12/20/06

Surging To Defeat In Iraq

W. Patrick Lang and Ray McGovern have a great piece up at tompaine.com talking about the politics of the "surge" foolishness and a breakdown of what bush failures loom on the horizon if anybody takes this option seriously.
TomPaine.com - Surging To Defeat In Iraq:

"The media are abuzz with trial balloons with official leaks that President George W. Bush is about to approve a “surge” in U.S. troop strength in Iraq by tens of thousands. At the same time, surge advocate Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., just back from a brief visit to the Green Zone with fellow surgers John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., has warned that “the amount of troops will make no difference” if Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki avoids taking “bold” moves. The three pretend to be unaware that the most important move for which they pressed—breaking with radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr—would amount to political suicide for Maliki.

Meanwhile, back at the Sunday talk shows, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who owes his position to the popular revolt in November against the war, said he can “go along” with a surge, but only for two to three months and only as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by early 2008. Meanwhile, says Reid, Democrats will “give the military anything they want.”

Can Reid be oblivious to the reality that this has to do with the next two years—not the next two months? Former Army vice chief of staff Gen. Jack Keane, one of the anointed retired generals who have Bush’s ear, is urging him to send 30,000 to 40,000 more troops and has already dismissed the possibility of a time-frame shorter than one and a half years. What seems clear is that the president is determined that the war not be lost while he is in office. But events are moving too fast for that. It was not quite the way he meant it, but Bush has gotten one thing right; there will indeed be no “graceful exit.” That goes in spades, if he sends still more troops."

Go read the entire piece. It is well thought out.

Now before all of these learned people out there say that this guy has no creds, and is wrong because "we just have to send more troops!" much like they say to me when I say the same effin' thing in diary comments, bear in mind that Col. Lang is a guy that Wolf Blitzer had this to say about in an interview with Lang the other night:
BLITZER: I went back and took a look at what you told me back on May 24, 2004, that's two and a half years ago when you were interviewed by me. And you were pretty much on. You were really concerned about his notion of having some autonomous zones, if you will, a Kurdish zone, a Shiite zone, a Sunni zone.

You said if the U.S. were to go in that direction and let it happen that would be a recipe you said for creating civil war and leading the Middle East in chaos. Is that worst fear that you had then being materialized right now?

LANG: Yes it really is. There's a lot of talk about how some people think we should partition Iraq. Actually, we're past the point of what I said there. Iraq is in fact partitioning itself. It's in the process of doing that right now.

The danger is that this process will continue and that all of the outside players who are allied to people inside Iraq will join in the fighting, and you'll have a tremendous regional war. There are some people who think that wouldn't be a bad idea, but I think it will be a disaster.


Yep... that is Pro-Iraq-War Wolfie and what is he saying? Holy shit! Two-and-a-half years ago people like Lang were saying this would happen... And they were right.

I bet bush still will not listen to people that know a bit about what is happening in the real world. But, then again, neither do right-wingnut pundits in the Blogosphere that cheer for more soldiers just because they don't want to lose face any more than bush does. Nobody likes to admit they have been flat out wrong on almost every important issue for years. For bush it is all about one last hail mary pass to save his political legacy or, at the very least, to push the failure off onto the next White House administration.

As for the rest of you right-wingnut Blogosphere pundits content to cheer on surging towards more failure: What's your fucking excuse?

It is not like you have any credibility left to lose.

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