Bush: OK, I've got a plan. No, this one will work, honest.

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy
(Pete Seeger)
It was back in 1942, I was part of a good platoon
We were on manoeuvres in Louisiana one night by the light of the moon
The Captain said, We got to ford the river, that's where it all began
We were knee deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on

The Sergeant said, Sir, are you sure this is the way back to base
Sergeant, I once crossed this river not a mile above this place
It'll be a little soggy but we'll keep on slogging, we'll soon be on dry ground
We were waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on

Captain, sir, with all this gear no man will be able to swim
Sergeant, don't be a nervous nellie, the Captain said to him
All we need is a little determination, follow me - I'll lead on
We were neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fool kept yelling to push on

All of a sudden the moon clouded over, all we heard was a gurgling cry
And a second later the Captain's helmet was all that floated by
The Sergeant said, Turn round, men, I'm in charge from now
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the Captain dead and gone

We stripped and dived and found his body stuck in the old quicksand
I guess he didn't know the water was deeper than the place where he'd once been
For another stream had joined the Muddy a half mile from where we'd gone
We were lucky to get out of the Big Muddy
When the damn fool kept yelling to push on

I don't want to draw conclusions, I'll leave that to yourself
Maybe you're still walking, maybe you're still talking
But every time I hear the news that old feeling comes back on
We're neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on

Knee deep in the Big Muddy
And the fools keep yelling, Push on
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling, Push on
Waist deep, neck deep
We'll be drowning before too long
We're neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on

 

I were a Bush-despising liberal, I would find a way to play this ancient Don McLean ditty when talking about Bush. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought McLean had written it in the last six years:

<i>Fortune has me well in hand, armies 'wait at my command
My gold lies in a foreign land buried deep beneath the sand
The angels guide my ev'ry tread, my enemies are sick or dead
But all the victories I've led haven't brought you to my bed

CHORUS:
You see, everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
Won'tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?

Now the purest race I've bred for thee to live in my democracy
And the highest human pedigree awaits the first-born boy baby
And my face on ev'ry coin engraved, the anarchists are all enslaved
My own flag is forever waved by the grateful people I have saved

CHORUS:
You see, everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
Won'tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?

Now, no land is beyond my claim when land is seized in the people's name
By evil men who rob and maim, if war is hell, I'm not to blame!
Why, you can't blame me, I'm Heaven's child, I'm the second son of Mary mild
And I'm twice removed from Oscar Wilde, but he didn't mind, why, he just smiled

Yes, and the ocean parts when I walk through, and the clouds dissolve and the sky turns blue
I'm held in very great value by everyone I meet but you
'cause I've used my talents as I could, I've done some bad, I've done some good
I did a whole lot better than they thought I would so, c'mon and treat me like you should!

Because everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
tell me what did I do to offend you? <whoo, yeah!>

Everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
tell me what did I do to offend you?

Yeah, everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
tell me what did I do to offend you?
</i>

 

The best way to accomplish something is to keep training a police force and keep working to restore infrastructure. Troops are going to be needed to do those things.

Are 20,000 more troops needed? That's a question someone needs to answer.

 

Isn't a civil war in Iraq nearly inevitable anyways? Why not just get the hell outta there and let survival of the fittest take over?

I know, I know, it's a terrible idea, especially since we went in and absolutely fucked everything up, but it's best we get out of there and let them do as they wish without losing so many more lives.

 

The problem is, the real elephant in the room is sitting on Iraq's eastern border. Anyone notice the carrier groups moving into the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea?

I think Dim Son is just nuts enough to have a go at Iran.

 

The problem is that the "combat portion" wasn't what we thought it was in March or April 2003. The conventional Iraqi forces didn't put up the fight that one might have expected; they blended into the population, kept a low profile for a while, and transformed into decidedly unconventional forces. Nearly four years later, the "combat portion" hasn't really ended.

And I just loved this line from Bush's speech: "America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan - and we will not allow them to re- establish it in Iraq."

No, because they've re-established it in the border regions of Pakistan (oh, and the Taliban is enjoying a resurgence in Afghanistan, too). But rather than deal with the vexing, horribly difficult task of fighting our true enemies in the mountains of Waziristan, Bush took what he thought was the easy way out by hyping up Iraq as a dire, imminent threat to this country. So, now large parts of Pakistan are the domain of al-Qaeda sympathizers (Musharraf doesn't dare try to take them back), the Taliban is sharpening its swords again in Afghanistan, and Iraq -- which wasn't a major breeding ground for terrorists/Islamists in February 2003 -- has become one because Mr. "Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things" Bush and his cohorts didn't a) put an ounce of planning into what would happen after the show of force and b) didn't even have enough force.

Other than that, he's done a great job. I heard the speech tonight and desperately wanted to believe the man, but neither he nor the Iraqis have given me any reason to think that this plan will be any different, that the Iraqis will be ready to handle the burden this time.

 

I agree with those who said this is simply a political ploy to reduce the chances of "losing" the war before he leaves office, and hence burdening his legacy. Even if everything goes to hell the day after he goes back to Crawford for good, he and Karl Rove can always blame it on whoever succeeds him.

And the sad thing is, despite getting control of congress, the Dems are pretty much powerless to stop this. As commander in chief, Fredo can send troops wherever he pleases. And if congress tries to cut off the money, they'll be accused of not supporting the troops and causing the U.S. to lose the next time they run for re-election.

Politics is such a wonderful thing, isn't it? :

 

Small problem with the Iraqi police force: They're not really interested in policing. In fact, all most of them seem to be interested in is killing, or stealing and then killing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001323_pf.html

We can't win this war because we screwed up so badly at the start. Not only have we failed to accomplish our fourth reason for invading Iraq -- to fight terrorism (1. WMDs, 2. al Qaeda link, 3. Get Saddam) -- but we've actually made it worse. We've got people who never would've been involved with terrorism tripping over themselves to sign up. For every terrorist we kill, there are 10 new ones to take his place. The hate for this country is growing every day throughout the Middle East, as al Qaeda continues to push the idea that this is a war on Muslims. And we can't control anybody. Hell, everybody hates each other and they all hate us. We've got no allies, no clear objective and no real hope. It's over. Bring 'em home and thank them for putting up with one of the greatest heapings of bullshit this country has ever dished out to its military.

 

Thanks once again Dog for your Politics by Fear.

Remind yourself that your liberal buddies in D.C. were calling for MORE TROOPS before they figured, "what the hell, let's oppose it just to oppose Georgie so we can elect (Hillary/Vilsack/Kerry/Gore, whatever other dumbass they throw in there)."

 

Seems like Saddam was gotten, though.

Al Qaeda would be spouting bullshit whether the U.S. was in Iraq or not.

I've talked with some Muslims about the situation. The feeling is about the same: Glad Saddam is gone and they all dislike Bush.

 

Chickens . . . home . . . roost . . . etc.

You broke it . . . you buy it . . .

W . . . P . . . E . . .

 

Of course that's true, but by getting bogged down for four-plus years in Iraq, we've convinced who knows how many people that we're occupiers/imperialists/bullies, etc., rather than liberators who came to rid them of the tyrant. How many thousands have we radicalized in handling this war so horribly (and, thanks to insufficient troop levels when it really would have mattered, creating a power vacuum in Iraq custom-made for stateless terrorists like al-Qaeda)?

Like I said, this war on terror was going to be difficult no matter how presided over it; even the shrewdest diplomat in the Oval Office was always going to risk setting off a full-fledged culture war with the Islamic world. Sadly, we had the least shrewd President in history on the job to take a bad situation and screw it up times 1,000.