Peddling Backward as Fast as He Can: Bush on Iraq
So, I see Bush is having high level meetings in Washington DC to discuss the present situation in Iraq and what should be done. It is more like "What do we have to do to save our Republican butts in the upcoming elections" time than any serious administration repositioning of its stance on American foreign policy. Bush and his cronies are worried about losing power, and well they should be. The present administration's uncompromising (until now when it looks like his party is going to take a whuppin' in the elections) position on how we have to stand tough in Iraq and how Iraq is a bastion of democracy in the Middle East and how he "supports the troops", etc. is shown now to just be window dressing that disguises the policies of a man who is incapable of making any kind of rational decision and who feels that never re-evaluating a decision is a strength instead of a weakness. I bet 10 million dollars that it was not Bush's decision to have these meetings. My guess is that this is the work of his PR mastermind Karl Rove. By having this widely publicized meeting to re-evaluate the "war strategy" (which in fact was never a strategy in the first place) is simply a sham to try and show the American public that is overwhelmingly disgruntled about the US War in Iraq that Bush is sensitive to their needs.
This is an 11th hour scam whose outcome will have no lasting effect on what the US is doing in Iraq, it is simply to placate, until after the election, the voters who will soon be going to the polls to vote the bums out of office. I would not be surprised in the next two weeks for the Bush Administration to come out and propose a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq in hopes that those who see the war as a quagmire and doomed enterprise will keep voting for the party in power. But you know, that phased pull out will never happen. Not in the lifetime of this administration. There will always be something that will prevent it from being implemented. Some new crisis, some new finding, some new outbreak of violence that Americans will be told force our troops to remain on Iraqi soil.
Do not be fooled by this alleged "meeting". It is all smoke and mirrors. Anyone who works in the HR (Human Relations) department of any business or corporation will tell you that the best predictor of future performance is a person's past performance. Well, a tiger does not change its stripes. Bush has proven time and time again that he is not capable of doing anything other than making a decision based on some kind of internal gut decision (not necessarily a very well informed one) that is made on the basis of what his handlers tell him to do (not on the basis of his own research or objective interpretation of the data), and then sticking to his guns even in the face of data that shows his decision to be ill conceived and badly implemented. He has no capacity for seeing gray and acknowledging the ambiguities that are inherent in almost every decision that people have to make.
This "meeting" and re-evaluation of his Iraq strategy is a cheap and transparent election ploy. What is dangerous about it is that it is clear that it is the brain child of Machiavellian henchmen like Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld who got us into this situation in the first place. The generals who might be there will simply be puppets in the show, like the now disgraced Colin Powell was in his advocation of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If the generals think they are going to have any influence in this process (because they are the ones who really know what is going on and are against having us there because they know this is not a winnable war or one with any realistic military objective) they are kidding themselves. They will simply be window dressing to give the appearance (as opposed to substance) of credibility of the meeting. They will be played like violins and come out looking like buffoons.
The meeting and anything that will come out of it is a cheap election side show and anyone who thinks differently is more foolish than Bush.
This is an 11th hour scam whose outcome will have no lasting effect on what the US is doing in Iraq, it is simply to placate, until after the election, the voters who will soon be going to the polls to vote the bums out of office. I would not be surprised in the next two weeks for the Bush Administration to come out and propose a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq in hopes that those who see the war as a quagmire and doomed enterprise will keep voting for the party in power. But you know, that phased pull out will never happen. Not in the lifetime of this administration. There will always be something that will prevent it from being implemented. Some new crisis, some new finding, some new outbreak of violence that Americans will be told force our troops to remain on Iraqi soil.
Do not be fooled by this alleged "meeting". It is all smoke and mirrors. Anyone who works in the HR (Human Relations) department of any business or corporation will tell you that the best predictor of future performance is a person's past performance. Well, a tiger does not change its stripes. Bush has proven time and time again that he is not capable of doing anything other than making a decision based on some kind of internal gut decision (not necessarily a very well informed one) that is made on the basis of what his handlers tell him to do (not on the basis of his own research or objective interpretation of the data), and then sticking to his guns even in the face of data that shows his decision to be ill conceived and badly implemented. He has no capacity for seeing gray and acknowledging the ambiguities that are inherent in almost every decision that people have to make.
This "meeting" and re-evaluation of his Iraq strategy is a cheap and transparent election ploy. What is dangerous about it is that it is clear that it is the brain child of Machiavellian henchmen like Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld who got us into this situation in the first place. The generals who might be there will simply be puppets in the show, like the now disgraced Colin Powell was in his advocation of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If the generals think they are going to have any influence in this process (because they are the ones who really know what is going on and are against having us there because they know this is not a winnable war or one with any realistic military objective) they are kidding themselves. They will simply be window dressing to give the appearance (as opposed to substance) of credibility of the meeting. They will be played like violins and come out looking like buffoons.
The meeting and anything that will come out of it is a cheap election side show and anyone who thinks differently is more foolish than Bush.
never get involved in afamily feud.the situation on the ground in iraq is now reported as acivil war of all nations on this planet the u.s should know this from past expirience.The u.s troops quite proudly boast they have never lost a war.No disrespect to them but who lost thier civil war the bloody klingons?After the liboraters over stay they become ocuppation troops and in the muslim world where they dont understand the language or the culture they are the klingons
Posted by von grim | Thu Oct 26, 02:08:00 AM EDT
I completely agree. Everyone but Bush seems to know that Iraq is in civil War. They just have to battle it out on their own and we have to wait and see what they come up with in the end. Americans should get out of Iraq NOW! They have no place there, they disrespect the custons, do not speak the language, treat the population like criminals or children, and commit attrocities in the name of making everyone there like them or in the name of boredom. Get those people out of the country!
Posted by Anonymous | Thu Oct 26, 09:06:00 PM EDT