Jesse Ventura: "Give me an hour with Chickenhawk Cheney..."

...and a waterboard, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

From Larry King:

[JESSE] VENTURA:  I don't watch much TV. This year's reading, I covered Bush's life. I covered Guantanamo and a few other subjects.

And I'm very disturbed about it.

I'm bothered over Guantanamo because it seems we've created our own Hanoi Hilton. We can live with that?  I have a problem.

I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

KING: You were a Navy SEAL.

VENTURA: That's right. I was water boarded, so I know -- at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence -- every one of us was waterboarded. It is torture.

KING: What was it like?

VENTURA:  It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

If you read one thing today (and every day)  read Glenn Greenwald.

(I had no idea Cheney had anything to with the Tate murders.  Who knew.)

Cheney's no hypocrite

With the expediency that permeates politics I have to say that Dick Cheney's recent campaign to purify the Republican party is a bit refreshing.  We've seen Senator Arlen Specter jump to the Democratic party when it appeared his personal power base was in jeopardy in the next election.  My favorite hypocrisy is Jane Harman becoming incensed that her civil liberties were abridged after she had voted for legislation that formally abridged the Constitutional rights of every US citizen.

Bring on Dick Cheney.  You can call him whichever derogatory name you want, but "hypocrite" is  not one of them.  He gets on national TV and says, sure I ordered torture and I'd do it again, not necesarily because it was the right thing to do or that it worked or even that it was legal, but merely because I wanted to.  Only 21% of voters describe themselves as Republican and Cheney has hung out for nearly 8 years with an approval rating in the teens, so this guy is not in the business of being popular.  

Recently he said:

You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy.  I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren't. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren't eager to have someone come along and say, 'Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'

Maybe it's me, but I find it somewhat refreshing to have a politician not willing to bend to the wind of polls and such quaint popular cultural institutions as the Constitution, Geneva Conventions and basic moral decency.   Nope, basic moral decency is for wimps, and I'd be greatly  disappointed if I found out that Cheney had softened... kinda like if I found out Ted Nugent started volunteering at the no-kill animal shelter or Ozzie Guillen stopped swearing.

To be blunt, my worldview as it has been formulated would be torn asunder.  Cheney is Cheney and will always be Cheney.  He is the one constant in national government that connects some of the greatest life-defeating schemes of the last 50 years: the School of the Americas in the 1970's where we trained thugs in Central America to torture innocent nuns and children, Nixon ordering a break-in and then paying off witnesses, the US selling weapons to Iran in the 1980's, arming Saddam Hussein with biological weapons, giving Stinger missiles to the Taliban, enabling Saudi, Sudanese and various other despots against their own people in exchange for oil, the dismantling of our Bill of Rights, rounding up and torturing un-tried brown people, and the subsequent false case for war in Iraq.  The one remaining person who was present in every White House, at the table of each one of these decisions, if not the verbal proponent certainly the reticent observer of the process, was one man: Dick Cheney.

For Cheney to now come out of the cold and show remorse or compassion, for him to call for his party to change into something resembling a republican institution, would be hypocritical.  He has stood on the side of blind authoritarianism, wielding power not for his own personal gain nor even the benefit of the nation, but simply and merely to wield power.  Cheney is a mutated limbic system, containing just enough social conformity to be able to don a suit and tie for the purpose of getting elected, but in reality a lizard seeking to chaotically devour.  For him to change would be against the nature of the beast.  And we all should know where beasts belong.

The tangible discrepancy in this drama is the fact that supposedly well-informed adults have voted this guy into national office, not once but twice.  With all the information available, the press, the internet, the history books... for anyone to admit ignorance of the destitute crimes of Dick Cheney challenges credulity.  Cheneys exist, sure, that's not too incongruous; but he was ELECTED to run this country by coherent, walking, talking people.  That's like calling Chris Brown up and asking him if he'd like to date your daughter, then giving him the keys to the car as well.  The word "sheeple" comes to mind.

No, Dick Cheney exists and will never change. The GOP needs now to determine where to go from here, and whether they will become a reasonable loyal opposition and do the heavy lifting contingent on national leadership or whether they will follow Cheney off the cliff to oblivion.  

Cheney gets pwned on 60 Minutes

In my view, Mr. Obama gives the final word. Any further rebuttal in this debate of the management of terror suspects should be done with Mr. Cheney under oath and preferable indicted.

Bring 'Em Home Now

It's a sad day for the US and for the world.

Today General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified before Congress about the progress in Iraq. And now it's official: there has been no progress in Iraq. We've used up our last Friedman Unit and it is over.

Gen. Petraeus used suspect data about the violence in Iraq in order to justify further military intervention. Ambassador Crocker admitted that the diplomatic efforts were not tried and Iraqi political avenues were not traveled. Atrocious.

Mr. Bush had nine months of a military surge to get this right and it looks like they didn't even try. The patience of the American people is spent and the war is over. Aside from a few phone calls, how much pressure was put on the Iraqis by our Commander-in-Chief?

It's over and the soldiers need to be redeployed now. As outlined last winter on this blog. I was in favor of a surge in January. I thought a larger surge with a complete national mobilization here in the US and in Iraq was in order. Nothing short would have sufficed. The administration had nine months to get this right, and unfortunately they did not.

Bring these men and women home now where they belong, and fight this war on terror the way it should have been fought in 2001.

1. Reduce funding regimes with oil money by achieving oil independence.

2. Pressure Arab allies to respect human rights, build schools not medrassas.

3. Work on a peaceful US foreign policy that promotes the health and safety of everyone.

4. Strengthen our diplomatic ties with our allies.

5. Prepare for a southern Asia with a stronger Iranian influence, thanks to George W. Bush.

Our current policies and incursions have been mismanaged from the first summer of this administration's tenure and it will take a generation to correct the bad policies and poor execution that the world has endured. Nothing has been done well in Iraq and now the time is up. Millions more will die, oil prices will rise and the world will be less stable, thanks to George W. Bush. And thanks to the civically illiterate voters who elected him.

Atrocious.

You're being conned. So What?

Sure, we're being conned. I can feel the frustration from many anti-war Democratic voters who feel that their legislators should be doing more to end the Iraq war. As much as I hate this war and know that it's been a con job from day one, I believe that the Reid-Pelosi tactic is the proper one.

Steve Benen at TPM has a scathing assessment of the current events in Iraq. As he says:

The GAO prepared a "strikingly negative" assessment of conditions on the ground, with no political progress (the intended point of the "surge") and little evidence of reduced violence. Of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks, Bush's policy has come up short on 15. An independent federal commission believes Iraq's 26,000-member national police force is beyond repair and might need to be disbanded altogether. A working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad shows that the Maliki government is rotten to the core. Iraqi civilian deaths are getting worse, not better. The latest data shows U.S. troop fatalities worse every month this year compared to the same months last year. A smidgeon of evidence pointing to at least marginal political progress late last week turned out to be smoke and mirrors.

Read the links if you want your blood to boil. The administration, full of snarky chickenhawks who seemingly spend more mental energy pranking their colleagues with Saran Wrap than strategizing a war effort, is going to the wall with the Iraq war. The Democrats have only a few choices to make.

1. While the Democrats have a nominal lead in both Congressional Houses, their majorities are too small to override vetoes.

2. Any war funding bill with benchmarks will be vetoed by the President, thus giving the impression of the Democrats de-funding the war.

3. If the war is de-funded, then the President will say, correctly, that his hands are tied and the war is no longer his responsibility.

4. The last thing Reid and Pelosi want is to buy this war.

Yeah, it sucks. Believe me, nobody is as upset as I am at the mayhem committed with my federal tax dollars. unfortunately, we are destined to watch this play out for at least 15 more months with a slow-motion train wreck of sectarian violence and lies from our leaders about progress. Honestly, there is no way for plebes like us to know what is actually going on in Iraq, but I'm pretty confident that Bush's appraisal is too optimistic, just like it has always been.

The Democrats are on the verge of a real victory in 2008. Chances are, if they don't roll over, that they will hold the White House and have substantive, veto-proof, majorities in both the Senate and the House. To upset the apple cart now with creative war funding bills and demagoguery has the potential of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Change takes time and certainly more time than what our current “right now” culture is accustomed to.

Bush is the President, elected as fairly as the system allows. Reid and Pelosi didn't elect Bush Commander-in-Chief, I guarantee it. If the anti-war lefties want to point fingers, then they should look around their neighborhoods and family gatherings for the real culprits. Democracy can get pretty ugly, especially when the electorate is asleep.

If you want to conduct a thought experiment, then do the “then what” challenge. If the the Democrats de-fund the war, then what? Bush, in all his petulant glory, will certainly continue to mismanage the war and the withdrawal. Diplomacy will not occur where it has not all these years. The Sunnis and Shia will not suddenly become friends. The Iranians will not become brokers for peace. Little George would not suddenly become an arbiter of restraint and reason in the world. NATO, the UN and regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan would not be any more willing to sign onto the sinking ship of a withdrawing US.

The Iraq situation under Bush's scorned leadership will certainly devolve faster and further than it is now. We would see bodies floating in the Tigris and Euphrates, Iran laying claim to southern Iraqi oil fields, Sunnis killing Kurds, and vice versa, in the north. Refugee crises could further destabilizing neighboring countries as Iraqis flee genocidal marauders. The Straits of Hormuz could become a war zone thus spiking the price of oil and leading to worldwide economic strife. The potential for a worse situation is certainly out there. And Reid and Pelosi would be the proud owners of the debacle, all the blame and none of the control.

Be patient, grasshoppers. Change takes time. Change always comes. And if you're in Iraq, keep your head down.

Of Course She Was Covert...

We had to endure all the BS from Bush apologists stating that Valerie Plame was merely a desk jockey for the CIA, driving to work in Virginia with a barely a security clearance. They were not just mistaken-- they were lying.

Most of us knew this was all crap, otherwise US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald would not have pursued the charges of disclosing her status. The only question was who had outed the CIA agent. George W. Bush promised that “if a crime had been committed, that person would not be working in my administration.” Instead of calling the principals in for a heart-to-heart about the national security implications, what did Bush do?

He did what he always does. Bush dithered.

He allowed Libby and Richard Armitage to continue to work on sensitive issues, with top secret clearance, knowing full well laws had been broken. Bush waited for the full course of the legal system to come to bear and --more importantly-- the election of 2004 to pass.

Who knows or cares if Bush will eventually pardon Libby. That would be the least of the abominations committed by this vile administration.

Rise of the Neo- Incompetents!

Richard Cohen from the Washington Post feels he has come up with a new tag for George W. Bush and fleshes it out in Bush the Neoliberal. While Cohen goes on at some length summarizing how Bush is not conservative, he hardly makes the case that Bush's policies have anything to do with liberalism, neo or otherwise.

Cohen recognizes that Bush's disrespect for civil liberties counts against any liberal laurels. He cites issues such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and I would add overseas CIA renditions and warrantless wiretaps, but still Cohen persists with his silly argument about Bush being some type of liberal.

Cohen seems to think that hiring Condi Rice, Harriett Miers, Alberto Gonzales and other minorities and women is the hallmark of liberalism by expanding the diversity quotient of the executive branch. Other Bushophiles I know have also thrown up Rice's status as a de rigeur proof of Bush's open-mindedness. Cohen continues his nauseating surmise:

You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

Cohen contrasts Bush's “compassion” with the “foreign policy realism” of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush's Dad and Brent Scowcroft. Cohen does admit that while Bush may have been altruistic in purpose in Iraq, his incompetence derailed his policies.

Francis Fukuyama, in his latest book America at the Crossroads, explained the differences between the various foreign policy schools: realism, Wilsonianism, neoconservativism and isolationism. I would like to proffer another school as exemplified by the Bush presidency:

Neo-Incompetentism. This is marked by a dizzying array of pointless policies that do nothing beneficial, are potentially harmful, but give the veneer of responsible government: the unfunded No Child Left Behind and Social Security privatization are prime examples. Other policies such as Homeland Security, while decent ideas at the outset, are mismanaged so adroitly that they serve no purpose other than to give false assurance of safety. The ports are not guarded, plane cargoes are not inspected and the borders are not secure. Another hallmark of Neo-Incompetentism is that government departments that have been functional in the past, such as FEMA and the CIA, are compromised to the point of criminality.

Bush's administration has little resemblance to anything like liberalism or conservativism. He is in a class by himself. Cynics would argue that his tuxedo-wearing base of supporters are the only beneficiaries of such wrong-headedness. Who benefits from oil at $65 per barrel? Whose political hacks replaced the recently fired US Attorneys? What price has the Bush family paid in the war on terror? How many of his kids have volunteered for the war that he has sold as the battle between horrendous evil and all that is holy?

Bush's appointments come from many ethnic groups and do look like America, but the one thing they have in common is their incompetence. Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Miers for the Supreme Court and Gonzales at Justice: all done in order to show disdain for the respective institutions and to reward political cronies. Appointments have nothing to do with finding an effective person for the given position, but rather they are made in order to prove a point, usually a silly point. John Bolton had no chance of accomplishing anything at the UN, but following Neo-Incompetent dogma, he was the right man “so send a message.” Condi Rice is the only Secretary of State in history to intimate that diplomacy is somehow counter-productive.

The crowning achievement of the George W. Bush's Neo-Incompetent administration is, of course, the Iraq war. Conceived on false assumptions, planned with wrong intelligence, prosecuted with faulty strategy, promulgated with shifting missions and ending with an occupation marked by a lack of insight towards the culture... this is the prototype for a Neo-Incompetent policy.

Cohen, in his article, agrees that Bush's legacy will have lasting negative effects:

But it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty." We shall revert to this thing called "realism," which is heartless and cynical, no matter what its other virtues. The debacle of Iraq has cost us -- and others -- plenty in lives. But in the end, it will cost us our soul as well.

Instead of quoting Kennedy and pining about the oncoming “heartless realism”, I think a quote from Abraham Lincoln is more appropriate: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” And if Cohen thinks that Bush is well-meaning and honest, then count him in the former group.

Or perhaps Richard Cohen can learn from Groucho Marx, who said, “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”

Now that's a lesson George W. Bush definitely got.

Commander Guy Gets His Very Own Quagmire

Keith Olbermann, in tonight's Special Comment, let the Democrats have it for caving to the president's petulance over the funding bill for the Iraq war. Bush vetoed the first bill with timelines, or “artificial timelines”, as GWB would call them. As KO said, King George “held his breath” like a spoiled child until he got a bill that he wanted, and Pelosi and Reid blinked.

Let's take another point of view on this. If I were President Bush, I'd be more nervous now than ever. For a while there it looked like the Dems were going to take the responsibility for losing this war off Bush's shoulders. Congress de-funds the war, we pull the soldiers out of Iraq and Bush writes in his memoirs ("mim-warz") that the surge would have worked if only he had this one last chance... result: legacy salvaged (sort of).

Now, Bush is is in a tight spot. 200 more soldiers killed in the last 60 days, Baghdad is burning, the Iraqi Parliament has taken leave of its senses, the surge is being re-written into yet another new “new” strategy and... what ho!... the Congress has tossed the hot potato back into President's lap again.

This war is not going to end well, we all know that. The President had chosen in January the worst of all possible strategies. The only two reasonable choices were to go heavy or go home. Instead of mobilizing this nation once and for all, enacting a draft and instituting martial law in Iraq, pleading with allies, the UN and NATO to pitch in, Bush chose to dither away his fifth and final opportunity to salvage something from this mess. If he weren't going to “go heavy”, then he should have just pulled the troops out once and for all, and the world would live with the dire consequences, like Cambodia circa 1975. If the Commander won't choose to win, then he should at least choose to get the hell out.

One could argue that the Congress has the moral duty to end the river of US soldiers' blood after 4 years of extreme mismanagement by the Commander Guy. One could call on the Congress to end it now once and for all, you know, be the adult.

But sometimes the responsible parent has to give the kid some slack and allow him to make some mistakes. Like when you were in high school and you got drunk with your buddies and crashed grandpa's car. You have to go to court, plead your case, and then you have to get a job to pay for the bodywork on the old man's Polaris. Let Georgey work his way out of this pickle, Mommy and Daddy aren't going to take the heat for you.

Yes, the losers are the US soldiers who are encumbered to do that extra tour in Iraq. The losers are the US taxpayers who will pay back this war debt with interest, with hard-earned labor and reduced entitlements for the next two or three generations. The losers are the Iraqi people who have almost a million dead already, another million dead once we pull out, and 2 or 3 million refugees gone to distant lands. The loser is the civilized world who will deal with a radicalized Muslim Asia for at least one more generation. But those losses are realized already and another summer won't a big difference make. For the soldiers who will certainly die in the next few months... well, Keith speaks for them.

Olbermann let the Democrats have it with both barrels, and I know he has a valid point. Generalissimo Codpiece is not going to all-of-a-sudden morph into a war commander ala Napoleon-- unless of course you're referring to Leipzig. But the reality is that the Iraq war would continue through the summer regardless of the wording on the current funding bill. The Congress has agreed to pay for it only through the summer, and when September rolls around and the situation is just as bleak, because we all know it will be, then the Congress can step in and call the game. Enough. It's over. Bring home the troops now, George. Collect all your little toys and soldier men and put them away and come inside now to get ready for bed.

The person I'd least like to be tonight is George W. Bush. Today is the day he became the sole owner of the Iraq war, and he paid for it with his soul, and his eternal legacy.

Iraqi Spa Watch, Episode 1: Fat Farm

The corpulent Iraq President Talibani is headed for the US to enter a weight loss program. The obese leader of Kurdish descent was hospitalized a few months ago for fatigue.

Meanwhile six more US soldiers were killed in Baghdad and the search continues for three US soldiers who were kidnapped last week.

As the civil war rages on, let's keep tabs on how many prominent Iraqis come stateside to partake of the wonderful comforts not available in their war-torn hovel. I maintain that a US military pull-out from would not be considered that heart-wrenching for many Iraqi plutocrats who will most certainly be put up with their families in resort settings in Florida and Arizona when and if we decide to leave Iraq.

For many, they may consider it as the sooner the better.

An Object Lesson from a Wingnut

"There is no teacher but the enemy."-- Gen. Mazer Rackham, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.

Victor David Hanson is not my enemy, but he is a tool, and like all tools he has some utility. For the uninitiated, Hanson is the Last Bush Apologist and he writes drivel for the National Review. Today, Hanson has lived out his purpose in showing us that the US' mission in Iraq is indeed lost.

I'll accept the criticism that picking on Victor David Hanson (at left) is too easy, a fool's game. It's true that his columns are usually the most senseless compilations of worn out platitudes and irrational tautologies, but his recent piece represents a wonderful summary of everything wrong with Bush's war and he finishes with a clue to the question of whether Iraq can be saved.

According to Hanson's most recent piece, the reasons that Bush's war has become a disaster have, of course, nothing to do with the miscalculation and ineptness of the Commander-in-Chief, but rather, everything to do with everyone else in the world: NATO, Congress, “Sunni-border nations”, the “European Left” and CNN. Poor George, he didn't get to make war in a vacuum, presumably like FDR and Woodrow Wilson had the luxury of doing during the last century's great wars. Because we all know there was no dissension among the ranks at those times.

Some of us who have opposed the war in Iraq since it's inception have done so not because of a blanket condemnation for force, but rather we oppose the war because of the poor rationalization for the war, the inept diplomacy surrounding the war and the incompetence in the conduct of the war. Hanson forgets that Bush had near-record approval ratings after 9-11 with the vast majority inexplicably never questioning how the administration, the branch of government in charge of protecting our borders from attack, could miss all the warnings during the summer of 2001. Bush was given a free pass and allowed to make war or peace at his discretion. How this may have deterred Bush in the handling of his foreign policy is a mystery to me.

Hanson continues that Bush was held to higher standard in Iraq due to “easy victories” in Grenada, Panama, Serbia, the Gulf War, etc., and Bush was hamstrung because of all the military cuts made during the 1990's. The confused unwashed masses, ie, the 70% of Americans who now oppose the Iraq war, are too unsophisticated to understand that war means casualties and nothing of value is gotten easily. Our Dear Leader is presumably the only one adult enough to have this great wisdom.

Predictably, my view is completely different. Bush got a blank check after 9-11 with an overwhelming mandate to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan and half the Senate Democrats joining to pass the Iraq UN Force Resolution. If anybody downplayed the difficulties in Iraq, I would point to Cheney's assurances of the US being “greeted as liberators”, Wolfowitz calculating that Iraqi revenues would “pay for rebuilding” and Rumsfeld predicting that the war “might last 6 days or 6 weeks, but certainly not 6 months.”

Hanson bemoans the “Orwellian” outcome that in order to get “one person / one vote” in Iraq, we have to allow “Sadr and his epigones” the freedom to kill us. Never mind that Bush's administration decided to disband the Iraqi Army, under-man our occupying force, allow chaos to reign for years after the invasion and leave a power vacuum which naturally has been filled with profligate demagogues such as Sadr, Zarqawi and others. Of course, any other imperial supervisor from Tiberius to Churchill could have predicted the current Mad Max scenario that has resulted.

Hanson and I disagree with how we got to the current situation in Iraq, but we have some agreement on how the future could turn out differently. Although it's a long shot, some semblance of victory could be achieved in Iraq, and Hanson and I agree that the only avenue at this point is through military victory. I would argue that only military solutions remain because Bush has squandered all the other options. We have no real allies left in Iraq to rely on diplomatic assistance. The regional powers have lost confidence in the US' ability to build anything but a failed state. If you were a Saudi prince, would you sign on to the US' caravan at this point? The political factions in Iraq have gained such a foothold that the people of Iraq live in fear rather than hope. The economy of Iraq continues to falter with joblessness and vast emigration of the educated middle class. I see these miseries as leaving only the US military to bail out Iraq.

Hanson seems to agree that the US military is the trump in this game:

Not arguments, rhetoric, pleading, or money right now can save the democracy in Iraq. The U.S. military alone, in the very little remaining time of this spring and summer, can give Iraqis the necessary window of security and confidence to govern and protect themselves, and thereby to allow the donors, peacekeepers, compromises, and conferences to follow.

Unfortunately, I have to agree. If Iraq is to be saved, and that's a huge "if', the US military is all that remains between some type of order and a failed state. Hanson fails to ask, if Bush agrees with this premise, then why is he asking for a mere 21,500 soldiers? If Iraq is the “central front on terror”, then why hasn't the administration fought the war with more conviction? If the West's “way of life” is truly “in jeopardy”, then why hasn't the President been able to convince the European “non-Left” of the importance of the war?

Republican Senator Gordon Smith said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge, as outlined by Bush, has only a one in four chance of succeeding.

I don't have answers for these questions, and obviously neither does Hanson. His final sentence makes it clear to me that the war has indeed been lost. Hanson as the Last Apologist for Bush goes over the edge of reason and engages in science fiction thinking when he finishes his missive with the quaint plea:

“If General Petraeus can bring a quiet to Baghdad, then all the contradictions, mistakes, cheap rhetoric, and politicking of the bleak past will mean nothing in a brighter future.”

Ah, yes, the Indispensible Man Theory of warfare, much like Orson Scott Card's Ender Wiggin, who saved humankind from the Bugger invasion, Gen. Petraeus is the last best hope to save Iraq from itself. IF the good general can “bring quiet to Baghdad”, much like bringing virginity to Anna Nicole; IF only he can do that, THEN all will be good with the world. If only... then, then, then... then "I'll be proven right and all those librul dunderheads will be proven wrong.”

Just as Harry Potter has special wizard powers, Gen Petraeus is somehow uniquely qualified to grasp victory from the jaws of certain defeat. With Hanson invoking the Indispensible Man theory, I'll mark March 2, 2007 as the day we officially lost the Iraq war.

BREAKING: Iraq is a mess

Well, the much awaited Iraq Study Group Report has come out. Seventy-nine recommendations for the president and congress.

“The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.”- ISG Report, 2006

The conclusion of the ISG, as well as the newly appointed Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is that the Bush policy has been a failure. No kidding.

I have one favor to ask. Can someone please explain to me what the point of electing Bush was?

Every single optimistic comment the president made these last two years has been shown to be pure bullshit.

I have to agree with Pat Buchanan that “the entire establishment of the federal government has failed this nation, just as they did in Vietnam.” The ISG recommendations are flawed because they 1) are too numerous to institute in a timely fashion and 2) are often unrealistic, such as expecting that a ragtag group of Iraqi police will be able to quell violence that the US military can't.

I agree with Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) who noted that the ISG is flawed because not one of the members of the group were opponents of the Iraq war from the beginning.


I agree with President Bush that there is "no easy exit." It may not be easy, but we do need to exit. It's useless to review all the "what ifs" of securing borders, training Iraqis, preventing looting, refraining from torture... We lost.

Whether we stay or go, we are screwed, and our allies will be killed. We can't stay because we are losing. We can't pull out because we'll leave chaos and even more death and destruction. We can't increase our troop numbers because we don't have enough soldiers, and even if we did, we don't have an endpoint.

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” -- John Kerry, 1972.

It took 10 people from both parties a total of 8 months and over 200 interviews of generals, congresscritters and strategists to figure this out? Some of us knew this years ago.

Bush is a failure.

But then, Bush has been a failure his entire life, so who would expect something different this time?

Shame on Bush. Shame on anyone who voted for him-- you should have known better.

Iraq Quagmire: Option 2

We are still awaiting the report from the Iraq Study Group which will presumably give President Bush detailed instructions on how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. In the previous post we reviewed the McCain option of adding more troops to the Iraq war in an effort to stabilize the region. We also noted that the venerable Senator did not give us a clue from what source these extra troops would come.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Vietnam veteran, represents the opposing stance, that we should “redeploy” our armed forces, in other words pull out and allow the Iraqis to sink or swim. We have seen Bush dither as the situation has devolved in stepwise fashion on his watch.

Here's a blurb from Chuck Hagel's op-ed from this past weekend:

"The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government...

[snip]

The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month.

It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission [aka, ISG] gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead. “

This is basically the position that Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), a decorated combat veteran, had taken several months ago for which he was called a “coward” by Rep Jean Schmidt (R-OH); and this is the option which the president, vice-president, RNC Director Ken Mehlman, Sean Hannity, Karl Rove and other chickenhawks have labeled "cut and run." And the list of experts that have taken the public wrath of the administration is impressive:

• Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said in May 2006, "I think that the United States should soon begin its process of redeployment."

• Former National Security Agency director and retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom wrote in the May/June 2006 issue of Foreign Policy, "America must withdraw now."

• Retired Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard Jr. and retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns wrote in November 2005, "There may well be some negative consequences as a result of withdrawing of U.S. troops, but fewer, we believe, than if we continue on the present course. Ultimately, the United States will be stronger if we leave the quagmire that is Iraq to resolution by its own citizens."

• In a November 2005 interview, retired Army general William Nash said, "This is not a situation of figuring out the perfect solution. So I am one who believes strongly that our presence is now a detriment to our achieving our goals. As a consequence, I would say we need to be looking for excuses to withdraw, not for reasons to stay.

• On October 18, Richard L. Armitage, who served [in the Bush administration] as deputy secretary of state from 2001 until 2005, expressed his support for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.

And the Dailykos gives more detractors:

"Add to that list former Senator McGovern and William Polk, who in their new book Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now propose starting withdrawal this year, with a complete withdrawal completed by mid-2007. Oh, and add Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, who called for a withdrawal of troops after the election in 2005 (with complete withdrawal in 2007). Add Barry R. Posen, director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (who argued in January for a complete withdrawal within 18 months). Add former senior counterterrorism official Richard A. Clarke. And add Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. In his op-ed, Carpenter calls for a withdrawal beginning today."

The tsunami of public opinion is engulfing the administration and the only option will be to pursue a “phased redeployment.” The facts on the ground have dictated this eventuality for over a year, and probably two, but the president has dithered away every opportunity to do the right thing. Mr. Bush has broken our military, the nation of Iraq and our international credibility. He has been directly responsible for the deaths or mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people, and that number will surely triple after we leave Iraq.

Unlike Vietnam, the loss of Iraq has significant geopolitical ramifications because 40% of the world's oil comes from the region, but also because neighboring Iran will be strengthened politically and economically by a Shia Iraq, and not least, a failed state in Iraq would surely give terrorist jihadists the perfect training ground.

Next post, we'll discuss what else Bush can destroy in his remaining 24 months.