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History Forum / General / British History / January 2007Congress's Iraq Quagmire -- Mixed Message To General Petraeus & The Troops
You Can't "Support The Troops" Without Also Supporting Their Mission. The Mission Is Victory In Iraq. Many Congress-Critters Fall Short & Are Hypocrites. The Washington Post -- Consistently A Strongly "Liberal" Newspaper -- Understands That. Many Congress Critters, Academics & Media Folks As Well As General Americans -- Many Of Them Also "Liberals" -- Do Not. DSH --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congress's Iraq Quagmire The Senate would send Gen. Petraeus off with a pat on the back and a vote of no confidence in his mission. Thursday, January 25, 2007 The Washington Post ON TUESDAY nearly every member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warmly endorsed Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, and a number wished him success or "Godspeed" in his mission. Yesterday some of the same senators voted for a resolution that opposes the increase of troops for Gen. Petraeus's command -- even though the general testified that he could not accomplish his mission without the additional forces and hinted that such a resolution could encourage the enemy. Such is the muddle of Congress on Iraq: A majority may soon go on record opposing the new offensive in Baghdad even while encouraging the commander who leads it. That's not to say that senators who are piling on to bipartisan resolutions drawn up by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) or Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) don't have good reasons for skepticism. We share some of their main concerns: that the Iraqi government won't deliver on the long list of "benchmarks" the administration has set and that U.S. troops will end up fighting on one or both sides of an ugly sectarian war. Even if the objective of pacifying Baghdad with American troops were a good one, it's not clear that enough troops are being sent for long enough to succeed. It doesn't help that accounts of the new plan given by its principal architects vary significantly. Gen. Petraeus said in his Senate testimony that the goal is to protect the Iraqi population in Baghdad so that reconstruction and the political process can move forward. The man he will replace, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., and his spokesmen say the idea is to accelerate training and the handover of security operations to Iraqis. So does Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who seems to barely tolerate the plan for additional American troops. The outgoing Iraq commander has said two additional U.S. brigades could accomplish the mission. The incoming general says he has asked that orders be issued for all five brigades and stressed that he has the authority to ask for further reinforcements. He testified: "None of this will be rapid. In fact, the way ahead will be neither quick nor easy." BINGO! And the Slack-Arsed Will Become Very Impatient & Kvetch. Some "Chicken Little" Types Will Go Hysterical. However, The Stalwart, the Sane, the Steady -- the Real Americans -- Will Not. -- DSH Our guess is that it is Gen. Petraeus's concept that will govern U.S. actions on the ground. Until now, Gen. Petraeus had been the most successful American commander in the war; in that sense senators are right to support him and quickly approve his nomination. But legislators need a better way to act on their opposition to the current policy than the passage of nonbinding resolutions that may cover them politically but have no practical impact -- other than, perhaps, the negative one suggested by the general. BINGO! -- DSH As it happens, Gen. Petraeus made his own suggestion at Tuesday's hearing, offering to report to Congress regularly about the mission, including updates on the performance by Iraqis on their commitments. "I want to assure you that should I determine that the new strategy cannot succeed, I will provide such an assessment," he said. Taking Gen. Petraeus up on that, and closely and systematically monitoring the progress of events in Iraq during the coming months, is probably the best contribution that Congress can make to helping the new American commander address what he calls a "dire" situation. ------------------------------------ DSH Lux et Veritas et Libertas Deus Vult The only reason they're on this new mission is because the voters recognize Bush is an incompetent leader. The Republicans came out badly in the Nov. elections, Rumsfeld was subsequently fired, and the chimp ignored advice from the Baker commission and came up with this idea - which is primarily a threat to miliki based on US voters being fed up. If this build up works - it's a result of Bush's critics making him pressure the Iraqis instead of letting the situation continue deteriorating. > You Can't "Support The Troops" Without Also Supporting Their Mission. > [quoted text clipped - 99 lines] > > Deus Vult >You Can't "Support The Troops" Without Also Supporting Their Mission. > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >DSH >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- You just aren't getting the message, Hines - YOU'VE LOST THIS WAR! We're back to the Vietnam syndrome. Bullshit and propaganda substituting for reality. You've been totally whacked. Plus, your country now has a reputation that would shame even the idiots in charge of the Third Reich. "Evidence obtained by torture or from hearsay is now acceptable". Boy, have we ever seen the true colours of the Republican Party! Bush has done nothing worthwhile during his entire time in office. The Highlander Faodaidh nach ionann na beachdan anns an post seo agus beachdan a' Ghàidheil. The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of The Highlander. > You Can't "Support The Troops" Without Also Supporting Their Mission. > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > DSH > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Snip usual cut & paste job) Bush lost it. Whether or not anyone else retrieves it. And the overwhelming probability is that they'll lose it too. Just read that each morning until it's all over, Hines. Twit. Surreyman [proof that America is a failed political entity] No unity of purpose. No clarity of intention. No way to "win" short, medium or long term. No intelligence operatives on the ground worth a damn'. No containment strategy that looks halfway viable. No policy for resolution except "more troops". No exit strategy in sight any time soon. What a glorious mess. M. >[proof that America is a failed political entity] > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >M. Yes, a mess we'll all eventually pay for. The American problem is that the people have been propagandized since the Revolution to believe that everything they think or do is the best and greatest and leaves other countries tagging along in their wake. The reality is of course vastly different. Both of the great working-class republics, the United States and the Soviet Union, have never deviated from a policy of lying and boasting about their achievements and assuring their citizens that they are the smartest, best-informed people on earth. The reality is that the United States is about 10 decades behind the rest of the world, politically and educationally. as it must be in any country where religious fanatics can deny Evolution and force others to toe the religious line - almostg copycatting the Islamic states - while the American Nachalstvo (fat cats) run the country to enrich and protect themselves from the masses just as the Soviet Nachalstvo did and as their presentday counterparts, the oligarchs, do in the "new" Russia. What is especially shocking to sophisticated non-Americans is the ease with which the normal protections for the people have been discarded at the first sign of trouble without any protest from the people. Illegal imprisonment, torture, trial without legal representation and the abolition of Habeas Corpus are bad enough, but there is also a burgeoning in the powers of the secret police agencies, such as the FBI and the CIA, as well as the sudden emergence of other covert agencies, such as US Military Intelligence spying on ordinary citizens and the appallingly inept Homeland Security whose sole function appears to be to bully people entering the United States. I see no reason to describe the US in its present incarnation as anything other than a failed state or even a rogue state. A country where civil rights are happily trampled on and where mistakes are not apologized for or compensated. The vision of what wasn't done for New Orleans alone filled most of the world with disgust. The attack on Iraq aroused protests and warnings of a grave error being made, even here in tiny s.c.s., where there is no fear of being hassled by the police or losing one's job for not towing the party line. If America runs true to current form; people like Hines will be dragged in front of a firing squad for misleading the American Right, while the American Right sits comfortabley at home, dreaming up the next gas shortage and pointing out that growing extra corn in Iowa to create ethanol will poison the Mississippi. What the US needs is good government. It occasionally gets it; about every four or five presidents or so. Unhappily, today's fiasco is not one of those occasions. The Highlander Faodaidh nach ionann na beachdan anns an post seo agus beachdan a' Ghàidheil. The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of The Highlander. |
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