not poetry: therefore it is not necessary to find a rhyme for it."
George W Juniorbush has wasted most of his time trying to find a rhyme for the Vietnam War. And that is the problem.
Perhaps had he gone to Vietnam, he could have demonstrated either his bravery or his incompetence and given the Ultimate Sacrifice, and there would have been no second Iraq War.
I do doubt that Juniorbush's presence in the war would ave made much difference. But as an aviator, he stood a good chance of being a hero. The only American heroes in Vietnam seemed to have been the captured pilots.
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Mistakes are usually made at the beginnings of any war. But.
But....Actually mistakes are made thru-out nearly every war.
Maybe you'd like to name a war that's been as badly fucked up as this one after almost four years of fighting.
I'm no history major on wars, but given the current military casualty count on this one after 4 years, compared to other wars after far less time, kinda blows your assumption right out of the water, of how f'd up this one supposedly is compared to other wars. If Someone with more knowledge of war wishes to pipe in, that may shed some light on your complete lack of objectivity
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<<So true. I mean, it's not like there aren't other wars that went perfectly as planned. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure some of the folks on the left side of the aisle can name a bunch of them, right off the top of their heads. >>
Mistakes are usually made at the beginnings of any war. But.
Maybe you'd like to name a war that's been as badly fucked up as this one after almost four years of fighting.
Revolutionary War
Nip and tuck the whole time.
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In the Revolutionary War, we had a home-court advantage.
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In the Revolutionary War, we had a home-court advantage.
And that has what to do with the tea in China?
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And that has what to do with the tea in China?
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Duh.
Perhaps the fact that in Iraq we do NOT have any such home-court advantage?
You need a visit from Obviousman.
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And that has what to do with the tea in China?
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Duh.
Perhaps the fact that in Iraq we do NOT have any such home-court advantage?
You need a visit from Obviousman.
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Pay attention Sirs , XO points out tha during the Revolution , even though we had a home court advantage , it was nip and tuck the whole time.
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<<I'm no history major on wars, but given the current military casualty count on this one after 4 years, compared to other wars after far less time, kinda blows your assumption right out of the water, of how f'd up this one supposedly is compared to other wars. >>
So the 100,000 to 600,000 civilian casualty count couldn't possibly indicate anything was fucked up? The inability of a country of 300 million people with the most advanced military technology in the world to subdue a country of only 23 to 27 million people after almost FOUR YEARS of fighting (the U.S. entered WWII in Dec. 1941 and finished it in August 1945) doesn't indicate anything was fucked up? 100,000 of the very people you were supposed to "liberate" (if anyone but you still believes that outrageous bullshit) and possibly 600,000 of them have been killed in the "liberation" process doesn't indicate anything has been fucked up?
You're a pretty tolerant guy, sirs. If I had to work for a boss, I'd love to work for a guy like you. Especially if I were an incompetent schmuck.
<<If Someone with more knowledge of war wishes to pipe in, that may shed some light on your complete lack of objectivity>>
That's hilarious. In other words, you don't know jackshit about what's being discussed, but you're convinced anyway that my comments about it are totally unobjective.
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<<I'm no history major on wars, but given the current military casualty count on this one after 4 years, compared to other wars after far less time, kinda blows your assumption right out of the water, of how f'd up this one supposedly is compared to other wars. >>
So the 100,000 to 600,000 civilian casualty count couldn't possibly indicate anything was fucked up?
It means those civilian deaths, that are predominatly caused by insurgets & terrorists (read: NOT the american military), indicates that no war is perfect, only perfefectly planned.
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Revolutionary War
Nip and tuck the whole time.
Not really. There were some generally brilliant decisions made by some of our best field commanders (Benedict Arnold and Nathanael Greene for example) along with some horrible decisions made by Sir William Howe.
The most brilliant move was convincing the absolute monarch of France to aid a petty republican revolution as a spite against the British. That, more than anything, as well as the amazing work of creating a real army by Baron von Steuben saved the Revolution.
The problem in Iraq is that we have no understanding of how to handle sectarian violence. We are basically using the same techniques as the Israelis (I'd say British but Sirs has a hissy fit when I mention Northern Ireland), except that we don't have a supporting population at our backs. This isn't a situation where 20,000 more soldiers and more violence will prevail.
The flat truth (and one people hate to admit to) is that sometimes there actually are unwinnable wars. Vietnam was a great example. Iraq could very well be another.
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<<It means those civilian deaths, that are predominatly caused by insurgets & terrorists (read: NOT the american military), indicates that no war is perfect, only perfefectly planned. >>
Well, who was it that prevented the insurgent and terrorists from wreaking such havoc prior to the American invasion? And having destroyed that civil authority, what did the American invasion replace it with?
It's kind of like invading a zoo, killing all the zoo-keepers and opening all the cages and then arguing that it's not your fault any of the animals died, it was all the fault of those Goddamn wolves.
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<<It means those civilian deaths, that are predominatly caused by insurgets & terrorists (read: NOT the american military), indicates that no war is perfect, only perfefectly planned. >>
Well, who was it that prevented the insurgent and terrorists from wreaking such havoc prior to the American invasion?....It's kind of like invading a zoo, killing all the zoo-keepers and opening all the cages and then arguing that it's not your fault any of the animals died, it was all the fault of those Goddamn wolves.
So nice of you to be on record as calling the Iraqi civilians caged animals under Saddam