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May 11, 2007 11:59 PM UTC
27 Comments
http://www.alternet….
He isn’t listening to the Iraqi’s, our Generals, our Congress or the American people. So tell me Haners, who the hell is Bush listening to? He pushing this on to the next President to solve. And it’s once again going to be Democrats cleaning up republican mess.
But did you miss the whole part about how I couldn’t believe that Bush is just now willing to look at setting benchmarks with congress, and how I thought that was jacked up? Oh wait, that doesn’t fit into template about crying about Bush, does it?
So do you have a source that says that Bush wants to push this off on the next President? I would be interested in seeing that….
Are the members of Iraq’s presidential cabinet and the President of Iraq “seperatists”? Funny, because Iraq’s president seems to want to keep the strong national government that this article attributes to seperatists being opposed to. Did you read any of the articles that I posted or my commentary, or did you see the headline and post your article.
Also, the article talked about a vote to set a timetable for withdrawl. Iraq’s President is asking the U.S. not to withdrawl until Iraq is ready to take over it’s own security. The parliment didn’t ask for an immediate withdrawl. Sounds like they want us to leave, but to not screw their country any more at the same time.
I saw your title, read your articles, and by happenstance had read this article earlier in the day and posted it.
Just because the president of Iraq is saying one thing, does not mean that the people of the country want the same thing. We need to look no further than DC to see that. Also, talabani is a Kurd. The kurds have been living autonomously since before we invaded. There is also oil up north in the kurdish region that remains relatively untapped.
Iraq’s parliment is taking a two month recess. That is a long time for numerous reasons, the least of which is the potential for assasination, god forbid. Also, the resolution is non-binding, but since it passed with such a strong majority, it now requires a vote which is binding. Yes, it is a phased withdrawl, but up until recently, if an american congressperson wants a phased withdrawl they are a traitor. Bush has also said, that if the Iraqis want us to leave we will leave, they are sovereign (I guess) after all. Who will he listen to? The parliment or the president? Or neither?
That Bush listens to the generals. Hope and reality may be different things….listening to a general that was appointed just because he’ll tell you what they want to hear isn’t good policy either.
I hope Bush is serious about setting benchmarks for the U.S. as well as Iraq. I think pulling out of Iraq before it’s ready is really bad policy, but if we don’t know what “ready” looks like, then we’ll be stuck with an equally bad perdicament. (s/p?)
I would think that the President (of Iraq) probably has a better idea of what’s going on in Iraq, depending on the power of the Iraqi prime-minister. I would think that the President has a better over-all picture of what Iraq needs, and we should involve the Iraqis in setting the bench marks.
But this is one of the most lame posts you’ve ever made. I could FUCKING CARE LESS what you hope or think.
And I will never read another one of your posts again. You are the liberal equal to LIAS, and in my humble opinion, the biggest ass on this blog.
And by the way, it’s “couldn’t care less”
I like the your characterization, but I would change “equal” to “contrast”. LIAS has very little to offer in the way of values oriented discussion. By values, I mean those attributes ascribed to human beings that truly fulfill the human potential.
As far as the biggest ass on the blog. At 5’10” and 165 lbs., my ass is lean, mean and a loving machine:-)
I’ve ever had to deal with here.
That he would listen to the Iraqis. Its their country and being sovereign I would assume that if we told them to leave they would leave. Of course, we are building an embassy that is more obscene than any of Saddam’s palaces and is larger than the vatican, and we are building 14 permanent bases, but if as a military force policing Iraq they asked us to leave I would hope we would.
Benchmarks are important, but up until recently any talk about benchmarks was treasonous. Same with a timetable, which is what a majority of Iraqi members of parliment want. Benchmarks with no teeth are just as worthless as what we are doing now. I am eager to hear what the repurcussions are for failure to reach benchmarks are. My hope is that they would be a withdrawl of troops, because up to this point we have given them no motivation to get the ball rolling. Its like a poor performing employee, if you have given them years to get their act together and they havent there needs to be a point where you let them go (yeah, its a simplified analogy, but overall it rings true).
Why would the president be in a better position to know what is going on than multiple members of parliament? Regardless of the power of the prime minister, multiple members of parliament are able to draw upon constituencies better than an individual. Factor in sectarian allegiances and I am not sure that the president, a kurd, is more apt to judge the countries needs moreso than the parliment. So the question remains, rhetorical to be sure, who would bush listen to the president or the parliment?
A quote from Gerald Ford comes to mind. He said “When I was in congress, I would look at the White House and what they were doing and say ‘what are they thinking up there?’ Now that I’m President, I look at the capital and what they’re doing and think ‘what are they thinking up there?'”. I would think that a President who is in charge of the entire country has a different perspective over someone in parliment. That’s not to say that their opinions don’t matter, but I think the weight of a nation as a president is different then the weight felt by a member of parliment.
the Iraqi prez will say exactly what the American prez wants him to. PERIOD.
We should listen to neither.
that state unequivocally that both the majority of loyal, patriotic American and right thinking Iraquis want us out of Iraq. But when GWB won’t even listen to the Generals on the ground, why should he listen to the majority of the Patriotic Americans telling him?
Why didn’t Republicans want this four minute video shown in a war profeteering committee.
http://www.youtube.c…
Its disgusting how corruption and war profiteering are protected by the majority of Republicans, and even some Democrats. That is going to change. Mark my words.
If a Muslim suicide bomber drove a Ryder truck loaded with fertilizer into Halliburton’s offices in Houston (or their new HQ in Dubai) a la Timothy McVeigh, I’d be inclined to give him the Congressional Medal of Freedom — posthumously, of course. And yes, I am a Republican.
Whether it is corrupt courts or bureaucrats ‘on the take,’ our government has declared war on the people. The only way to stop it is to hold the offenders personally accountable for their crimes in a meaningful way.
If you can get Bush to the Hague to face a war crimes tribunal, I’ll gladly pay for the plane fare.
You would applaud a suicide driver setting off a large bomb in Houston? And want to give the asshole a medal?
Am I the only person reading this that thinks that is one of the most anti-American things that a person could possibly say?
What about all the hundreds of innocent people that would be killed? What about the damage that someone else would have to pay for.
I can understand some people having frustration with our President and this war but to wish for a bombing, especially in your own country, is completely off the charts stupid.
Since nobody else has said a word for or against that remark, I’m guessing it is acceptable behavior in this site’s eyes.
Many of us (myself included) find that morally appalling statements on political blogs are best ignored. This is a comment on a diary that probably hasn’t been read all that much. I wouldn’t assume anything from the lack of comment.
and I’m hoping he is exaggerating to make a point. If not, someone needs to check the local coop in his area for fertilizer purchases.
but under the cloak of outrage, it raises a serious question, and you have bit. The inescapable fact is that we live under a fascist regime (see http://www.rense.com… for the definition of what “fascism” is), and our pandering politicians and their corrupt courtiers are making war on us under cloak of the law. As one judge recently wrote (quoting Montesquieu), “there is no more cruel tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of the law, and with the colors of justice.” United States v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982) (Aldisert, J., dissenting; quoting Montesquieu, De l’Espirit des Lois (1748)).
Our Founding Fathers were a lot less squeamish about employing violence, albeit as a last resort, to achieve a political end. For instance, Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman, himself a distinguished judge and legislator, offered this remarkable statement in the very halls of Congress:
Roger Sherman, 14 Debates in the House of Representatives, ed. Linda Grand De Pauw (Balt., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 92-3 (emphasis added).
How can we hold the Tom DeLays, the Halliburtons, the George Bushes, and their ilk accountable for their crimes? If we concede impossibility, we concede defeat, and acknowledge the demise of our rights as men. Indeed, they become mere liberties, to be taken away as our rulers see fit.
Freedom is never free.
Do you concur with the old Arab proverb that “the enemy of our enemy is our friend?” I welcome serious discussion of this topic, and would create a diary entry to entertain it.
What I see from the links above is that the leaders of the U.S.-backed government, facing a raging civil war in Iraq, want U.S. troops to stay in harms way to protect them. In the mean time, they plan to take some time off and relax for a bit.
Does this say anything about what Iraqi people want? Does it in any way refute the many polls indicating that between 70% and 80% of the Iraqi people want us immediately gone? Emphatically no, on both counts.
Does it surprise anyone that the Iraqi government, whom we support, should prefer that Americans die for their side of the civil war, rather than themselves? It shouldn’t.
What does this say about whether we ought to be there? You decide.
IMHO, our presence in Iraq is rooted in our our addiction to foreign oil which requires that we now must use military power to maintain stability in the oil-producing Middle East. If Iraq was an African nation or a Central American banana-republic, we’d never have become entangled in the first place, and certainly would have withdrawn long ago. After all, when Tutsis and Hutus were killing each other, we didn’t do anything, ’cause there ain’t no oil in Rwanda.
There will certainly be a S!#$-storm of sectarian killing if we withdrew from Iraq — Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds would kill each other just like Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims killed each other Yugoslavia when the communist dicatatorship collapses (another country, like Iraq, that was cobbled together at the end of WWI by the Brits and the French). I would not be surprized to see Iran invade southern/eastern Iraq and Turkey to occupy the Kurdish frontier to “maintain order” if we withdrew.
Whatever else it is, the Iraqi government won’t last 20 minutes without the US military to back it up. My generation’s war — Vietnam — is replaying itself in Iraq. Before the withdrawal and collapse of Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger pushed for Vietnamization of the war to replace US combat troops with South Vietnamese troops. Didn’t work then, probably won’t work in Iraq. At least our soldiers in Iraq aren’t fragging their officers and NCOs (Iraq can, indeed, get worse).
The political debate is whether GWB had legitimate grounds for invading Iraq (I don’t think he did), but that’s largely a pointless inquiry. We are where we are and can’t change the past.
The national security question we face now is whether our country will be better off or worse off if we withdraw from Iraq.
Gas is $3+ a gallon now. Pull out of Iraq and brace yourself for $6+ gas and the accompanying recession. Ask yourself how high would gas prices rise if Iran invaded the oil regions in Iraq?
IMHO, a sensible policy would be:
1. Develop an intense, focused program to reduce our reliance on Middle-Eastern oil. e.g., eliminate all gas taxes on ethanol fuel sales, eliminate property taxes/license fees on hybrid, electric or flex-fuel vehicles, adopt a gas-guzzler tax, double/triple the budget at NREL to develop hydrogen fuel cell technologies, develop coal gasification programs (Germany fought two world wars by converting coal to diesel fuel), apply a tax surcharge to Citgo gas sales, 55 MPH speed limit, etc. Whatever it takes to reduce consumption of foreign oil. Until we develop independence from foreign oil, our kids will die in Iraq.
2. Get tough with our “friends”, the Saudis, to step up to the bar and commit resources (troops, money) to regional Middle Eastern security. The Saudis ability to sell oil benefits from our troops in Iraq, yet Saudis have done virtually nothing to promote regional security.
3. Get tough with our “friends”, the Israelis, and demand that they make an honest effort to solve their problems with the Palestinans. Much of the Islamic world’s hostility against the US is rooted in our unquestioning support for and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
BP: Get tough with our “friends”, the Israelis, and demand that they make an honest effort to solve their problems with the Palestinans. Much of the Islamic world’s hostility against the US is rooted in our unquestioning support for and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
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The creation of the state of Israel was Kelo v. City of New London on a galactic scale — without fair compensation or even a “mishpucha discount,” but a case of nekkid land rustling. Eretz Yisrael is the Zionist version of Lebensraum (I draw a distinction between Jews and Zionists, as many Jews see the fundamental injustice inherent in it), and it must be understood that AIPAC got our foreign policy the old-fashioned way: it bought it.
While in Australia two years ago, I met a man who still had the deed to the family homestead, which is in what is now the state of Israel. Of course, he cannot go home. And as you can understand, they are understandably unhappy about it. Problem is, they have over a billion fanatical cousins with trillions of barrels of oil that we happen to need who are sympathetic to their plight. Moreover, when the conflict is put in these terms, the American people (and most notably, the Right, which is philosophically attached to the notion that property rights are sacred) are their natural allies. After all, it’s not like we didn’t commit a few stray “acts of terrorism” in the course of securing our property and liberty (and let us not forget Irgun). When we put the conflict in these terms, the fundamental justice of the Palestinian position is clear.
To make matters worse, we have a history in the region that no American should be proud of. We overthrew the only indigenous democracy in the region (Iran, under Mossadegh), and installed both the Shah and the Ba’athists. Truth be told, we haven’t dealt with Muslims with a modicum of honor and respect — a serious faux pas in a culture that reveres them both.
We need to cut Israel off, and now. At the very least, we should not be fighting wars as their proxy, which is a fair assessment of the invasion of Iraq (as punishment for their support of the Intifada). As for me, I have confidence that the Jewish people will have the creativity and the will to solve this little problem on their own, provided that we do the mature thing and get the he11 out of the way.
Talibani knows that when the US pulls out that Kurdish trouble with Turkey is going to begin. The Kurds know that one day we are going to leave, and when we do they will have to deal with the inevitable war with Turkey. They are buying time. That does not mean we should stay, that means we need to broker a deal between Turkey and the Kurds, but that kind of complex foreign policy continues to elude our lame duck President.
It still does not change the fact that we cannot stay forever, there is no clear military mission, and soldiers that I know personally are getting exhausted with these long deployments and zero time with family.
When you say the “Iraqis” you are really saying Talibani and Barham Saleh. Hardly. Both are no where near where the majority of the Iraqi population is on the issue to US troop presence. Unfortunately a lot of innocent people are dying now and will die when we leave. When we leave we will leave a power vacuum. UNLESS we are willing to:
a. Institute a draft
b. Commit another 200,000 soldiers
c. Raise taxes to pay for it
Good luck selling the above. IF the president had done that at the beginning of the war, he might have sold it. This late in the game, no way.
Take a look at:
http://www.nytimes.c…
and
http://www.iht.com/a…
and
http://www.alternet….
I believe that withdrawal will create conflicts and pain far beyond the Kurds and the Turks.
Withdrawal will destabilize oil prices (if it’s even possible to imagine destablized oil prices in a $70+ barrel world) when the medieval conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites expand to include oil producing nations of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the OPEC engineered oil crises of the 1970s, the price of oil started out at a now unimaginable $2.55/barrel and ended up at $24/barrel in 1979 — a 940% increase driven soley by the greed and political agendas of our “friends” the Saudis and Kuwaitis without a regional crisis to fuel the increases. Prime interest rates in 1980 were 21% compared with 6% in 1971. Inflation in 1979-80 was running at 12-13%.
Let’s say withdrawal causes only one-quarter of the artificial oil-price inflation that we experienced in the OPEC-embargo period — that would drive the price of oil up from around $70/barrel to about $165/barrel. Gas prices would rise from $3 to $7/gallon. Our economy would grind to a halt (unless, of course, you own Exxon stock).
Is any of this an even remotely reasonable guess — I have no clue. But compared with 1979, today’s world adds a billion Chinese and Indian drivers to oil demand — a Middle Eastern military crisis does not bode well.
It sucks to trade our kids for foreign oil, but that’s where we are in my view and that’s the economic tradeoff of withdrawal from Iraq. That’s the legacy of the last several Presidents of both parties who focused on political crap and lacked the will/wisdom to wean us off foreign oil.
Oil is the real killer here. If we are truly going to be a sovereign nation then we must create and use our own energy not someone else’s.
This country desperately needs a real leader who is going to stand up and tell people the truth about current oil supply and warn people about the consequences of dependency on a non-renewable source of fuel.
You are certainly right about this going far beyond the Kurds. The two articles above however, referred to Kurdish politicians. This war has come down to this in my view:
1. We are looking at an inevitable bloody civil war between the Kurds, Sunni, and Shiite. We created this inevitability when we fought this war on the cheap.
2. The US military is not meant to nation build.
3. We are creating more enemies than we ever had before 9/11 and seriously jeapordising our military readiness and ability to fight terrorism outside Iraq. Yes, news flash, there are terrorists outside Iraq.
Most of the men and women in uniform who have been to Iraq that I have talked to agree that if we pull out now that alot of the Iraqi people will die.
I am not making an arugment as to how we ended up there, but I would argue that by leaving now would mean the deaths of more people in the long run than if we were to stay and try to stabilize the government.