From au's post: Bush said, "I understand how hard our troops are working. I know how brave the men and women who wear the uniform are. ... I understand what long deployments mean to wives and husbands and mothers and fathers, particularly as we come into a holiday season. I understand. And I have made it abundantly clear how tough it is.
How can Bush or anybody with any ethics believe what this SOB says about our troops? He's been cutting benefits to our veterants, many are walking our streets with mental illness and homeless, and when they are able to get any help, they are required to pay higher copay for their healthcare/drugs. Bush is a sick sociopath.
He also seems to be stuck on the words "I understand". He goes out of his way to tell us he understands over and over. I doubt he understands which way is up.
au1929 wrote:Would you believe:What the hell is he on?
Quote:Bush says he's 'disappointed by pace of success' in Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Thursday he is "disappointed by the pace of success" in Iraq but stopped short of admitting the United States had made any mistakes in strategy.
...
Translation:
Bush believes his strategy will work! He believes progress is too slow. He believes the slow progress problem is not due to his strategy, but is due to the implementation of his strategy.
I believe the problem is with Bush's strategy: It's not implementable. I advocate the classic war strategy that has worked for the USA in the past. That strategy is implementable.
I think Bush is on the same stuff his opposition is on. They think the problem is too few troops, absence of a deadline, impossible to solve, solvable by negotiations, solvable by replacing Bush, or solvable by leaving Iraq.
Published on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Veterans Battle on the Home Front
by Maile Melkonian
EVEN AS President Bush sends American soldiers into Iraq, he is cutting their benefits.
Two Californians -- Pfc. Karina Lau, 20, of Livingston, and Staff Sgt. Paul A. Velazquez, 29, from San Diego -- died last week when their Chinook helicopter was shot down over Fallujah, Iraq. Fourteen others perished with them. I wonder if the 20 injured soldiers who survived the crash know their veteran's benefits are being torpedoed by the same folks who put them in harm's way.
A system that once provided health care for those who served their country is now reneging on that promise. The president has refused a congressional request for $275 million in emergency funds to cover the Veterans Administration health-care shortfall last year. Remember, that was the year Bush got an extra $50 billion for his so-called war on terrorism.
The man has no shame. But he "UNDERSTANDS"
ci
In reality the idiot is the American electorate that put him in office for a second time.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
au, Just maybe, most Americans are finally waking up to the reality of what they have done by Bush's reelection - if recent polls are any indication. All Americans and many around the world are paying a high price for "our" mistake. We created a monster who thinks he's a king/royalty who thinks he can do no wrong.
It doesn't help the cause when you lie to yourself.
Quote:Panel: U.S. Underreported Iraq Violence
By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; 8:31 PM
WASHINGTON -- U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.
In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture.
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.
"The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report said.
A request for Pentagon comment on the report's assertions was not immediately answered.
Some U.S. analysts have complained for months that the Pentagon's reports to Congress on conditions in Iraq have undercounted the violent episodes. Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq watcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a November report that the Pentagon omits many low-level incidents and types of civil violence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120601325_pf.html
Re: Friedman urges fixed pullout date
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Friedman Finally Urges Fixed Date for U.S. Pullout
Tom Friedman
By E&P Staff
Published: December 07, 2006
...
"As long as we're in Iraq, Iraq implodes, and we absorb a lot of the pain. The minute we leave, Iraq explodes -- or at least no one can be sure it won't -- and that is a real threat to the Iraqi factions and neighbors. Even facing that reality might not knock enough sense into them to compromise, but at least then they'll have their medieval religious war without us.
"Only that threat will give us leverage."
Alas, there is a third choice in addition to stay and continue to "implode" or leave and begin to "explode."
Over the next ten years, that third choice will result in fewer total violent Iraqi deaths.
Destroy the neigborhoods and border areas wherever the deliberate killers of non-killers are found.
So far, failure to make that choice in Iraq has permitted its accelerating violent death rate.
Re: Friedman urges fixed pullout date
ican711nm wrote:BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Friedman Finally Urges Fixed Date for U.S. Pullout
Tom Friedman
By E&P Staff
Published: December 07, 2006
...
"As long as we're in Iraq, Iraq implodes, and we absorb a lot of the pain. The minute we leave, Iraq explodes -- or at least no one can be sure it won't -- and that is a real threat to the Iraqi factions and neighbors. Even facing that reality might not knock enough sense into them to compromise, but at least then they'll have their medieval religious war without us.
"Only that threat will give us leverage."
Alas, there is a third choice in addition to stay and continue to "implode" or leave and begin to "explode."
Over the next ten years, that third choice will result in fewer total violent Iraqi deaths.
Destroy the neigborhoods and border areas wherever the deliberate killers of non-killers are found.
So far, failure to make that choice in Iraq has permitted its accelerating violent death rate.
And the complete destruction of large swathes of Iraq - for that is exactly what you are proposing - that won't lead to death, disease, starvation, homelessness, joblessness, and other problems which encourage people to deseperate acts such as terrorism?
Right
Cycloptichorn
Re: Friedman urges fixed pullout date
Cycloptichorn wrote:
...
ican711nm wrote:
Alas, there is a third choice in addition to stay and continue to "implode" or leave and begin to "explode."
Over the next ten years, that third choice will result in fewer total violent Iraqi deaths.
Destroy the neigborhoods and border areas wherever the deliberate killers of non-killers are found.
So far, failure to make that choice in Iraq has permitted its accelerating violent death rate.
And the complete destruction of large swathes of Iraq - for that is exactly what you are proposing - that won't lead to death, disease, starvation, homelessness, joblessness, and other problems which encourage people to deseperate acts such as terrorism?
Right
Cycloptichorn
Wrong!
I said
neighboroods and border areas, not "large swathes of Iraq".
After only a few such distruction events, the Iraqis will turn on the dkonks (i.e., deliberate killers of non-killers) themselves.
What the USA is currently doing--and not doing--is what is currently permitting dkonks to cause large swathes of death, disease, starvation, homelessness, joblessness, and other problems which encourage people to desperate acts such as terrorism.
If the US were to leave prematurely, that will permit dkonks to cause much larger swathes of death, disease, starvation, homelessness, joblessness, and other problems which encourage people to desperate acts such as terrorism.
Whille standing away and observing the Iraqis "explode" may be more acceptable to you, it is disgusting, and unconscionable to me.
Quote:
I said neighboroods and border areas, not "large swathes of Iraq".
A neighborhood, comprising of several square miles in which thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of people live, constitutes a 'large swath' of Iraq.
Once we destroy the houses and homes of thousands of people, and their places of employment, schools, etc., where are these people going to go? If the terrorists - who blend in with the regular population for the most part - go with them, how is the situation improved at all? Will these displaced people actually believe that helping those who just blew up their families' home is the right thing to do?
You are proposing a very very dangerous gamble, one which could backfire completely. And you are working off of a very poor track record of displaying an understanding of emotions and motivations of the Iraqi people, so perhaps you should take the time to examine your proposal for the side-effects before declaring it the path to victory in Iraq.
Cycloptichorn
ican711nm wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
I said neighboroods and border areas, not "large swathes of Iraq".
A neighborhood, comprising of several square miles in which thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of people live, constitutes a 'large swath' of Iraq.
My how you like to exaggerate when that seems to support your argument. A neigborhood in the sense I know it, is at most a square city block--less than 100,000 square feet. We should depend on covert methods to learn/discover the locations of the dkonks.
...
And you are working off of a very poor track record of displaying an understanding of emotions and motivations of the Iraqi people, so perhaps you should take the time to examine your proposal for the side-effects before declaring it the path to victory in Iraq.
My track record is marred by the misguided belief that the Bush administration would employ this strategy by June of 2006. The side effects of this strategy are already known and docuented several times in the history of the 20th century (e.g., Germany, Japan -- pretty good huh?)
Cycloptichorn
By the way, I forgot how much my track record is marred by my prediction the Republicans would gain seats in both Houses in the last Congressional election. But that has nothing to do with the side effects you worry about in Iraq.
Oh yes! What about the probable side effects of what you advocate--whatever the hell that is!
Oh, I advocate the US leaving Iraq. Immediately.
But I know in my heart that we won't.
Your position is to gamble that destroying thousands of innocent lives will lead to less innocent lives lost in the long run. I think this is a poor gamble, and your record at predicting odds is just as poor.
World War 2 - Japan and Germany - are not comprable to the current situation, as much as you would like them to be, for two reasons -
First, they (JG) attacked the US (allied forces). There population knew that they were paying the price for losing the war. There exists no parallel to that situation in Iraq.
Second, we have reached the moral and ethical point in our society where we no longer consider it okay to kill large groups of civilians in order to get a small group of bad guys. So what you propose is the same thing as losing.
The effects of what we do in Iraq will last far longer than the lives of any individual insurgent or terrorist. You would be well advised to start taking this into consideration before making pronouncements that we should end the lives of Iraqis.
BTW, neighborhoods are much larger than a single city block. I realize it may be different in your small town, but in larger cities they can go on for some distance. Sadr City for example; you are advocating destroying pretty much the entire thing, and that's several square miles.
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn
au1929 wrote:ci
In reality the idiot is the American electorate that put him in office for a second time.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
I agree. The American public is #1 to blame.
Portland Paper Backs GOP Senator's Call for Iraq Shift
Portland Paper Backs GOP Senator's Call for Dramatic Iraq Shift
By E&P Staff
Published: December 09, 2006 12:20 PM ET updated Saturday
As the national debate over Iraq, in the media and in Washington, continues in the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, a Republican U.S. Senator from Oregon has joined the fray in an unexpected way. Today, the largest newspaper in his stated backed his stand in an editorial.
"It is a moment when the president must acknowledge what is obvious even to his former supporters in the U.S. Senate," the editorial concludes. "It is time to reset American policy in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.
"There is more virtue in admitting a mistake than there is in repeating it, over and over."
In a major speech in Congress on Thursday night, Sen. Gordon Smith called the current sitution surrounding the U.S. war effort "absurd," perhaps even "criminal" and called for rapid pullouts. He added that he would have never voted for the conflict if he had reason to believe the intelligence the president gave the American people was inaccurate.
Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and more than 2900 Americans deaths -- and saying he needed to "speak from the heart" -- Smith said, "I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. So either we clear and hold and build or let's go home."
Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican defeated in November, cited Smith's speech in suggesting that support for the war is crumbling. Smith's statement "is political dynamite," Chafee asserted.
Smith had said the U.S. military's "tactics have failed" and he "cannot support that anymore....We have paid a price in blood and treasure that is beyond calculation" for a war waged due to bad intelligence....I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently that we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."
Today, The Oregonian in Portland backed his turnaround in an editorial. Excerpts follow.
*
While Smith used blunt language -- "let's cut and run, or cut and walk, or let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have" -- his remarks didn't signal as abrupt a break as it might have appeared.
He acknowledged Thursday that he had voted to allow the president to invade, that he had hoped U.S. forces would find secret caches of weapons of mass destruction, that he was thrilled by the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein and was heartened by the way Iraqis turned out to vote three times in national elections.
But after he visited Oregon National Guard troops near Kirkuk in March last year, he said, "We can be a counterproductive force for Iraqi democracy if we are there longer than is necessary. My own hunch is somewhere between 18 months to two years, the American presence in Iraq will be much reduced."
It's been 18 months and the presence hasn't been reduced at all. Nor is a functional central government much closer to asserting itself. Nor is the Iraqi economy any stronger. Nor are U.S. troops dying any less frequently. And more Iraqis are being killed each month than ever.
As a partial explanation for why he chose to speak now, Smith harked back to his visit to the Kirkuk region. He said one soldier told him: "Senator, don't tell me you support the troops and not our mission." That, the senator said, gave him pause.
But 18 months later, with billions of dollars flushed away, thousands more bodies under the ground and no end in sight, the senator's pause is over.
His comments strengthen his hand in advance of his 2008 re-election campaign. They would seem to place him closer to the position of voters who kicked his party out of power last month and certainly closer to the sentiments of most of blue-state Oregon.
But personal political calculations aside, the timing of Smith's remarks helped to increase the pressure on President Bush to break with his policies of the last 18 months. The election results, the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary in favor of a man who says America is not winning in Iraq and the arrival of the Iraq Study Group report make this a propitious moment in our political history.
It is a moment when the president must acknowledge what is obvious even to his former supporters in the U.S. Senate. It is time to reset American policy in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.
There is more virtue in admitting a mistake than there is in repeating it, over and over.
