Georgie speaks: New Plan for Iraq
Georgie just gave his speech outlining the "New Plan For Iraq", and what a steaming load it was. Although his demeanour was somewhat more humble than usual, he insisted on beating the dead and decaying horsemeat about failure in Iraq meaning disaster for the US, Iraq becoming a terrorist haven where they'd plan attacks on the US, and the "Ideological Struggle". The basics: we didn't have enough troops, let's send more. Another 20,000 troops will supposedly be able to do what 140,000 couldn't, and by November no less. The Iraqi troops will lead the charge with US troops as backup. We will stand down as they stand up, etc. Meet the New Plan, just like the Old Plan.
Georgie just doesn't get it. He still talks about "the enemy" as some amorphous extraneous element apart from the Iraqi people. It isn't. Iraq is in a civil war and most of the violence is being caused by the Iraqi people themselves. The government won't disarm the shia militia that's causing so much of the violence; the head of the militia, al-Sadr, is one of the prime minister's key supporters. The Iraqi forces are unlikely to be trained or committed enough to take the lead in the fighting -- and why the fuck should they when they've got US troops to take the bullets for them?
The "unimaginable bloodshed" Bush says will happen if the US leaves Iraq is another load. That's what they told us would happen in Viet Nam, and it didn't. The "unimaginable bloodshed" is already ongoing, and short of ethnic cleansing of the sunnis by the shia (which is already happening on a small scale), it can't get much worse.
The November "deadline" Bush talked about is meaningless. It's a date the administration more or less pulled out of their asses to give the american public something that looks like light at the end of the tunnel where there really is none.
The New Plan for Iraq isn't new and it isn't even much of a plan: it's Georgie as usual throwing good money after bad in a last pathetic attempt to be remembered as something other than the Worst President Ever.
Georgie just doesn't get it. He still talks about "the enemy" as some amorphous extraneous element apart from the Iraqi people. It isn't. Iraq is in a civil war and most of the violence is being caused by the Iraqi people themselves. The government won't disarm the shia militia that's causing so much of the violence; the head of the militia, al-Sadr, is one of the prime minister's key supporters. The Iraqi forces are unlikely to be trained or committed enough to take the lead in the fighting -- and why the fuck should they when they've got US troops to take the bullets for them?
The "unimaginable bloodshed" Bush says will happen if the US leaves Iraq is another load. That's what they told us would happen in Viet Nam, and it didn't. The "unimaginable bloodshed" is already ongoing, and short of ethnic cleansing of the sunnis by the shia (which is already happening on a small scale), it can't get much worse.
The November "deadline" Bush talked about is meaningless. It's a date the administration more or less pulled out of their asses to give the american public something that looks like light at the end of the tunnel where there really is none.
The New Plan for Iraq isn't new and it isn't even much of a plan: it's Georgie as usual throwing good money after bad in a last pathetic attempt to be remembered as something other than the Worst President Ever.
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