Iraq - 2007 and

Good evening. There was an expression from soldiers in Vietnam (but perhaps it goes back further given GI's tendancies to bitch about things) that went like this...
Here we are, the Unwilling led by the Incompetent to do the Impossible for the Ungrateful.
Unwilling? Yea, half of my squad were draftees, not volunteers like today.
But I do wonder, as we get into 2007-2008 what the enlistment rate and retention rate will be.
Incompetent? Most of the senior NCO's and officers were anything but incompetent. Those who were were shunted to some other position. The incompetentcy, or at best the blindness to reality, was closer to the top of the chain of command.
Impossible? We are told not to compare Iraq to Vietnam. But I can't figure out why we are being told that.
Ungrateful? If anyone likes us in Iraq, it is, in my mind, only because we are protecting their turf for the time being.

I hope Elliot Mendoza and all of the other troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and anywhere else they are rather than being at home have a safe weekend and a long life. -rjb-

2007 looks like it's gonna be a bloodbath beyond what we've seen so far. Bushie will send in tens of thousands of new troops against the overwhelming majority of Americans. 12 % support more troops. The Saudis are arming the Sunnis while maintining their Bush/Baker/Carlyle axis. Bushie and Malaki will bring back Saddam's Generals and the Pentagon is gearing up to take on Sadr big time. That's gonna be the justification for sending in more troops. But underneath all that is the PNAC blueprint for world domination. "Rebuilding America's Defenses" openly proclaimed their intention to invade Iraq whether Saddam was dead or alive and to establish American bases there. Iran and Syria will then be targeted. That's the battle plan the PNAC laid out like an American Mein Kampf. They openly said their plan was a hard sell and a new Pearl Harbor would help their cause greatly. Then despite an mountain of dire warnings Bushie had the nerve to tell us he felt "no sense of urgency" towards al qaida or bin Laden before 911. He topped that off by saying he "got lucky and hit the trifecta" on 911. From there he lied and twisted intelligence and the deceptions were led by PNACers like Cheney, Wolfie, Feith, and Rummy all who drew up the battle plan. They've been step by step extremely successful on carrying out their plan so far and I see nothing much gonna stop them from going forward. Especially if we let him send in more troops against the will of almost everyone. I suppose if Bushie wants to take on Iran so bad a good maneuvere at this time is to take sides in the civil war with the Sunnis against the Shiites as we always have in Iraq anyway. They've been killing our troops for sure but if Bushie takes on the Shiites in Iraq he probably could really use Saddam's old Sunni Generals. That's my take on 2007. Or maybe the world will come together and put Bushie and Blair on trial for crimes against humanity.

One can hope.

I think it's one thing to hope Bush and Blair will be charged with crimes against humanity, but the reality is that no country leader or "world court" is willing to risk the consequences. They are all in "fear" of king George.

"Three reasons to impeach"
A message from Ramsey Clark

Dear ImpeachBush member,

There are three reasons why it is imperative for the American people to demand that their elected representatives impeach President George W. Bush and the officials of his administration responsible for the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq now.

The first reason is that President Bush and his cabal have committed an impeachable offense, indeed, "the Supreme international crime," the war of aggression, for which they must be held accountable.

The integrity of constitutional government and the rule of law in the United States require We, the People, to assert our power, to assure accountability.

If George Bush were the most popular and honorable public figure in the country and the war in Iraq had been the most successful war in history, both militarily and in achieving peace and justice, impeachment would still be required, because criminal conduct of such deadly magnitude cannot be justified by any ends, however good the intentions and beneficial the results

The fact that President Bush is extremely unpopular and led us into war dishonorably by repeated and shifting proven deceptions reveals how impotent the American people have permitted themselves to become.

The second reason that impeachment is essential is that President Bush is still in office. The war in Iraq still rages. The illegal occupation of Iraq by 140,000 U.S. troops and a few others, remains a major cause and contributor of violence. The Iraq Study Group has found, "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating."

But George Bush, despite his crimes, remains, as he insists, the "decider." And he intends to compound his prior wrongful conduct. At the Pentagon, on December 13, 2006, Bush said "I've heard some ideas that would lead to defeat, and I reject those ideas, ideas such as leaving before the job is done... We're not going to give up." Speaking about the troops in Iraq he declared his "unshakable commitment" to his goals in Iraq. "We're going to give you the tools necessary to succeed, and a strategy to help you succeed... At the appropriate time, I will stand up in front of the nation and say, 'Here's where we're headed.'"

On December 16, 2006, the New York Times reported administration plans to send 20,000 or more additional soldiers to Iraq, a major "surge" in troop strength. More U.S. troops will cause greater violence, resentment and resistance.

President Bush acts outside the law, unilaterally, in defiance of the will of the American people and the world. He seeks to further dominate and exploit the earth and its people, to enrich the rich with the oil and other resources of the planet, while further impoverishing the poor at home and abroad. He ignores the international laws for peace, for fundamental human rights, the environment, health, to feed the hungry. He trashes basic protections of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, authorizing secret arrests and detention, torture. At his direction, the U.S. invades individual privacy and restrains free speech. And now, after several years of outrage over torture and illegal detention focusing on Guantanamo, the press reports as Christmas nears, that the U.S. will take an even harsher stand against detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. The crimes of the Bush Administration increase in reaction to intense criticism.

America is headed to even greater tragedy, more unbearable death and destruction, increased isolation of our country, more enemies, staggering costs and public debt, if the American people do not act now to remove President Bush and other officials responsible for these crimes.

Meanwhile, the Speaker elect of the new Congress to be in a major policy statement of plans for the "First Hundred Hours" of the Democratic Congress in which she will be backed by a majority of 33 votes from the November 2006 elections, which repudiated Bush's war in Iraq, never mentioned Iraq! What can be hoped for from such leadership?

Our government behaves toward its President more like a Monarch than an elected leader in a free and democratic society. George III received less deference.

It is up to the People: You and Me. Impeachment, or two years of even greater criminal aggression against human rights and more violent occupation in Iraq with all it bodes for the future. And where and what else?

The third reason for impeachment now is the most important. The tragedy of America's policies and crimes these past six years cannot be undone. These six years have been deadly enough. We can survive two more years of the misbegotten words and deeds of George W. Bush and his illusions of war and wealth. But our good people must recognize and reject the long term policies of militarism and exploitation of our government that have continued for generations now, and stop it.

George Bush's policies are basically the same as those of the dominant economic powers that have guided U.S. policy since at least World War II. George W. Bush, as an individual, may be more arrogant, lack caution, be less competent and more deceitful than his predecessors, but in the main all have pursued the same policies if with greater caution and more restraint.

We must impeach George Bush to inform future Presidents of the price they too will pay for provoking war: impeachment. Presidents to be will continue the same policies of militarism and exploitation and war that George W. Bush has celebrated so destructively, unless the American people say, "No More." We must promise future officials that they will be impeached, as required by the Constitution and the conscience of its people, if they violate their oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

We will place new ads in the New York Times and other newspapers in the coming weeks, and we will continue our mobilization efforts to get Congress to introduce articles of impeachment. We have been able to make great strides so far with the support of all those who believe in the impeachment movement. We need to raise $100,000 to place the new newspaper ads.

-- Ramsey Clark
December 18, 2006

cicerone, I think what the world fears more than Bushie is an America that refuses to reel him in.

I don't think the American People are up to the task to impeach George W Bush - now or ever. If the world court acts first, the American People might follow, but I still give it a 30 percent chance of that ever happening.

Here we go again with a half a$$ed solution to a big problem. What we should do is give Iraq 6 mo to get their act together and get out whether they have done so or not. If we are going to send in more troops then make it 2 or 3 hundred thousand instead of 30 thousand. Take down what private armies are there no matter what sect they belong too. And this is another vietnam with the same half measures that politicians don't really have the guts to address.

cicerone, "I don't think the American People are up to the task to impeach George W Bush:". And that despite despite his mass murder. Shock&Awe was one of the most cowardly military actions in history. America watched it live on tv. Many cheered. Things have gone downhill since. Over 650,000 dead.

That's what I mean; the Bush cabal does an excellent PR job to screw all the people. Most still hasn't caught on that Cheney's connection to Haliburton will make him filthy rich at the expense of our dead soldiers and innocent Iraqis.

Huh. on 9/11, millions of Muslims watched on TV and cheered. I would say that is the time things went downhill. Certainly far more cowardly.

Were you one cheering the events of 9/11 blueflame?

McG wrote: Were you one cheering the events of 9/11 blueflame?



This guy is about as twisted as George W Bush. Bush keeps saying "we support our troops," while he cuts funding for veteran's benefits. Hypocrites!

back it up or shut it up C.I.

Bush Budget Raises Drug Prices for Many Veterans
By ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE

Published: February 7, 2005



Doug Mills/The New York Times
Copies of the president's budget proposal were passed out on Capitol Hill on Monday.


WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 - President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.
The proposals, they said, are in the $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday. White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year.

"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here."

McG, Crawl back into your hole - where you belong.

Back to the topic of 2007 and
It seems to me that there is no way that the US will be out of Iraq by the end of 2007. No way that that will happen.
Mr Gates came back from Iraq and, in his comments to the press before briefing Mr Bush, seemed to be laying the foundation for something like "a long time." I thought I heard him say several years, but I may be wrong about what I thought I heard.
Is the American public, after being told that the mission had been accomplished, or victory is at hand, or we will stay the course, going to tolerate this dragging on through 2007, 2008 and?
I don't expect much to change in 2007. We may have the troop surge that some advocate (but which the military seems to be opposing). And we will have another 1000 deaths (the number of wounded, physically and mentally is an under-reported story, btw).

So at the end of 2007, when we revisit this thread, we will find a public, starttng to listen to candidates for Congress and the Presidency, and wanting to hear them say clearly and loudly, Get Us Out Of This Mess.

Gates is another Bush lackey who will fall like the rest of his "team." He's supposed to be one of the "smart" ones.

McGentrix, only the smallest minded of the Bushies still try to link 911 with Shock&Awe. On 911 the first thing I thought of when I saw the second plane strike was the long partnership between the Bush and bin Laden families. And I immediately put a link to that partnership on Abuzz.

Absolutely.

Gates doesn't have any more options than Rumsfeld did, and he still works for Bush. Even if he is a better man than Rumsfeld, what exactly is this guy supposed to do to improve the situation?