NYT: Bush consults on Iraq only when "iron grip on power" threatened

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT editorial: Blowing in the Wind
Published: October 22, 2006

The generals who told President Bush before the war that Donald Rumsfeld’s shock-and-awe fantasy would not work were not enough to persuade him to change his strategy in Iraq. The rise of the insurgency did not do the trick. Nor did month after month of mounting military and civilian casualties on all sides, the emergence of a near civil war, the collapse of reconstruction efforts or the seeming inability of either Iraqi or American forces to secure contested parts of Iraq, including Baghdad, for any significant period.

So what finally, after all this time, caused Mr. Bush to very publicly consult with his generals to consider a change in tactics in Iraq? The president, who says he never reads political polls, is worried that his party could lose some of its iron grip on power in the Congressional elections next month....

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....the way this sudden change of heart has come about, after months in which Mr. Bush has brushed off all criticism of his policies as either misguided, politically motivated or downright disloyal to America, is maddening. For far too long, the White House has looked upon the war as a tactical puzzle for campaign strategists. The early notion of combining Iraq and the war on terror as an argument for re-electing Republicans robbed the nation of any serious chance for a bipartisan discussion of these life-and-death issues. More recently, the administration seems to have been working under the assumption that its only obligations were to hang on, talk tough and pass the problem on to the next president....

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The way the Bush team is stage-managing the president’s supposed change of heart about “staying the course” is unfair to the Americans who have taken him at his word that real progress is being made in Iraq — a dwindling but still significant number of people, some of whom have sons and daughters serving in the conflict. It is a disservice to the troops, who were never sent to Iraq in sufficient numbers to protect themselves or the Iraqi people. And it is a disservice to all Americans, who have waited so long for Mr. Bush to act that all that is left are a series of unpleasant choices....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/opinion/22sun1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[grytpype]

1. Tough words, but true.

[subterranean]

2. Bush listens to the generals

Unfortunately, he only listens to the ones who tell him what he wants to hear. They all know that reports of bad news are not appreciated by this administration.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. (Rolls Eyes)

Bush didn't listen to a thing from "his generals". The generals are simply props - he needs to announce a startling change in course (he is simply being forced to embrace The Feingold Plan, although he'll never say those words), and he needs to pretend that he's changing strategy based on what "his generals" are telling him.

The generals, in turn, should be ashamed that they've allowed themselves to be played like this. I only hope that they have a gentleman's agreement amongst themselves, as they did under Nixon, to ignore any more crazy orders (e.g., nuke Iran).

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Hitler didn't listen to his generals either.

Now, this isn't supposed to be another "comparing Bush to Hitler" thing. It's fact that Operation Barbarosa was advised against by the generals of the Third Reich as folly to fight a two-front war, let alone just attacking Russia. It was more than having to follow the orders of a lance corporal from World War I. The generals understood military strategy and tried in vain to persuade Hitler otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_barbarossa