After eight more years?
I have no freaking idea. All I can show my readers is what success in Iraq looks like after 6½ years.
Last Wednesday, Ex-Vice President Dick Cheney told the think tank, Center for Security Policy (in part),
Now the loyal opposition - if that is what you call the Republican Party - wants President Obama to extend their long war in Afghanistan with anotherBush's bold decision to change strategy in Iraq and surge U.S. forces there set the stage for success in that country. Iraq has the potential to be a strong, democratic ally in the war on terrorism, and an example of economic and democratic reform in the heart of the Middle East. The Obama Administration has an obligation to protect this young democracy and build on the strategic success we have achieved in Iraq.
We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.
I don't think so. Not a good call. The time for implementing an exit strategy was nine months ago.
No! No! I don't want to see this on my Sunday morning! Bring back the balloon boy! Something! Not this!
ReplyDeleteMore to come, Food-Blogger. More to come.
ReplyDeleteVigil,
ReplyDeleteas a fellow Dodger fan I know you know this but still got to state it-the surge was no success,it may have given the illusion of success to people who get their news from the corporate media but it was a human failure.We simply concluded the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from certain provinces and paid the resistance not to fight.To consider the fruits of Divide and Rule and paying your enemy not to fight a success is shortsighted at best,at worst it's freaking stupid.
We have "peace" in Iraq for a variety of reasons. One, the country has already largely been ethnically cleansed. Two, we cut a deal with one unsavory group to eliminate another unsavory group. And, three, yes the surge probabaly was a factor (this, in that any time you increase the number of checkpoints, the violence is suppressed). But we still haven't solved the fundamental problem of multi-ethnic governance. How do we know that this "peace" will last when in fact we do finally leave? And what about the refugees, the infrastructure that is still in shambles? Cheney and McCain (who I do still have some respect for - Cheney, not so much) never want to talk about these things. It takes away too much time from their smugness.
ReplyDeleteAbout that surge, the folks at American Conservative put it rather well last year when Obama was facing pressure to just concede that the surge worked: "Obama won’t admit a mistake, because he is a smart guy – capable of understanding that foreign policy analysis can't be popped out of a cereal box like a plastic decoder ring. He gets that the drop in violence resulted from a convergence of events 'on the ground' that had as much to do with paying our former enemies to stop fighting us, the so-called 'Anbar Awakening' that started before The Surge and the sectarian cleansing, as it did with the insertion of 30,000 more US troops into Iraq. Plus, Maliki found a way to ensure that his own militia – the Iraqi Army, plus an assist from the the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade –won the war of competing Shia factions in Basra and elsewhere, and Sadr's milita in Baghdad is still lying low in a likely shrewd political calculation ..."
ReplyDeleteA general comment I feel compelled to make is that (re: Iraq) I don't know if decent people can ever declare a criminal undertaking that flouted the UN Charter, displaced millions and killed hundreds of thousands a success.
Stimpson,
ReplyDeleteKudos.Exactly.We invaded and occupied for our own reasons,none of which were noble or good.We have dirtbags like Pickens saying we earned the right to their oil cause we lost troops in the invasion.
Chimpy and his puppetmaster managed to divert billions of taxpayer dollars to their cronies in Halliburton and KBR, and opened up an endless number of possibilities for their cronies at BP, Shell, Exxon, etc.
ReplyDeleteFrom their standpoint, Chimpy's Glorious Oedipal Crusade on Iraq has been a HELL of a success. For the Iraqis, it's been.... HELL.
I agree with Will's comment and as far as his question about how long the "peace" will last? I figure once we are gone all bets are off with Iraq breaking apart. The illusions the Surge established will evaporate.
ReplyDeleteConservative columnist George Will went after Cheney on today, responding to the VP's widely-circulated comment that President Obama was "dithering" on Afghanistan and putting troops in danger. Will said the Bush administration could have used some "dithering" before they invaded Iraq:
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary,it was hasty decisions that put people at risk . . . . A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action.
ABC's "This Week."
Did we lose 14 of our best today? That's what I heard.
ReplyDeleteWe DID lose 14 of our best today LTE, and the religious crazies are rioting and chanting "death to America" because of a rumor that foreign troops burned a copy of the Koran. For me this is the last straw. We need to get the hell out of there and we need to do it now. Enough is enough.
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with the general response here Vig. The uppance of burning Obama's effigy and the flag puts my mind into retro fit, visions of past 'defeat' and carnage in southeast Asia. I'm for the 'dithering' myself.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Will is one of the few conservative commentators with integrtity. I thought it was absolutely boffo that he went after Cheney like that. And I also liked the way that Lindsey Graham went after Glenn Beck. That was also awesome.
ReplyDelete