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Here’s how things work for us, because of the way the human animal is built: we remember best what happened last. We respond most strongly to whatever happened most recently.
Politicians know this, and use it to their advantage. King George’s current Iraq strategy is this: keep telling us that the new strategy is working, and keep that up for the next year until he’s safely out of office. At that point, while people will say that yeah, sure, maybe we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, the greatest blame for any subsequent failure in Iraq will go to the new administration, and probably the other party. If a Democrat gets into the White House and finally pulls the troops out and Iraq falls apart, well, then it’s their fault. If the next President instead decides to tough it out in hopes that something can be salvaged from the debacle, then it’s their fault that American troops are still dying in an endless quagmire ten years later.
Not George Bush’s fault. Oh, no.
We’re seeing the Big Push for this strategy right now, with General Petraeus’s testimony before Congress. Yes, the surge is working, he insists, and the Dems -- being the poll-frightened rabbits that they are -- will probably not fight him on that appraisal despite several reports about how the military is carefully picking and choosing and changing the stats they cite and spinning this well beyond the reality on the ground. Hey, according the NPR’s Morning Edition story on statistics a few days back, a top Iraqi military officer estimated (in February 2004) that there were 15,000 some-odd insurgents on the ground in Iraq; yet in 2005, the American military claimed to have killed or captured over 15,000 insurgents. Someone’s wrong... Nor does it matter that 70% of Iraqis (who have to live in the midst of the conflict believe that things are worse, not better. Hey, that massive truck bombing in the Kurd territory that killed 250 - 500 Yezidis a month ago? -- well, that wasn’t ‘sectarian violence’ by the military’s estimation because it was one Kurdish group fighting another, so it’s not counted in the stats that show that sectarian violence is down. US Ambassador Crocker says in an interview that “A secure, stable and democratic Iraq is attainable,” a statement that contains the unspoken subtext and if it’s not achieved, then it’s because you didn’t support our efforts. That’s a Crock(er), indeed.
The surge is working, and “a premature draw-down of our forces would likely have devastating consequences,” says the General. Take that, Democrats. Pull out the troops and it’s your fault. Not George Bush’s.
Look, I'll give General Petraeus the benefit of the doubt. From appearance, at least, he seems to genuinely believe what he's saying. Maybe we finally have someone in charge -- far too many years too late -- who actually has an understanding of the situation and a strategy that might actually result in some progress, if we're willing to keep troops there for the foreseeable future to prop up a government that -- if we leave -- will fall apart. That's more years of troops dying. That's more years of the military being caught up in Iraq which will affect our ability to respond to other crises elsewhere. That's more years of trying something in hopes that it will work, with no guarantee that it will. That's more years of 'progress' but not ever reaching the end of the task.
And King George will be gone when the ultimate decision must be made.
The sad thing is that the mess is going be blamed on the people who are forced to deal with it, not the person who made it.
Politicians know this, and use it to their advantage. King George’s current Iraq strategy is this: keep telling us that the new strategy is working, and keep that up for the next year until he’s safely out of office. At that point, while people will say that yeah, sure, maybe we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, the greatest blame for any subsequent failure in Iraq will go to the new administration, and probably the other party. If a Democrat gets into the White House and finally pulls the troops out and Iraq falls apart, well, then it’s their fault. If the next President instead decides to tough it out in hopes that something can be salvaged from the debacle, then it’s their fault that American troops are still dying in an endless quagmire ten years later.
Not George Bush’s fault. Oh, no.
We’re seeing the Big Push for this strategy right now, with General Petraeus’s testimony before Congress. Yes, the surge is working, he insists, and the Dems -- being the poll-frightened rabbits that they are -- will probably not fight him on that appraisal despite several reports about how the military is carefully picking and choosing and changing the stats they cite and spinning this well beyond the reality on the ground. Hey, according the NPR’s Morning Edition story on statistics a few days back, a top Iraqi military officer estimated (in February 2004) that there were 15,000 some-odd insurgents on the ground in Iraq; yet in 2005, the American military claimed to have killed or captured over 15,000 insurgents. Someone’s wrong... Nor does it matter that 70% of Iraqis (who have to live in the midst of the conflict believe that things are worse, not better. Hey, that massive truck bombing in the Kurd territory that killed 250 - 500 Yezidis a month ago? -- well, that wasn’t ‘sectarian violence’ by the military’s estimation because it was one Kurdish group fighting another, so it’s not counted in the stats that show that sectarian violence is down. US Ambassador Crocker says in an interview that “A secure, stable and democratic Iraq is attainable,” a statement that contains the unspoken subtext and if it’s not achieved, then it’s because you didn’t support our efforts. That’s a Crock(er), indeed.
The surge is working, and “a premature draw-down of our forces would likely have devastating consequences,” says the General. Take that, Democrats. Pull out the troops and it’s your fault. Not George Bush’s.
Look, I'll give General Petraeus the benefit of the doubt. From appearance, at least, he seems to genuinely believe what he's saying. Maybe we finally have someone in charge -- far too many years too late -- who actually has an understanding of the situation and a strategy that might actually result in some progress, if we're willing to keep troops there for the foreseeable future to prop up a government that -- if we leave -- will fall apart. That's more years of troops dying. That's more years of the military being caught up in Iraq which will affect our ability to respond to other crises elsewhere. That's more years of trying something in hopes that it will work, with no guarantee that it will. That's more years of 'progress' but not ever reaching the end of the task.
And King George will be gone when the ultimate decision must be made.
The sad thing is that the mess is going be blamed on the people who are forced to deal with it, not the person who made it.
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From:
no subject
realize how much of what is good about this country is being eroded away, in the right direction. Whatever that may be, I need to be doing it.