Today John McCain in the last throes of his striaght (and slightly 'round the corner) talk tour went on This Week to pump a last few puffs of air into the soon to be orally delivered Presi-Treaus Report on our "success" in Iraq so far.
Fortunately John Kerry was also there to provide a bit of Reality-Checking, not to mention sanity.
Prefacing this latest version of the "We're Kicking Ass in Iraq" Show prior to the upcoming report was a brief clip from April of 1967 where Gen. Westmoreland spoke to a joint session of Congress to explain just how well we're doing on our last disastrous military boondoogle - Vietnam.
Westmoreland: The strategy we are pursuing is the correct one. And that it is making progress.
Making "progress"? - It's seem we're always making progress, just before we finally realize we've been running in circles, meanwhile the cost of slowly digging this ditch of mystical "progress" is often paid for in buckets of treasure and blood.
While we continued to "make progress" in South East Asia the U.S. lost approx 38,000 troops in from 1968 and 1972. Nice job.
After the clip Stephanapolous also pointed out that much of the public is highly skeptical of Patreaus' upcoming report.
Hmm, ya think?
- 43% Believe Patreaus will fudge the numbers
- 66% Believe Bush will continue his current course regardless of what the report says
- Only 28% believe that things are now "better in iraq"
None of this detered John McCain as he first tried to rehabilitate Patreaus from comparisons to Westmoreland.
McCain – Petreaus new strategy is more like that of Gen. Abrams than Westmoreland.
So those additional 38,000 deaths should be laid at whose feet then? Westmoreland who false claimed we were "making progress" or Abrams who still didn't make any real progress even after this dramatic strategy change? How many more American Deaths will we be counting after this latest "progress" report?
But then again we have to show some sympathy to McCain, you see - he of course only wants what we all want right?
McCain : Of course we are all tired of this war and want our troops out - but we need to get out with honor"
My that phrase sounds familiar doesn't it, might it have previously been uttered by Richard Milhouse Nixon in 1973 when he finally announced the agreement to end the vietnam war?
Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and ]bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
But it seems to me, McCain doesn't really believe this kind of rhetoric since he later in the program proclaimed that what really don't want is a "defeated" army like the one we had after declared our "peace with honor" in Vietnam.
McCain: I know what it’s like when you have a defeated army. In the 1970 after we had a defeated army we had riots on our aircraft carriers we had rampant drug use we can insubordination, we had a broken army and it took us a decade to recover from that. I don’t want a defeated army.
Stephanopolous: The question is what does it take?
McCain: It does appear that this is moving toward a soft partition. If we leave the Sunni will ally the Iran, the Kurds declare independence. (If we leave) I am convinced that it will be chaos and genocide.
Here's a newsflash you Johnny, it's already is chaos and there already has been genocide and ethnic cleansing. A point which John Kerry made perfectly clear in response.
Kerry: And the fact of the matter is - John McCain just said there isn’t going to be a "soft partition" in Iraq – well the fact of the matter George is that their already is a soft partition in Iraq. At the beginning of this war Baghdad was 65% Sunni, today it is 75% Shia. And the fact is that you’ve had tens of thousand of Iraqis who have been driven out of their communities. And one of the reasons the violence is down is because this level of partition is already taken place.
The real issue isn't about our troops being "defeated" - didn't we declare Mission Accomplished several years ago? Our troops have long ago succeeded in finding out that Saddam had no WMD's, and that he had no ties to Al Qaeda - and managed to depose and execute him anyway. Good Job. Now the question is somewhat different, it's not whether the troops will be defeated - it's whether democracy and diplomacy will be defeated and that's something the troops have nothing to do with.
Stephanpolous: Sen. McCain says we have to give it more time to work.
Kerry: Well that’s the same kind of flawed thinking, I regret to say, that has brought us the first four and a half years of this disastrous war and the thinking that got us mired in Vietnam. You heard McCain say "I don’t want to see a defeated army". That tells the whole story. It’s not a question of a defeated army, it’s a question of whether the Iraqi government is going to step up and make decisions that are out of the hands of our army. That are outside of any military solution.
So in effect, when Senator McCain and the republicans setup this equation "we can’t have a defeated army, our troops have to come home with honor" - well, of course they have to come home with honor - but they’ve done all that they can do. They've given the Iraqi government time to make those choices, and as we’ve seen the Iraqi government is failing utterly to make any of the critical compromises.
...
These benchmarks were set by the Iraqis, they said this is what you should measure us by and the administration said this is what you should measure us by. Well, we are. And when you look at only three out of 18 benchmarks met, and the three that are met are almost unimportant in terms of the real issue - the oil revenues, the elections the de-bathification, the amnesty – the sole reason for sending more troops was to give them time to make that decision. They’ve been given that time but they haven’t even begun to make the critical decisions.
Ah, yes isn't that nostalgia for the 60-70's intoxicating? Meanwhile in the present day, the question of have we made any "progress" in Iraq is still pressing. The real question is "Should we Stay or should we Rock The Casbah"? What does Mccain say?
McCain: No, the Iraqi government has not met benchmarks, but there has been significant local progress. But this strategy has "only just begun" and I think we’re just getting to a point where we could start withdrawing troops.
Stephapolous: How much time do we give them? Gen Patreaus strategy is based on having a functioning Iraqi government...
McCain: It’s only been after four years of a failed strategy (by Rumself) that we’ve had this strategy in place for short period of time. I share the frustration of the American people, but there is significant political progress – at the local level – on the ground.
By "Local Progress" McCain like so man right-wingers are now hanging all their hopes on Al-Anbar province. The problem of course is that what happened in Anbar has basically nothing to do with the Surge.
Stephanopoulous: Some democrats have come back from Iraq say they see progress. Congressman Brian Baird said "I believe the dynamics on the ground are changing, the changes I’ve seen warrant continued action until next spring"
Kerry: I think it’s really important that people who take quick trips to Iraq (and leasurely stroll through Markets with a ton of Humvee and gunships overhead) don’t get sidetracked by what’s really at stake here. Sunni violence in Anbar province was originally al Qeada. And the Sunni sheiks decided they were tired of seeing their daughters raped and their suns beheaded, and violence in their villages. So they’ve took advantage of this moment. And they decided to cooperate with us in order to protect Sunni within their essentially Sunni province. No one can explain, and no one in the administration can particularly say how what has happened in Anbar province translates into anything the rest of Iraq.
Let me just emphasize the point that what we did in Anbar - was ally ourselves with the local Insurgents. There are reports today that one of the tribal leaders that met with Bush last week, Sheik Sattar is one of the shadiest characters in the region. Whose tribes is..
notorious for highway banditry, is also building a personal militia, loyal not to the Iraqi government but only to him." Marc Lynch writes, "It’s kind of humiliating to watch an American President get rolled by a two bit, corrupt petty shaykh
Is this the kind of "progress" we're talking about here? Breaking bread with former killers of Americans and allowing them to setup their own mini-feifdoms?
I guess we have to roll-with-the-gangsters now since the Iraqi government is completely corrupt don't we?
The fact is the some of the fighting is down in certain areas because the ethnic cleansing of those area is now complete. There's no one left alive to fight with.
But that isn't a song that McCain cares to sing. He would prefer to simply belittle anyone and everyone who might happen to criticize this near total failure that the Iraq War has been and still is.
McCain: We used to hear that we weren’t making progress militarily, well now that we are we hear that we aren’t making progress politically. Suppose we are making progress (poltically) and in six months I come back on this program will you and the others say – "way to go?"
Stephanoplous: I hope that the evidence justifies it.
Yeah, that's telling isn't it? Doesn't "I hope the evidence justifies it" pretty much mean that Georgie just called McCain a liar to his face?
And he's not the only one since MoveOn.org has put out its "General Betray Us" ad - and McCain is certainly not above playing the Neo-Patriot Card.
Move On: Cooking the books for the White House.
General Petreaus will not admit what everyone else know: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.
McCain: He's served his country with honor and distinction and if we have to sink to that level to besmirch the honor of a fair an fine individual. I lament the level of dialogue. I hope that me democrat friends will not be guided by moveon.org.
Steph: They say many of them have taken to calling this the Bush Report and that it may have undue White House Influence.
Mac: I know this man, he’s not going to allow politicization of the dedication and service that not only he is providing, but the brave young men and women under his command. This may be an indication of the level of discussion in this country, when the leader of the senate says "the war is lost", when a congressman from South Carolina says it would "hurt the democrat plans" if we succeed, Sen. Schumer says "we’re going to pick up seats" as a result of this war. What they fail to understand is that that Presidents don’t lose war snd political parties don’t lose wars – nations lose wars. When nations lose wars the nation suffers the consequences.
If we start disparaging the men and women who are serving in uniform and their honor, then I think we’ve reached a sad place in American politics.
What do you mean "reached"?
McCain laments the "level of the dialogue" of Democrats (for simply pointing out that Patreaus has already shown himself to be a liar fact fudger by the GAO, the Congressional Research Service and other experts) after the Bush campaigned alleged that his experience as a P.O.W. had "made him crazy", and that he had an illigitimate black child?
Are you serious?
He laments this after Jean Schmidt called Decorated Marine John Murtha "a coward."
He laments this when people like Melanie Morgan - who somehow rates a private visit to the White House - can go around saying that Captain Jon Soltz should be "crushed like a cockroach?"
He thinks things have started getting "nasty" when Democrats point out that Patreaus numbers simply don't add up?
Really now?
I mean, don't we all understand that Democrats are allied with Al-Qeada, didn't Osama Bin Laden just say so? (PDF of Latest Bin Laden Tape)
Not to Kerry.
Kerry: Osama Bin Laden's tape is testimony to one thing, the failure of this Administration to capture and kill him. The failure at Tora Bora and the failure subsequently. He’s influencing the region. He’s still directing attacks against America from Afghanistan and Pakistan – and we have some Republican candidates for President that think he’s insignificant? That should be disqualify them from being President in the first place. This is an insult to everybody in the world that this man is still sending us tapes.
Iraq had nothing to do with Osama Bin Ladin in the beginning. Most of the measurements show that the war on terror is going worse.
Only 5 of the 22 top most wanted al-Qeada operatives have been captured or killed. Terrorism has increased 5-fold since 9-11, we need to redirect those troops and we need to do with certainty and a clarity.
What Republicans fail to understand that the nation suffers when you start wars for bogus reasons. The nation suffers when you fail to effectively manage that war, and it suffers when you fail to implement any form of diplomacy at all that might help resolve the lingering tensions in the region - that you initiated and exercerbated in the first place.
Maybe, just maybe - you shouldn't start shit you have no intention of finishing.
This point is apparently not lost on John Kerry.
But is he going to fall into the "insulting the troops" trap as he calls Patreaus to task? Not so much.
Steph: Do you trust General Patreaus to deliver a credible and honest report.
Kerry: I think General Patreaus will present the facts with respect to the statistics and the tactical successes or situations as he sees them. But none of us should be fooled into this tactical success debate. We’ll never have enough troops to provide the kind of tactical success in one community or another across all of Iraq. So the only way is to have political reconciliation. Until that happens things are going to get more tense. I think they’re courting disaster. You can take a tactical success and misread it as we did in Vietnam.
Amen to that, sir. Amen.
Vyan
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(990 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
