How To Spin This Thing…Thoughts, Anybody?

Let’s see…how can president Bush bring American troops home and at the same time save face and claim he was always right and never made a mistake? Ideas…anyone? On November 30, 2005 The White House issued an encyclical titled “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”. The first subhead was “Victory in Iraq is Defined in Stages”, followed by the stages envisioned by the WH: Short term Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces. Medium term Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential. Longer term Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism. Forget about trying to define what “standing up security forces” means, because the short term and medium term stages have been shitcanned. Or, more accurately, in Bush-speak, when the Prez gave a speech on November 30, 2005 about the 35-page White House document, he said Stage 1 and Stage 2 had already been achieved. He said increasing numbers of Iraqi troops had been equipped and trained, a democratic government was being forged, Iraq’s economy was being rebuilt and U.S. military and civilian presence would change as conditions improve. Mission accomplished on Short Term and Medium Term goals. So now victory in Iraq can be defined by achieving the Longer Term goal. The US can get out of Iraq when Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, secure, loved and respected throughout the world and fighting terrorism like demons. Early reports say that Bush thinks the Iraq Study Group report is crap. And Iraq President Talabani thinks so too. This morning the New York Times reported, “President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that the American program to train Iraq’s security forces had been a repeated failure and he denounced a plan to increase the number of American advisers working with the Iraqi Army, saying it would subvert the country’s sovereignty.” There it is! Bush is nearly home free. Talabani says Iraq doesn’t need American advisors. “What have they done so far in training the army and the police?” Talabani said. “What they have done is move from failure to failure.” Talabani went on to say that the Iraq Study Group report offered some “very dangerous” recommendations, which undermined the country’s ability to control its own army and police force and threatened Iraq’s sovereignty. “These mistakes would be repeated if the Iraqi Army would be under the control of foreign officers, and we would never accept it,” Talabani said. The NYT said Talabani’s remarks “were likely to dismay the American leadership, which has regarded him as one of its more reliable and like-minded partners here.” Au contraire! Talabani and the White House are totally like-minded. What would be better than for the Iraq president to kick the US out of Iraq? Everything is clicking into place. Bush says the ISG report is unrealistic. Talabani says the ISG report is dangerous and who needs the US anyway. And then Rumsfeld secretly flies into Iraq and says: "We feel great urgency to protect the American people from another 9/11 or a 9/11 times two or three. At the same time, we need to have the patience to see this task through to success. The consequences of failure are unacceptable…the enemy must be defeated." One wonders who Rumsfeld thinks is his enemy. George W. Bush? The Bush administration and Iraq President Talabani agree that victory in Iraq will be accomplished when Iraq is running its own show. But Rumsfeld tells the troops that we have to keep fighting until the last dog is dead. And McCain and Lieberman intone Amen. What does John Q. Public in the US and Iraq say? “Convict the whole lot of war crimes and hang them next to Saddam.”