“Uh… NOW we have a plan!”
If I was stuck in Iraq I’d be really fucking pissed off right now.
Not simply because it’s the holiday season and I’d be sitting thousands of miles away in a sandy shithole where I can’t get a decent beer wondering just what the fuck it is I’m doing there, if the next time I go out on patrol I’ll get my head blown off by a sniper or IED, or if I’m going to get adequate medical coverage and a job when I return home (whenever that would be).
No. I’d be really pissed off because two and a half years after an illegal invasion of another country, thousands of my fellow soldiers dead, tens of thousands of innocent civilians dead and billions of dollars blown, our commander in chief and his cronies have put together a “strategy for victory” way too late.
When that awful jackass Bush flew on to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1st, 2003, he couldn’t wait to pat himself on the back for having done such a great job declaring war on Iraq. I’m sure Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie and rest of the toadies were popping champagne back in Washington as Bush strode to the podium beneath the “Mission Accomplished” sign and declared “an end to major combat” in Iraq. Because this was supposed to be a “feel good” war done on the cheap. After the Iraqi army disbanded, we were gonna get Saddam, we were gonna re-build the country, we were gonna get all that oil and everything was gonna be hunky dory.
I’m not going to waste anyone’s time citing statistics. Even the most right wing Republicans can see that the war is in shambles and everyone else can see that Bush and company have, through a lack of foresight, planning, or a basic understanding of what they were dealing with, totally botched the job.
A friend of mine returned from Iraq in September and we spoke at length of just what is going on over there. He told me that there is a definite media bias that does not show that we’ve made some good progress in Iraq. He said that morale is flagging and that many soldiers think that America has forgotten about them. He told me that Iraqi security forces don’t pay attention to American commanders because neither speak each others language, and drills aren’t effective when using translators. He told me stories of Iraqi security forces on primary perimeter sleeping on the job. He told me that the only soldiers that get any respect from Iraqi security forces are the Baathists who previously served under Saddam; when those fuckers walk into a room, everyone’s spines straighten. He told me that when it comes to any sort of reconstruction project over there, corruption is rampant and money evaporates.
Is the war in Iraq unwinnable? No. It can’t be because we have too much at stake. We can’t just pull out and leave Iraq to completely self destruct. We have sacrificed too much and America would lose any shred of confidence anyone has left in us. But God damn do we need a regime change at home. Bush has shown that he is a terrible commander in chief, an ego-maniac, a hypocrite, a lying, self-deluded sack of crap hiding behind that bullshit religious façade while sending our troops, our countrymen, our neighbors, our friends to their deaths. It is impossible to conclusively say that these deaths and others may have been avoided had our president and his pack of jackals actually done their homework before declaring war instead of endlessly invoking the specter of September 11th (which we all know Iraq had nothing to do with), fabricating “evidence” and browbeating Congress into authorizing the invasion. But when he stood there before America on the deck of that aircraft carrier, the gleam of arrogance through a lifetime of uncontested privilege shining in those beady eyes and told us that major combat operations were over, it clearly illustrates that then men who planned this war didn’t have a fucking clue what they’d gotten us all into.
A year ago when America was gripped in the throes of the elections, a lot of people went around quoting the adage: “you don’t change a horse mid-stream.” Well if that horse is lame and going in the wrong God damn direction, you not only change horses, you sell the old one to the glue factory. We’ve also heard a lot of “America will stay the course” coming from the Bush regime. What course is that? Continued lies and broken promises? The inability to stop overseas funding of terrorism? Allowing Afghanistan and Iraq to further plunge into violent chaos? Transforming the world wide sympathy America had in the wake of September 11th into hatred? Or the plummeting approval ratings Bush faces because Americans have woken up and realized that he in fact has no “strategy for victory” and never did?
Mr. Bush, pulling your head out of your ass to view this war in all its terrible reality almost three years too late is nothing short of disgraceful. It would be great if the U.S. could take a page from the Canadian government (you won’t hear me say that too often) and kickstart the process for a vote of no confidence, but unfortunately that’s about as likely as Bush being honest about the terrible mistakes (and lies) he’s made thus far in Iraq. So now we have a “strategy for victory”? That’s just great, I’m fucking jumping for joy over here.
"You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to believe in, and you lose all credibility," - Iraqi journalist, 11/30/05
Not simply because it’s the holiday season and I’d be sitting thousands of miles away in a sandy shithole where I can’t get a decent beer wondering just what the fuck it is I’m doing there, if the next time I go out on patrol I’ll get my head blown off by a sniper or IED, or if I’m going to get adequate medical coverage and a job when I return home (whenever that would be).
No. I’d be really pissed off because two and a half years after an illegal invasion of another country, thousands of my fellow soldiers dead, tens of thousands of innocent civilians dead and billions of dollars blown, our commander in chief and his cronies have put together a “strategy for victory” way too late.
When that awful jackass Bush flew on to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1st, 2003, he couldn’t wait to pat himself on the back for having done such a great job declaring war on Iraq. I’m sure Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie and rest of the toadies were popping champagne back in Washington as Bush strode to the podium beneath the “Mission Accomplished” sign and declared “an end to major combat” in Iraq. Because this was supposed to be a “feel good” war done on the cheap. After the Iraqi army disbanded, we were gonna get Saddam, we were gonna re-build the country, we were gonna get all that oil and everything was gonna be hunky dory.
I’m not going to waste anyone’s time citing statistics. Even the most right wing Republicans can see that the war is in shambles and everyone else can see that Bush and company have, through a lack of foresight, planning, or a basic understanding of what they were dealing with, totally botched the job.
A friend of mine returned from Iraq in September and we spoke at length of just what is going on over there. He told me that there is a definite media bias that does not show that we’ve made some good progress in Iraq. He said that morale is flagging and that many soldiers think that America has forgotten about them. He told me that Iraqi security forces don’t pay attention to American commanders because neither speak each others language, and drills aren’t effective when using translators. He told me stories of Iraqi security forces on primary perimeter sleeping on the job. He told me that the only soldiers that get any respect from Iraqi security forces are the Baathists who previously served under Saddam; when those fuckers walk into a room, everyone’s spines straighten. He told me that when it comes to any sort of reconstruction project over there, corruption is rampant and money evaporates.
Is the war in Iraq unwinnable? No. It can’t be because we have too much at stake. We can’t just pull out and leave Iraq to completely self destruct. We have sacrificed too much and America would lose any shred of confidence anyone has left in us. But God damn do we need a regime change at home. Bush has shown that he is a terrible commander in chief, an ego-maniac, a hypocrite, a lying, self-deluded sack of crap hiding behind that bullshit religious façade while sending our troops, our countrymen, our neighbors, our friends to their deaths. It is impossible to conclusively say that these deaths and others may have been avoided had our president and his pack of jackals actually done their homework before declaring war instead of endlessly invoking the specter of September 11th (which we all know Iraq had nothing to do with), fabricating “evidence” and browbeating Congress into authorizing the invasion. But when he stood there before America on the deck of that aircraft carrier, the gleam of arrogance through a lifetime of uncontested privilege shining in those beady eyes and told us that major combat operations were over, it clearly illustrates that then men who planned this war didn’t have a fucking clue what they’d gotten us all into.
A year ago when America was gripped in the throes of the elections, a lot of people went around quoting the adage: “you don’t change a horse mid-stream.” Well if that horse is lame and going in the wrong God damn direction, you not only change horses, you sell the old one to the glue factory. We’ve also heard a lot of “America will stay the course” coming from the Bush regime. What course is that? Continued lies and broken promises? The inability to stop overseas funding of terrorism? Allowing Afghanistan and Iraq to further plunge into violent chaos? Transforming the world wide sympathy America had in the wake of September 11th into hatred? Or the plummeting approval ratings Bush faces because Americans have woken up and realized that he in fact has no “strategy for victory” and never did?
Mr. Bush, pulling your head out of your ass to view this war in all its terrible reality almost three years too late is nothing short of disgraceful. It would be great if the U.S. could take a page from the Canadian government (you won’t hear me say that too often) and kickstart the process for a vote of no confidence, but unfortunately that’s about as likely as Bush being honest about the terrible mistakes (and lies) he’s made thus far in Iraq. So now we have a “strategy for victory”? That’s just great, I’m fucking jumping for joy over here.
"You show the world you're not living by the principles you profess to believe in, and you lose all credibility," - Iraqi journalist, 11/30/05