thedrifter
01-15-07, 06:52 PM
WHO LOST IRAQ?
By Richard Reeves
Mon Jan 15, 6:02 PM ET
LOS ANGELES -- President Bush announced his new Iraq strategy on national television last Wednesday night: Who Lost Iraq?
He set up the new phase of the war "debate" by blaming:
The Iraqis. We overthrew their tyrannical government and told them how to build an American-style democracy, but they screwed it up.
"Our commanders," a phrase he used twice, meaning the U.S. military. We, meaning the White House, told them to build an American-style democracy, but they screwed it up.
The Congress. After looking the other way as an administration cabal spent and lost about one-half trillion dollars in the fog and sand of war in the desert, Congress may screw everything up by asking for real information before authorizing hundreds of millions more. But now the president says he will have "consultations" with the Congress, "a bipartisan working group" -- the better to share the blame and shame.
The president managed to restrain the urge to blame the press or the Democratic Party, but that game has begun among dead-ender supporters of the war:
The press. James Q. Wilson, one of the smartest academic observers of American society over the past few decades, seems to have lost his way (or his head) abroad, writing in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal: "We lost in Vietnam and are in danger of losing in Iraq and Lebanon in the newspapers, magazines and television programs we enjoy." His complaint is that there just have not been enough positive stories and broadcasts on American progress in saving Iraqis from themselves. Just like Vietnam, he says.
The Democrats. David Brooks, another perceptive conservative, at least on domestic affairs, wrote in The New York Times the day after the speech: "The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they're on their own."
"No Democratic alternatives" is a favorite theme of the dead-enders. Apparently saying before the war that it was a huge mistake that would lead to civil war and a totally destabilized Middle East was never considered an alternative to national humiliation and the beginning of the end of American superpower.
The speech was a pathetic joke. Watching Bush on autopilot was embarrassing even for someone who has used his name in vain for years.
"I have made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended," he said, and then he put the Iraqi cart before the American horse. "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people ..." What promises? What support?
What strategy? The president admitted mistakes, but the one he elaborated on demonstrated only ignorance multiplied. He said that we and our Iraqi "allies" had not had enough troops to hold bad neighborhoods after clearing them. "The killers returned ..." he said, widening his eyes in surprise. The killers live there, Mr. President.
Perhaps we should leave a platoon of Marines on every block forever. There's an alternative.
Ah, if only this were all new. But it is the kind of nonsense we heard again and again about South Vietnamese governments before we overthrew and abandoned them. On the day of Bush's speech, I happened to be with a physician, generally apolitical, who asked me: "Do these people read history? Do they understand this is what happened to the Roman Empire?"
The answer is no and no.
There is no sense of history or strategy in any of this. And if there really is a plan, I would have to guess that it is to keep buying time with make-believe strategies until this president is back in Crawford, Texas, writing his memoirs, blaming this on the Iraqis and the military and Congress. He will conclude that they and his successor lost Iraq. And, if he understood what has happened, he will add that they lost "the regional stability" that was American policy in the Middle East for more than a half-century, the 52 years before Bush and his bully boys thought they could take over the land like modern Crusaders.
Ellie
By Richard Reeves
Mon Jan 15, 6:02 PM ET
LOS ANGELES -- President Bush announced his new Iraq strategy on national television last Wednesday night: Who Lost Iraq?
He set up the new phase of the war "debate" by blaming:
The Iraqis. We overthrew their tyrannical government and told them how to build an American-style democracy, but they screwed it up.
"Our commanders," a phrase he used twice, meaning the U.S. military. We, meaning the White House, told them to build an American-style democracy, but they screwed it up.
The Congress. After looking the other way as an administration cabal spent and lost about one-half trillion dollars in the fog and sand of war in the desert, Congress may screw everything up by asking for real information before authorizing hundreds of millions more. But now the president says he will have "consultations" with the Congress, "a bipartisan working group" -- the better to share the blame and shame.
The president managed to restrain the urge to blame the press or the Democratic Party, but that game has begun among dead-ender supporters of the war:
The press. James Q. Wilson, one of the smartest academic observers of American society over the past few decades, seems to have lost his way (or his head) abroad, writing in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal: "We lost in Vietnam and are in danger of losing in Iraq and Lebanon in the newspapers, magazines and television programs we enjoy." His complaint is that there just have not been enough positive stories and broadcasts on American progress in saving Iraqis from themselves. Just like Vietnam, he says.
The Democrats. David Brooks, another perceptive conservative, at least on domestic affairs, wrote in The New York Times the day after the speech: "The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they're on their own."
"No Democratic alternatives" is a favorite theme of the dead-enders. Apparently saying before the war that it was a huge mistake that would lead to civil war and a totally destabilized Middle East was never considered an alternative to national humiliation and the beginning of the end of American superpower.
The speech was a pathetic joke. Watching Bush on autopilot was embarrassing even for someone who has used his name in vain for years.
"I have made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended," he said, and then he put the Iraqi cart before the American horse. "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people ..." What promises? What support?
What strategy? The president admitted mistakes, but the one he elaborated on demonstrated only ignorance multiplied. He said that we and our Iraqi "allies" had not had enough troops to hold bad neighborhoods after clearing them. "The killers returned ..." he said, widening his eyes in surprise. The killers live there, Mr. President.
Perhaps we should leave a platoon of Marines on every block forever. There's an alternative.
Ah, if only this were all new. But it is the kind of nonsense we heard again and again about South Vietnamese governments before we overthrew and abandoned them. On the day of Bush's speech, I happened to be with a physician, generally apolitical, who asked me: "Do these people read history? Do they understand this is what happened to the Roman Empire?"
The answer is no and no.
There is no sense of history or strategy in any of this. And if there really is a plan, I would have to guess that it is to keep buying time with make-believe strategies until this president is back in Crawford, Texas, writing his memoirs, blaming this on the Iraqis and the military and Congress. He will conclude that they and his successor lost Iraq. And, if he understood what has happened, he will add that they lost "the regional stability" that was American policy in the Middle East for more than a half-century, the 52 years before Bush and his bully boys thought they could take over the land like modern Crusaders.
Ellie