MyDD :: Strategery for Victory

Strategery for Victory

by ignatz, Wed Nov 30, 2005 at 07:17:25 PM EST

Bush made another speech this morning, deciding to finally come up with a Strategy for Victory THREE YEARS into a war.

Pardon me for pointing this out, but shouldn't he have had a Strategy for Victory when he STARTED the bloody thing? I mean, since it WAS "at a time and place of our choosing," after all, he MIGHT have laid down a plan or two from the get-go. But no. That would require competence.

A couple of things I noticed, though (actually from the text of the proposal, not the speech. The speech said the same thing in nearly the same words, though):

"Iraq would become a safe haven from which terrorists could plan attacks against America, American interests abroad, and our allies."

You know what that is? It's an admission that this was a completely disastrous thing to do. Because there was no danger that Iraq could become a such a safe haven before we invaded.

We CAUSED the place to become a possible "safe haven from which terrorists could plan attacks against America." We TURNED it into another Afghanistan. We invaded, and we left the borders unguarded and we let the terrorists in.

Now Al Qaeda has the chance to establish a beachhead in the Middle East, and Bush ADMITS that. Thanks to him.

"The enemy is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida. Distinct but integrated strategies are required to defeat each element."

In that part of his speech, Bush pointed out that the largest group was Sunnis - NOT terrorists. The largest group that makes up what Bush calls "the enemy" is Iraqis. And they are being driven to fight by the fact of our presence. Our presence in the country is CAUSING an uneasy alliance between terrorists and Sunnis, on the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

You know what I think will happen if we leave? There may well be a civil war. But - and some of you may find this a bit unsettling - if Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds finally start fighting each other, like they've been wanting to for the last century, well, let them. Not our business. It isn't worth US having a war to prevent THEM from having a war. They want one, anyway.

But what will also happen is that the Sunnis will start fighting Al Qaeda, which they aren't doing NOW. They don't like those people. Al Qaeda are maniacs who keep setting off suicide bombs and killing civilians. The Iraqis HATE them. But right now, we and the Iraqi Army are fighting the Sunnis AND Al Qaeda. But if we leave, resistance to our occupation will be removed as a rallying cry and a point of alliance, and the Iraqi Army AND the Sunnis AND the Shii'ites AND the Kurds will ALL start fighting Al Qaeda.

I don't think there is a chance in hell of Al Qaeda actually taking over in Iraq - they are grossly outnumbered and hated by the whole country. UNLESS WE STAY. Because our presence there forms a flashpoint of unity for groups that would normally be at enmity, and is enabling Al Qaeda to gain support - or at least a lack of opposition - from those who would normally hate them.

This is a disaster. Bush caused the disaster. Our invasion caused the disaster. Leaving will END the disaster.

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Exactly right (none / 0)

Seymore Hersh expressed much the same analysis on Democracy Now this morning. He also added this interesting little tidbit about Murtha:

SEYMOUR HERSH: Murtha is one of those oldies, in his 70s now. He's somebody like me, I always try to get to. I can talk to some of his aides. He's on the Defense -- he's one of the leading players on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He's a very conservative military guy, who controls the budget, not only the budget we know about, but the black budget, the covert budget. He's one of those people trusted. Jerry Lewis in the Congress is another one, a House member. In the Senate, it would be Senator Inouye of Hawaii and Senator Ted Stevens, both in their 80s, of Alaska. They run the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. These are the guys that the generals talk to. And Murtha is one, in particular. He's known for his closeness to the four-stars. They come and they bleed on him.

And so, for Murtha to suddenly say it's over, as he did three weeks ago or two weeks ago, as I wrote in this article, it drove the White House crazy. They were beyond mad, as somebody said to me, because they know that the generals are talking to him. So here you have a case where we don't have -- you know, the generals are terrified pretty much, as they always are. That's just the nature of the game. But they don't speak truth to power. They're not telling the American people exactly what's going on, and they're clearly not telling the White House, because the White House doesn't want to hear.

So Murtha's message is a message, really, from a -- you can consider it a message from a lot of generals on active duty today. This is what they think, at least a significant percentage of them, I assure you. This is, I'm not over-dramatizing this. It's a shot across the bow. They don't think it's doable. You can't tell that to this President. He doesn't want to hear it. But you can say it to Murtha, you can say it to Inouye, you can say it to Stevens.

by Gary Boatwright on Wed Nov 30, 2005 at 10:13:21 PM EST

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