No surge protectors here
From the Washington Post:
"Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam."
"Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam."
Well duh! I've been saying that for a year.
Yet it is nice to see a prominent politician finally come out and say it .. and say that even the major players in the Bush administration--including Cheney--have concluded that Situation Iraq is FUBAR.
Well, Biden *has* thrown his hat into the presidential ring .. he needs all the TV face time he can get. Never forget that they're pols first and foremost.
Anyway .. now there shouldn't be much suspense about what President Bush will say in his much-delayed speech on the war....
So far, Bush has fired all crew members on the Titanic who told him there's an iceberg directly in front of the starboard bow .. so that tells us a little bit about the folks he has just hired and fired.
No, nobody should be surprised if Bush ignores the thumpin' that voters gave him in the mid-term election. And, no matter how much he rearranges the deck chairs, it's obvious that he knows there's no way to win militarily, and is just trying to hang on and somehow contain the situation until he can throw the Iraq hot potato to the next administration. Don't think so? Well, just wait until the newly retired generals start to talk.
Regardless, Bush is not pulling out and the human costs will escalate along with the war. More US kids are going to die for his ego and his legacy. He's like a drunken surgeon, who is losing a patient and keeps asking for more scalpels.
And, you know, the one voice that you never hear in the mainstream media is the voice of the Iraqi people. Over 70% of whom think the US should not be there .. they believe that the US military's presence causes more conflict than it helps avoid.
This is just the biggest mess in US history. The invasion of Iraq did NOT make us safer at home .. in fact we are much more vulnerable today to terrorist attacks than we were on 20 March 2003. This administration has transformed Al Quaeda from a rag-tag group of extremists on the outskirts of the Arab world into an ideology that is sweeping the entire Middle East like wildfire.
If only we could stop pouring more fuel on this wildfire .. part of the fuel is hatred for the American military being on their land. We shouldn't pour more servicemen and servicewomen into Iraq .. it's not the answer, it only feeds the flames.
Even Poppy Bush knew better than to diddle around in Iraq .. knew that the removal of Saddam Hussein would result in the escalation and continuation of the 1,400 year old family feud between the Shia and the Sunni and destabilize the entire Middle East.
We will never "win" in Iraq because Iraqis are never Iraqis first .. they are Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds first, Iraqis second. They value tribal loyalty above state loyalty.
No matter how much I whinge and moan, the war is not really a partisan issue for me. I feel no Democratic schadenfreude for the bloody predicament that the president, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other neo-con warmongers have gotten my beloved country into. I am sick about it.
I just wish we had an honorable way out of it. And don't throw Iran at me .. looks like Israel might take care of that...
"Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper said.
Citing what it said were several Israeli military sources, the paper said two Israeli air force squadrons had been training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear "bunker busters".[..]
