Bush Rejects Calls for Pullout From Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, just back from Iraq, dismissed calls for a U.S. withdrawal as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark for success that would allow troops to come home. “It’s bad policy,” Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference Wednesday, about six hours after he returned from Iraq. “I know it may sound good politically. It will endanger our country to pull out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission.”
In a press conference timed to capitalize on his latest Baghdad photo op, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader once hammered his contention that Americans don’t pull out before climax the mission is accomplished.
Uh…I seem to recall Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader standing on a carrier deck in San Diego Harbor in May, 2003. In fact , wasn’t he photographed under a banner proclaiming “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”? Hmm….
Apparently, the theory seems to be that if we stay in Iraq long enough, we’ll figure what it is we’re doing there. Meanwhile, the parade of American soldiers sacrificed to roadside IEDs continues apace. This escapade truly has turned into this generation’s Vietnam- an unwinnable war being fought against an enemy that cannot be seen. Since Iraqi insurgents aren’t bound by the strictures of the Geneva Convention, they can, and are, doing pretty much what they want to whomever they choose.
For those of you who suscribe to the “Americans don’t cut and run” or “freedom isn’t free” schools of thought, I have only one response. It sure is easy to pontificate from this side of the pond, eh? If you cannot recognize the reality of the quagmire we’re stuck in, why don’t you go slap another magnetic ribbon on the back of your SUV?
Bush said he wanted to see a reduction in the deadly violence in Iraq but would not say how much it must drop before troops can begin to withdraw. He offered other ways of measuring progress in Iraq - an increase in oil production or more electricity delivered to cool sweltering homes or growing numbers of Iraqi military units able to handle the fight.
But again, he did not offer any specific targets to measure when Iraqis will be able to govern themselves. Instead, he declared that the government must be able to succeed and that leaving too early would “make the world a more dangerous place.”
Here’s what I want to know: how would the US be endangered by pulling out from Iraq? Then again, this is the same President who still refers to the war in Iraq as a pivotal front in the war against terrorism. Never mind the fact that there was no terrorist threat in Iraq until we invaded. Yes, we created the same terrorist insurgency that we are now so heavily engaged in fighting. In effect, it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s policy created both the “threat” we now face as well as the justification for continuing to fight that threat. A brilliant (and evil) piece of policy planning, eh?
Meanwhile Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s policy/self-fulfilling prophecy continues exacting the ultimate price from our sons and daughters in uniform. Bravely performing the job they swore to do, these poor folks think that they are serving their country and protecting our freedom. The sad reality is that the US is under no clear and present danger from the Iraqi insurgency, and bringing American troops home would be seen as a clear admission of failure. Apparently, the continued sacrifice of young American lives is preferable to the political fallout that would follow from a tacit or actual admission of failure. Yes, it would seem that the pride and political standing of Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader is worth more than the lives of our sons and daughters.
Essentially, then, our young men and women in uniform are continuing to die for reasons that have NOTHING to do with our freedom and security. And who is ultimately responsible for this debacle? Those of you who voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader…because voting Republican is certainly easier than thinking, eh?
Still glad you voted Republican?
