The Bare Bones Facts of The Matter

The New York Times reported this morning that, “President Bush will take part in high-visibility deliberations on Iraq next week, making visits to the Pentagon and State Department as they take part in an administrationwide effort to chart a new course in the war.” No, Bush won’t and no, the administration isn’t. Any appearance that Bush is taking part in deliberations or that the administration is making an effort to chart a new course is a staged performance for photo-ops and is of no importance whatsoever. The NYT also said, ‘The flurry of conspicuous consultation, officials said, is part of Mr. Bush’s effort to come up with a new approach in Iraq under intense pressure to bring the violence there under control or begin reducing the United States’ military commitment." The “new approach” that the Bush administration is trying to come up with is a new way to say the same old crap about the war in Iraq. But the last thing the White House wants is a new approach in Iraq. Tony Snow says that Bush’s pledge to be bipartisan “only goes so far”. Snow says the Dems who want Bush to listen to them should be willing to listen to the Prez and support him. As you can see, Bush’s pledge to be bipartisan goes only as far as saying the words. George W. Bush can no more be bipartisan than he can tell the truth. The fact is Bush cannot bring the violence under control in Iraq because Donald Rumsfeld’s strategies lead to the proliferation of terrorism and the so-called insurgency groups now have the upper hand. The Iraq Study Group said: The challenges are daunting. The situation is dire. Attacks against US forces are persistent and growing. The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. In other words, the US is powerless in Iraq. And it’s powerless because Donald Rumsfeld liked to play soldier on paper and would not let our generals fight the war the way it should have been fought. Rumsfeld had lots of fun. He played around with his war tactics as though it was a board game. And when real soldiers on a real battlefield didn’t have the same outcome as his toy soldiers, or when the Generals said his paper plans would fail, Rumsfeld’s response was, “My plan has not failed, you have failed. Go do it.” With each US failure the guerilla groups became stronger. They are on their own turf. The US soldiers are no match for homegrown guerillas in Iraq. No matter what the reports that Bush is awaiting from the State Department, the Pentagon and National Security advise, the United States is powerless in Iraq. If the US pours 50,000 more troops into Iraq and kills 3,000 more American soldiers and spends $300 billion more US dollars, the United States will still be powerless in Iraq because Donald Rumsfeld made irreversible errors at the outset of this unnecessary war. The polls show that 73% of the American public do not approve of the way George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq. No matter how much Tony Snow tries to razzle and dazzle, 27% of the voting public cannot keep Republicans in their jobs. And sad though it is, that’s how this whole sorry mess will be decided. And let’s for a moment think seriously about what Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) said in a speech in Congress this past Thursday night. He called the Iraq war “absurd”, he said he never would have voted for it if he’d known the intelligence used to promote the war was inaccurate. And he said the war perhaps was even “criminal”. The Bush administration is indeed guilty of being war criminals and our energies should be focused on prosecuting the entire Bush administration for war crimes.