GOP Plan For Staying in Power: Talk Tough

House Republican leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) said that Al Qaeda was “surely pleased at the show of support from Capital Hill Democrats” last week when they applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Prez had overstepped his powers re detainees at Gitmo. As the LA Times said this morning, tough talk “helped the GOP to take control of the Senate in 2002 and Bush to win reelection in 2004” And apparently the Repubs are confident that tough sounding bullshit will also win the day in 2006 and 2008. The other part of the tough talk plan is to paint the Democrats as “wishy-washy” traitors who “embolden” terrorists. Recently, the Prez said, "What's going to matter [in the 2006 elections] is who has got the plan that will enable us to succeed in Iraq.” The flaw in that idiotic boast is that the Bush administration has no plan for success in Iraq. And that is because the Bush administration cannot succeed in Iraq. The White House has switched from swagger and brag about winning the war to swagger and brag about defeating terrorism. And yet, neither is possible. For a couple of days, the White House talked trash about how killing the Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi had the insurgents on the run. But facts soon showed the claim to be ridiculous. A suicide bomb in an open-air market in Baghdad on Saturday killed 77 people and wounded 96 in the deadliest single attack since the Iraqi government was formed six weeks ago. And everyday we hear one more grisly story about American soldiers killing and raping civilians in this out-of-control, unnecessary and unwinnable war. The GOP says Democrats are “defeatists” and that they have no plan for victory in Iraq. It’s true. It’s impossible for a sane person to be optimistic about the chances for success in Iraq since there is no chance for success in Iraq. It’s impossible to have a plan for victory when victory in Iraq is out of the question. When do we start to defeat terrorism in Iraq? What does success in Iraq look like? What does victory in Iraq look like? And what is the Bush administration’s step-by-step plan for winning in Iraq? We will never hear answers to those questions because the White House cannot have a cogent plan for a situation that cannot happen. We will only hear how tough talk will win elections in the US. But here is a really tough question: Does the Bush administration want to win in Iraq and therefore have an end to this war? Or is it better for big business, better for Republicans, better for the foreign powers that the GOP has already sold out to, to keep this war going?