Friday, December 8, 2006

What Now, Dubya?

By now, mostly everyone in the world with access to a newspaper, computer, television, or radio has heard the the Iraq Study Group (ISG) has submitted the report of it's finding to President Bush and to The Congress.

Have you seen or heard the President's response? President Bush (I am doing my level best to remain respectful, here... it isn't easy for me) has said that he "will take the recommendations seriously... but I am sure that Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton don't think that we are going to do EVERYthing that is suggested in the report" He went on to talk about "victory as a way forward"

Victory? Did he say "victory"?

Excuse me for being a pessimist, Mr. Bush, but what I am now hearing as your standard for victory in Iraq (economically viable, politically stable, self-defensible) are unachievable. They were unrealistic from the beginning, which should have given you pause before you launched this war of aggression, but we will set that aside for a moment.

Iraq, sir, has been plunged into chaos. Chaos exacerbated, in the main, by the insurgency/civil war/terror campaign that would never have started if you hadn't made this invasion happen.

Did no one in your administration ever learn anything about history in the middle east?

Did no one ever notice that, historically speaking, as soon as the only barrier between volatile groups and sub-groups (in any polarized country) disappears, those groups attempt to instate some sort of primacy over the others? Did no one learn anything from Armenia?, from Yugoslavia, from Rwanda?, from Israel/Palestine?

There is no road to victory, Mr. Bush. Not in the terms you have set out. Our armed forces achieved the only victory that there was to be had in this whole sad, sorry mess: The defeat of the Iraqi armed forces, and the capture of Saddam Hussein... and see what good that has done us.

The ISG has made many recommendations, I believe that there are 79 of them. One of the suggestions we hear of most is to engage Syria and Iran in some sort of "dialogue". I suppose you could try that, but I am certain that neither one of those countries would be even slightly interested in helping us extract ourselves from the buzz-saw that we have walked into.

Iraq is broken, and will be generations in repairing. You broke it, sir, and no amount of soldiers is going to fix it. The deaths of uncounted thousands are directly on your head. When you meet your maker, you've got a lot of 'splaining to do.

4 comments:

Kelley said...

Ugh; what a mess. I can't wait to read the history books in 20 years...

Grimm said...

Very well said. Words can not describe the disdain for Mr. Bush right now.

Almost makes Clinton look like a saint.

Zanne said...

Well said indeed! What mystifies me is why this isn't obvious to every American. I really don't get it...must be my Canadian roots!

Janet Kincaid said...

Hear, hear! The man is an absolute shining idiot. What astonishes me is, any human with a minimum of two brain cells to rub together could have told him going to Iraq was a very bad idea with a capital B. It's obvious that he's surrounded himself with people with less than two brain cells. And those who follow him with slavish devotion are just as stupid as those who advise him and as the 'man' himself. (I use the term 'man' loosely because Bush is a coward and undeserving of the moniker. In this case, I'm referring merely to his gender.)