We’ve still got a year and a half to survive of it, but I came up with these potential little ditties as possible legacies for the principal players:
Dick Cheney:
He came, he saw, he conquered. And what he didn’t conquer, he shot in the face.
Donald Rumsfeld:
Sometimes you go to war with the Secretary of Defense you have, not with the one you wish you had (in which case, you wouldn’t have gone to war in the first place).
Paul Wolfowitz:
Only got the cost of the Iraq war to the American taxpayer off by half a trillion or so.
Condi Rice:
Should have stayed home the day George Bush was conducting job interviews.
George W. Bush
He led the nation in difficult times, he made the times in which he led more difficult.
Georgie, we knew ye much too well…
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When asked why Bin Laden is still at large after years of dogged pursuit, George Bush revealed that Osama is not out “leading any parades” or “feeding the poor”.
Oh, okay then. No wonder we haven’t found him yet. Thank goodness we have George Bush to tell us the obvious as if we were children.
Ahh, but Chastise Man is tired today. So we will simply refer to the transcript of the press conference here, and an interesting analysis of it here.
Have a nice day.
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george bush osama bin laden terrorism press conference white house war in iraq
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Well, apparently the democrats in Congress are, if you want to consider George Bush the Big Bad Wolf, though Dick Cheney is probably an even better fit.
No matter – same difference.
I could have sworn I heard a big sucking sound the other day, off to the east. I think it was the vacuum created when Democrats lost all political will and caved in on the war funding bill.
$100 billion dollars, supposedly to fund the war only through September, with no timetable or talk of troop withdrawal. Instead, “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government.
Sure, Bush would have vetoed another bill, but nobody said the job would be easy. Force the vetoes. Face the inevitable rhetoric that the right wing pundits and loyal Republicans would plaster all over the media. Perhaps come up with a good argument of you own. Show some guts, some willingness to put something besides you own political consequences at the forefront.
Instead the Democrats are left trying to explain why they suddenly caved in to Bush. Yeah, we’ll get some great sound bites from that, won’t we?
Let me think. Why is it that we voted the Democrats into office? Hmmm…
Ah, yes. To do something about George Bush and the Iraq war.
They’ve done a nice job so far in pursuing the will of the people, haven’t they?
If only these guys had any will of their own, ours might have a chance of representation.
Instead, there’s another $100 billion for Bush’s war with no end in sight.
This isn’t the job we elected them to do. If they thought that there wasn’t going to be a fight with Bush and his cronies, then they’re even weaker and dumber than many suspected all along.
WANTED:
Democratic congress with some backbone.
Job starts immediately.
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war in iraq george bush war funding congress democrats politics democratic congress
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I know I’ve been hitting it pretty hard lately about the war in Iraq. It seems hard not to.
Looking for a good bit of news on the war is a daunting task. One that, I am afraid, I have yet to find success.
Another phrase we hear repeatedly from the white house and loyal republicans is that we should allow the generals to run the war. Bush states he defers to the advice of his generals on the ground.
Really? Maybe as long as they agree with him in the first place.
I wasn’t looking for it, but I came across a very interesting essay by Colonel Douglas Macgregor.
Apparently – and not surprisingly – incompetent civilian leadership begets incompetent military leadership. Though Macgregor asserts that the problem is more systemic than merely a bungling president.
The full text of the essay is here.
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The stalemate continues between congress and the white house over funding for the Iraq war.
Diehard Republicans – most Republicans I guess – continue to sport the current one-liner that a timetable only tells the “enemy” when we surrender. No way to win a war, they say.
But who is the enemy? It isn’t the Iraqis, either Sunni or Shia is it? These are the people we came to liberate.
Then it’s Al Qaeda; a terrorist organization – or by now a militaristic philosophical movement something like Nazi Germany where nationalistic fanaticism is replaced with religious fanaticism.
The very nature of Al Qaeda means that they generally pursue the route of least resistance for access to Americans to kill and terrorize (with the notable exception of 9/11). It seems obvious that invading Iraq is only an invitation. And now it could be argued that 9/11 has served to bring the their enemy – the infidel American – to them through an ill-planned invasion and bungling occupation.
That Iraq would likely implode in violence from internal religious and tribal fundamentalism if we left, and if we stay our troops remain targets to Al Qaeda, means that we are stuck.
We can’t leave; and we shouldn’t stay.
Bush’s refusal to recognize, accept, and properly act on reality borders on the pathological.
We are told that we need to defer to the analysis and recommendations for the generals in the field. Yet if those generals disagree with the political agenda and spin from the Pentagon or White House, well, you’re fired.
Perhaps there was a window of opportunity to win over the general population. But now it seems as if every opportunity has been squandered through sheer arrogance and incompetence.
No credible plan has yet employed to effectively occupy Iraq. A situation the is plagued with incompetence and a fundamental failure to consider Iraqi culture and the consequences of unleashing the tribal tensions that Saddam had kept screwed down tight.
It is the Bush administration that has brought us to the situation we now face. A situation that Bush continually fails to address. A situation to which we should have never arrived in the first place.
It seems to me that the intention and desire of the current funding bills that either have been vetoed or will soon be vetoed is an attempt to deal with the realities of the current situation. A willingness to face a tough realization and decision.
Yet it remains a valid question: Is this any way to win a war?. The question, however, needs to be asked of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld (wherever he’s hiding right now).
And one, apparently, that Republicans should be asking themselves.
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