Bob Cesca
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Bush's Iraq Strategery: Blame The Troops
Posted March 19, 2008 | 11:10 AM (EST)
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Iraq invasion and occupation has been the administration's -- and mainly the president's -- predictably awful and irresponsible habit of placing the burden of the success or failure of this thing squarely on the shoulders of an already overburdened military. Specifically, President Bush and all of his apologists have scapegoated or are preemptively scapegoating the troops and the "commanders on the ground."
It's a strategy that could only come from a group of cowardly old bastards who, for the most part, deliberately avoided military service themselves.
By way of a random sampling of mistakes and atrocities:
* When the Abu Ghraib torture photographs surfaced, the line from the administration wasn't about confronting the policies that fostered such atrocities--the line was, Oh! That was just a group of bad apples. Destroy them now! Go! In other words, don't blame the administration's medieval torture policy that everyone knows about. Blame the troops.
* When munitions were stolen from the formerly IAEA-sealed bunkers in al-Qa'qaa after the initial invasion took place, the White House and the Pentagon blamed the troops for not adequately securing the facility. No one in the administration was man enough to own up to the fact that the troops were, for the most part, ordered to secure the Iraqi Oil Ministry and not much else. Don't blame the goddamn policy. Blame the troops.
* Even that "Mission Accomplished" banner--clearly a product of the White House's obsessive need for sloganeering and plastering their message du jour on every smooth surface available - -was ultimately blamed on the Navy and the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln. It didn't seem to matter to the cowards in the White House that the initial draft of the speech itself, in fact, contained the words "mission accomplished." Blame the troops, or at least make them partially to blame, and the White House's story turned into a roundelay of he-said-she-said. We produced the banner, but the Navy asked for it. Or, it was our idea, but the men aboard the Lincoln wanted to put something up. And on and on and on.
Like I said. Just a sampling. Naturally, no one is suggesting the military is without blame. But if the president is so curled up and comfy inside of his jingoistic Chimpy McFlightsuit commander-in-chief role, then he ought to man-up and accept the blame for all of it. But he hasn't and he won't. And why should he? He's been bailed out his entire life. Why change now?
more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/bushs-iraq-strategery-b_b_92320.html
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