Once Again, The Prez Rejects Our Reality

To paraphrase Adam Savage of Mythbusters: The president has rejected our reality and has substituted his own. “Victory in Iraq is achievable,” Bush said in his year-end press conference yesterday. ”Our goal remains a free and democratic Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself and is an ally in the war on terror.” The war in Iraq would require “difficult choices and additional sacrifices” in 2007, Bush said. This morning the New York Times said the president had “firmly rejected the notion that the war could not be won and vowed that the United States would not be ‘run out of the Middle East’ by extremists and radicals.” At least Bush administration advisor retired general Barry R. McCaffrey sees the folly, if not total nuttiness of Bush talking about victory. McCaffrey said, “Victory is not a good word to use…it implies that there is a military outcome in the short term that ends violence, and that’s not going to happen.” “The president gave little hint of what he would do in Iraq,” the NYT said. “Though he has been considering proposals to send additional troops to Baghdad in the short term, Mr. Bush said he was still listening to military commanders — some of whom are said to be skeptical of a short-term increase — and had not yet made up his mind. He is expected to outline his Iraq strategy after the first of the year.” The president is listening to no one and certainly not to General McCaffrey. Bush hears nothing but the voices in his head telling him he is a great president, a decider of formidable intelligence, a leader who makes no mistakes. And though he may not always be right, George W. Bush is never wrong. The president told the reporters at his news conference, “I’m reading about George Washington still. My attitude is, if they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it, and just do what he thinks is right, make the tough choices necessary.” On October 26th, Rumsfeld told the whole world not to worry about things. He explained that honorable people were in charge. “You ought to just back off,” Rumsfeld said. “Relax, understand that it’s complicated, it’s difficult. Honorable people are working on these things together. There isn’t any daylight between them. They’ll be discussing this and discussing that. They may have a change there, a change here. But it’ll get worked out.” A few minutes before saying it’s complicated, Rumsfeld had said, “It is not complicated. I’ve explained it two or three times. The president did an excellent job of explaining it yesterday.” Thankfully, one of these two lunatics was fired. The president’s new Iraq strategy, which he says he will reveal early in 2007, will simply be the president’s old Iraq strategy wrapped in new rhetoric. George W. Bush is incapable of understanding that victory is not achievable in Iraq if victory is based on Iraq becoming a free and democratic nation that is able to govern, sustain, and defend itself and be an ally in the war on terror. It’s like the insurgents telling Americans that they are killing our soldiers in order to give us the gift of tyranny, oppression and a wardrobe of burkas and abas. Our culture makes no more sense to them than their culture makes sense to us. It was a little more comprehensible when the American aggressors just came out and said, “We want your oil and we’re going to take your oil.” At first, it even seemed like a halfway decent bargain—exchanging a shitty Iraq dictator for a less shitty American dictator. Now the Iraqis know the American dictator is equally as unattractive, corrupt, mendacious, and thieving as Saddam Hussein ever was on his worst day. And the irony is, if we had actually gone into Iraq and had done what we said we were going to do like building hospitals, and schools and improving Iraq’s infrastructure, we actually might have been able to strike a bargain about oil and about making Iraq an ally. I do have an idea, though. How about if we use all the billions that the Prez wants to throw down the Iraq rathole on stupid military solutions and use it to bribe every man, woman, child, soldier, insurgent and terrorist in the entire nation to allow our soldiers, our consultants, our trainers, our generals and our diplomats to go home unhindered and with the blessing of the Iraq nation. I don’t want to be politically incorrect or anything…but tell me that Middle Easterners don’t know from bribing. I say it will work.