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In another example of how Republicans continually drive -- and dominate -- the political narrative in Washington, the current discussion in advance of tonight's Oval Office address on Iraq is whether President Obama should acknowledge that George W. Bush's troop surge worked.
Here's John Boehner in remarks he'll deliver later today: “Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results… [T]oday, we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated, but progress.”
And here's John McCain in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: "Though most Democrats still cannot bear to admit it, the war in Iraq is ending successfully because the surge worked... It would be nice if President Obama could finally find it in himself to give his predecessor the credit he deserves."
What's striking, though, is how this argument focuses only on what happened from 2007 to 2009, not what happened from 2002 to 2006. As Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence argues, "The issue isn't who supported or opposed the surge. It's who supported or opposed the war in the first place." (Both Boehner and McCain voted to authorize the war against Iraq.)
Lawrence adds, "There are also, of course, the huge issues raised by the way we ran this war once we were in it: the dearth of planning and regional awareness, the massive level of incompetence... Home-schooled 20-somethings with no accounting background chosen to manage Iraq's $13-billion budget. A 24-year-old with no finance experience tasked with re-opening Iraq's stock exchange. Incompetents worrying about smoking prevention while Baghdad burned. Experts pushed out in favor of people whose main qualifications were that they opposed abortion and had voted for Bush. Please, never again."
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There is more than ample HARD evidence that bush, cheney, rove, rumsfeld, bolton, and many others in the big-oil friendly bush cabal, conspired to knowingly LIE through their teeth about the mythical WMD's. They exploited the tragedy of 9-11 to Judas Goat our citizenry into supporting this ILLEGAL WAR! You will read neocon posts here about all the politicians, on each side of the isle, who said this or that about the supposed threats of Saddam, but, the FACTS remain very clear -- if you actually understand what happened: bush is a mass-murderer, a high treasonous war-criminal, as well as an AWOL coward. Bush's only motivation was to appease big-oil, no matter what it took to achieve that lowely goal. Cheney, another clearly big-oil corrupted 5-time coward himself, espoused that the, "war would be paid for by oil revenues". Well, guess what? The 2-trillion it is costing, comes with some strange strings attached -- we (taxpayers) need now to pay back China for the loans, and still get stiffed at the gas pumps. The corporate-corrupted, two-faced, "moral" GOP hawks, want to talk "surge", as if all the prior lies, the bush-conspiracy, didn't exist, and will try to celebrate and memorialize the loss of all those 4,500 young American lives was, FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but to serve eltitists' greedy aspirations. bush, and the entire cabal of GOP elitist SCUM he represented, belong on trial at the Hague. Ask a still respected Colin Powell why he left the CRIMINAL bush-bunch, and why he literally eviserated McCain's agenda.
I think your post says it all. I remember when Powell did that presentation before the UN, and when it came out that the "evidence" was cooked and aerial photos were plaguerized and misrepresented, I knew, I KNEW we were being lied to 100%. But the swallow it whole crowd couldn't see it any other way. When they complain about taxes, I remind them that they wanted that war, and now they can pay for it.
Cheney and his World Bank cronies were writing the Afghanistan Hydrocarbon and Minerals Laws, in
ENGLISH, in November, 2001, while Americans were still reeling from the WTC 9/11 'New Pearl Harbor'
of Cheney's PNAC saboteurs, Cheney was happily planning the transfer of all of Afghanistan wealth,
now revealed a TRILLION dollars, which the Taliban advised Cheney and his Energy Policy Committee
Big Oil members in a Houston meeting in 1997, while Bush was Texas Governor with his full approval!
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a120497texasvisit 'Kenny Boy' Lay of Enron fame
was one of Bush and Cheney's best buddies! The Taliban maintained a NYC office to continue meets
with Bush and Cheney State department representatives right up until August, 2001, BEFORE 9/11,
when Cheney's rep told the Taliban, 'Either accept our carpet of gold (for the Afghan mineral wealth),
or we will bury you in a carpet of bombs!' Cheney declared war on the Taliban in August, and had
ALREADY MADE PLANS FOR THE INVASION AND NOTIFIED INDIA AND PAKISTAN, BEFORE 9/11.
Afghanistan Hydrocarbon and Minerals Laws Cheney and his cronies wrote have ZERO environmental
protections, and an easily corrupted Inspectorate, like Cheney's corrupted M&MS that brought US the
Gulf oil blowout. Any small royalties were to be pipelined right into our Shah of Afghanistan's account,
so his US-trained and financed ANA/ANP national Gestapo could keep their jackboots firmly on the
throats of Afghan resistance fighters allied against the Globalist Resource Extractors intend on turning
Afghanistan into a cratered moonscape narcostate, ...and isn't that allegedly what we went in to stop?
We have been told White is Black and War is Peace, and now we are $13 TRILLION deadbusted broke.
http://cursor.org/stories/emptyspace.html
http://www.AfghanistanPetroleum.com
http://www.SmokeSellers.com
The '07 troop surge is came after the increasing of the killed number of troops through 2006 and 2007 so it is natural with this bad results and bad expecting
Republicans are stealthily spreading the Big Lie in the wake of the End of Phase 1 of the Global War of Grift,
claiming the Democrats will institute 'Four Huge Waves of Taxes' (sic), as though Republicans are free to
create $13 TRILIION DOLLAR DEFICIT, with $1.45 TRILLION A YEAR in debt service, ALL BORROWED, then
rewrite the tax laws to grift themselves ZERO capital gains and ZERO estate taxes, as they have publicly
stated is their intent after November, in effect, PUTTING THE BURDEN OF THEIR WAR PROFITEERING AND
BANK GAMBLING BAILOUTS DEBT ONTO THE BACKS OF AMERICAS WORKING PEOPLE, WHILE THEY BANK
THEIR WAR PROFITS AND BAILOUT MONEY ENTIRELY TAX FREE!!! There will be a Fifth Wave though.
Fifth Wave: Reduce Defense spending by -30% as G. H.W. Bush commanded his new SecDef Cheney.
Cheney ignored the command, sabotaging GHWBush by creating PNAC pushing for a 'New Pearl Harbor'
attack (it says it right in the PNAC charter) to 'alert the American people' to the 'threat' of Islamic Jihad'.
Of course, Cheney continued to do business with 'Islamic Jihad', right up until the bombs fell on Baghdad,
his own company HAL-KBR was still frantically trying to obtain monopoly oil service contracts with Saddam!!
$300 BILLION savings by reducing 'Defense' back to where it was before GW2, now that the 'war is over',
is only reasonable, and eliminating the $155 BILLION a year in 'emergency funding' for Afghanistan after
drawdown next summer, means THERE WON'T BE ANY NEW TAXES, WE'LL HAVE FINALLY STRANGLED THE
MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-USURIST VAMPIRE SQUID WHICH HAD WRAPPED ITS FEEDING TUBE ON OUR REPUBLIC.
THE TRAITORS WHO PROFITED, THEN MADE PLANS TO ELIMINATE THEIR OWN TAX BURDEN, ARE EXPOSED!!
LIVE FREE OR DIE! DEFENSE BEYOND OUR BORDERS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
Petraeus worked!
We got Petraeus because the war going nowhere during the election campaign in 2009.
During that campaign, Pres. Bush agreed with an Iraqi pullout timeline.
Pres. Bush agreed with a timeline because our current Pres. Obama brought up and campaigned for a pullout timeline.
Thank You Pres. Obama for forcing Pres. Bush take a suggestion and run with it.
We definitely have to thank Pres. Bush getting it right as his swan song.
The GOP just keeps harping on old garbage like "the surge" and Ronald Reagan. It's almost impossible for most Americans to remember what the hell the "surge" was and who gives a rat's patooty about Ronald Reagan. That was eons ago. The GOP really has nothing to offer Americans and we know what suffering we are enduring thanks to Bush/CHeney and the GOP of eight years. God forbid Americans forget.
The way I look at the surge is that it demonstrated how inept the original war strategy was and how long, and how many deaths, it took to figure out the correct strategy...for a war that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
But Republicans want the nation to credit Bush for saving the sofa even though he burned down the house.
I don't get it.
This whole goddamn war was so vast a mistake it's incalculable. All that happen was to take down the only thing the kept Iran in check. We, in Bush's stupidity, put down Iran's only real enemy, lost almost 5,000 dead, and and I don't know how many hundred of thousands wounded, not to mention the billions of dollars lost and stolen. Unless we eventually go to war with Iran our war with Iraq will never be viewed in a positive way.
Debate over whether the "surge" worked is akin to arguing over whether an "all ahead" order by the Captain of the Titanic was appropriate. They both would produce the same effect: hastening the inevitable.
Without a strong (tyrannical or not) leader in Iraq (i.e. Hussein), there could be only one beneficiary: Iran. Failure to realize this by Bush/Cheney is so incredible that it is difficult not to calculate that they either: 1. Planned to maintain a U.S. combat troop presence in Iraq indefinitely or 2. did not care if Iran benefited or 3. wanted Iran to become dominant in Iraq.
In any case, this Iraq war should not have happened. It is one of the darkest spots in the history of our nation. That some still defend this abomination speaks volumes about their thought processes. May the souls and the families of those who lost their lives in this folly find comfort in the truth that they did their duty against the most terrible circumstances. We honor them for their sacrifice.
Ian, that's exactly right. If there's one thing American foreign policy has been consistently bad at over time that would be looking at the consequences of our actions and responding appropriately. And that's been true of Democrats and Republicans for decades.
That doesn't mean the Bush Administration doesn't get dinged for this one. You broke it you own it.
Hello America, should America pull out or not? hummmm well a very good question, since we are already there, should we leave just when things seem, seem to be improving? on the one hand we have """""""""""""" Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum, Let him who desires peace prepare for war. :- Vegetius ............."""""""""""""""""""""" and then on the other hand we have """"""""""" The sinews of war are infinite money. :- Cicero ..................."""""""""""""""" but the truth probably lies some where in between, """""""""""" If a man does not know to what port he is sailing no wind is favorable. :- Senneca ................."""""""""""""""" and in reality the whole matter should be decided considering the type of people in the Whitehouse and present administration """"""""""""""""""" Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent council at home. :- Cicero .........""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'...... of which the United States has very little at present, so until we get a new commander in chief, it may be best to at least have just helping forces stationed in Iraq, and lastly """""""""""""""" To those that flee comes niether power nor glory. :- Homer ......"""""""""""""""................, sincerely Fezzy Bear
Lynchmob: THANK YOU for saying what NONE of the brain-dead Liberals nor ANY of our Socialist Media EVER mention or are willing to discuss or are willing to examine for themselves!
I have a friend in Idaho who insists that "no one ver heard of Iraq's WMD program(S) until Bush brought it up?
I was NEVER in favor of us going in to either Iraq war... but I am always in favor of "cleaning house, if and when we go to war with anyone.
Gulf War I: Nothing more than the "largest military Maneuver in all of U.S. History... a giant practive session with over 675,000 troops... with NO intention of staying... just getting in and getting out.
Gulf War II: Since we were going in to "occupy" why did we ONLY have one third or 180,000 troops?
It is never discussed... but the numbers always seemed backwards to me?