So this morning Bush announced that he was going to both withdraw the surge by summer AND reduce the time soldiers are out in the field back to 12 months, both on the advice of the commanders in... I dunno, sub-chief? He also announced that he will hold the line on any further withdrawals until Petreus and company can evaluate the situation caused by the first set of withdrawals.
Interestingly, NPR's hourly newscast is emphasizing the last point, that Bush is refusing to consider further withdrawls at present. Could be liberal bias, could be that they consider that the real news since we knew he was going to say the other stuff.
Bush also whined about the next emergency war funding bill, saying that unless Congress met his conditions for it he would veto it. I think that when Bush whines about stuff, he really believes it. It's when he's not whining that he's lying. The whining is his way of saying, "you idiots! Why are you fighting me on this? I'm right!" I gotta admire a man who so doesn't accept compromise that he's willing to underfund his own war in order to get his way. There's your rejection of nuance!
By the way, how is this an emergency? Were they planning on the war being over when they did the regular budget?
I think Bush made a good point about the need to keep troops in until we have defeated the terrorists. If we withdraw, they will be emboldened. But if we don't and we don't "defeat" them, they will also be emboldened. And the terrorist aren't likely to throw in the towel any time soon, because they're terrorists.
And how did poor Iraq get in this situation, with us taking over their country to lure terrorists away from our own soil and thus fight them there? Isn't that the worst possible foreign relations move? I'm deliberately ignoring the point in the narrative where we claimed to be invading Iraq because they were harboring the 9/11 attackers. Because they stopped saying that for a long time and only recently started saying it again.
It was amusing to hear the President say that 15 months ago we were on the defensive... I don't recollect that kind of assessment coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania 15 months ago. As I recall, victory was just around the corner back then. Well, the corner must be pretty damn vast.
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Almost forgot my most important point! Why is Bush willing to draw down the troops? That's not like him!
Well, maybe even he recognizes that if he doesn't want to be the one to start up the draft again, he's going to need to get his Iran invasion force from somewhere. He's got till the end of the year to crank up THAT machine, and from the speech I'm guessing it's going to be sooner rather than later. Maybe that's the emergency which will postpone elections. Still too early to tell. I'm keeping some money on a bird flu epidemic.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
My, That George Bush Fellah is Evil
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4 comments:
Looks like whoever is in office when Iran attacks will need troops, based on tonight's debate:
In a 90-minute debate, both rivals pledged they would respond forcefully if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and uses them against Israel.
"An attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation by the United States," said Clinton.
Obama said, "The U.S. would take appropriate action."
Uh-Oh.
That's so adorable that you think that Iran has access to nuclear weapons. Of courrrrrrse they do. After all, the administration says they have weapons of mass destruction, and they've never been wrong about that before.
You're reading comprehension needs to improve, sir. Re-read the statement.
For such a short, little, 2-letter word, IF is the largest name of all.
I must be mistaken - the part I was responding to was you saying when Iran attacks. Did you mean if there? It's a common mistake.
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