| Last week, President Bush made yet another attempt to hoodwink and fool the nation into supporting his colossal failures in Iraq. "Success" in Iraq continues to be redefined. It is now, according to the President, a struggle between "good vs. evil" and "safe from harm." In his primetime address to the nation, Bush tried to make the case to the nation that the 30,000 troop surge is in fact working to bring success to Iraq, citing the improvements in stability in Anbar Province. Citing the testimony given by General David Petraeus, Bush presented evidence that suggested that the number of attacks against coalition forces had drastically declined. According to Bush, the Iraqi Army is now demonstrating that they are increasingly ready to operate and defend their country on their own. Bush said, "the more successful we are, the more troops we will be sending home." Accordingly, Bush has called for a reduction of 5,700 troops by Christmas, and a reduction from 20 brigades to 15 by July 2008. The reductions notwithstanding, Bush admitted that he projects a presence of U.S. Troops at two or three on a "permanent" basis in the region. The goal posts for determining "success" have been moved up to March 8, 2008 when General Petraeus is to testify again before Congress and to give Republican candidates for the 2008 elections enough cover to get them elected to office. The strategy was clear. As noted by Patrick Buchannan, Bush's goal was to use the optimistic outlook provided by Genera Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to fortify his support from the base of the Republican Party. The Bush/Petraeus/Gates position focuses on "the consequences of leaving." The notion, as put by Conservative Commentator Chris Wallace, is that "we will pay a terrible price if we pull out of Iraq too quickly." The other diversionary strategy was to keep the focus off of the real issues by making hay of the Moveon.Org ad that referred to General Petraeus "General Betray Us." We have already been paying a terrible price for being in Iraq. Bush and his cronies fail to own up tothe mayhem that we have already inflicted on the land and people over there. They have not come to grips with how we have squandered our resources, and most importantly, the 4,000 troops who have been killed and the 27,000 troops who have been wounded. The so-called "stability" in Anbar Province had nothing to do with the "surge." As noted by Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, Anbar Province, Baghdad and several areas around the country have become more "pacified" because of the ethnic cleansing that has been going on over the last few years. This is all a shell game. Wisconsin State Journalist Rick Horowitz acknowledges this by making fun of Bush's policy calling it "the military hokey pokey" when he noted: "You put battalions in, You pull battalions out, You put battalions in, And you throw em off your track, You do the Hokey Pokey And you hope they cut you slack, That's how you play Iraq." When Petraeus was asked if the troop surge made it safer for our troops in Iraq, he said, "I'm not sure about that." The Iraqi people, in a recent poll, were asked if they thought the surge made them safer and 70% of them said no, it made their situation worse. The notion that Bush's actions will fortify the Republican base in time for the 2008 elections is folly. Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Bush's strategy of "keeping the cork in the bottle to keep it from imploding before the next U.S. election" was bizarre. Given the strains on the U.S. military, the President had no choice but to announce the departure of U.S. troops. "Bush has all but given up on the notion that we will be holding the Iraqi government accountable for all of the many unmet benchmarks which were tacitly left out of Bush's speech. Bush's selective amnesia made it necessary for him to forget to mention anything about the fact that there has been no progress in political reconciliation in the Iraqi government. The fact that an active "civil war" was being waged was not mentioned. Nor was there any mention of any plans for a surge in regional diplomacy to get neighboring nations involved in crafting some type of viable solution to the debacle in Iraq. Also curiously missing from any participation in the discussion about a surge in diplomacy, either by inference or her direct presence, is Secretary of State Condolezza Rice. The President also had very little to almost nothing to say about the war in Afghanistan where the U.S. and the government of President Karzai seems to be losing ground to the Taliban all while Osama Bin Laden continues to issue his fatwa's and pronouncements for jihad. Despite President Bush's comments, there has been no fundamental change in policy for the war. The net result of Bush's speech is that we will be getting more of the same. |
| The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows President Bush's speech on the surge in Iraq: No change in policy; only more of the same |
 |