Ten Years After

Nearly Two Years After I posted this at Talkleft what has changed?

Like a compulsive obsessive gambling addict whose lost all of his own capital as well as nearly all the money his family had, Bush the “decider” has “decided” that he’s going to “show them all” by placing one last huge bet of more money stolen from his family on one last roll of the dice, risking all for the big payoff.

He’s painted himself into a corner and he’s dreaming, or rather fantasizing, and refuses to leave the casino until he’s blown his whole load and completely ruined his family and their reputation and solvency.

Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make “a last big push” to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.

…

This figure is far fewer than that called for by the Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain. But by raising troop levels, Mr Bush will draw a line in the sand and defy Democratic pressure for a swift drawdown.

The reinforcements will be used to secure Baghdad, scene of the worst sectarian and insurgent violence, and enable redeployments of US, coalition and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country.

Secure Baghdad? Who the hell is he fooling, other than himself and a few fawning in denial worshippers? No one. Absolutely no one. As Patrick Coburn explained in stark terms in the Independent Online on 11/05/06 Bush will be be lucky to have US control of anything beyond a few hundred yards outside the Green Zone:

At least 3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month. The failure of the US and Britain at every level in Iraq is obvious to all. But the White House and Downing Street have lived in a state of permanent denial. On the Downing Street website are listed 10 “Big Issues” affecting the Prime Minister, but Iraq is not one of them.

The picture of what is happening in Iraq put out by Messrs Bush and Blair no longer touches reality at any point.

…

In the first year of the occupation it could be argued that Bush and Blair were simply incompetent: they did not understand Iraq, were misinformed by Iraqi exiles, or were simply ignorant and arrogant. But they must know that for two-and-a-half years they have controlled only islands of territory in Iraq. “The Americans haven’t even been able to take over Haifa Street [a Sunni insurgent stronghold] though it’s only 400 yards from the Green Zone,” a senior Iraqi security official exclaimed to me last week.

But the refusal to admit, as the British army commander Sir Richard Dannatt pointed out, that the occupation generates resistance in Iraq, means that no new and more successful policy can be devised. It is this that is criminal. And it is all the worse because the rational explanation for Mr Bush’s persistence in bankrupt policies in Iraq is that he has always given priority to domestic politics. Holding power in Washington was more important than real success in Baghdad.

The US media was under extreme pressure to report the non-existent good news that the White House accused them of ignoring.

I used to think how absurd it was for me to risk my life by visiting the Green Zone, the entrances to which were among the most bombed targets in Iraq, to see diplomats who claimed that the butchery in Iraq was much exaggerated. But when I asked them if they would like to come and have lunch in my hotel outside the zone, they always threw up their hands in horror and said their security men would never allow it.

The fantasy picture of Iraq purveyed by Mr Bush and Mr Blair is now being exposed. The Potemkin village they constructed to divert attention from what was really happening in Iraq is finally going up in flames.

And who is going to pay for Bush’s last bet, like they’ve paid for all of his other ego and denial driven bets? Paid for them with nothing other than the blood and the lives of their sons and daughters.

“You’ve got to remember, whatever the Democrats say, it’s Bush still calling the shots. He believes it’s a matter of political will. That’s what [Henry] Kissinger told him. And he’s going to stick with it,” a former senior administration official said. “He [Bush] is in a state of denial about Iraq. Nobody else is any more. But he is. But he knows he’s got less than a year, maybe six months, to make it work. If it fails, I expect the withdrawal process to begin next fall.”

Iraq is a ‘failed’, or more accurately, a ‘destroyed’ state’. The country is in civil war and rapidly descending into a chaotic hell created by Bush’s invasion that sadly probably nothing that can stop now, short of setting up the same kind of heavy handed brutal police state that Saddam ran.

Stay the course is not helping anything except Bush’s ego.

3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month.

It’s time to get out of Iraq. Time to bring American troops home to their families so no more die for Bush’s addiction and fantasies. Not send more in so they too can die for nothing.

We’ve been hearing the same old same old from Bush ever since “mission accomplished”. A little more time, a lot more money, a lot more dead American soldiers and grieving families, two nations torn in half. A bill of a trillion dollars a year. Completely blown reputation around the world. Possible world war looming.

It’s time to go into the White House and escort Mr. Bush out. In a straitjacket if necessary, or in chains if he resists.

3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month.

Nancy?

Nearly Two Years After what has changed?

Nearly Two Years After is there any US control of anything beyond a few hundred yards outside the Green Zone?

Nearly Two Years After how much money stolen from his family on one last roll of the dice has Bush blown?

Nearly Two Years After what is the death toll of Iraqis and Americans?

Nearly Two Years After Turkana quotes Andrew J. Bacevich in Tell Me How This Ends:

The United States today finds itself with too much war for too few warriors. With the “surge” now giving way to a “pause,” the Iraq war has become an open-ended enterprise. American combat operations in Iraq could easily drag on for 10 more years, and a large-scale military presence might be required for decades, which may well break the Army while bankrupting the country. The pretense that there is a near-term solution to Iraq has become a pretext for ignoring the long-term disparity between military commitments and military capacity.

Nearly Two Years After Bacevich and the rest of the world want an answer from General Petraeus, and from George W. Bush, and from Nancy Pelosi.

Nearly Two Years After the history books may still be the best place to look for that answer.

Nearly Two Years After the history books still record what everyone should have known long ago. Long before the invasion and occupation… and debacle… began.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War, was a nine-year conflict involving Soviet forces supporting the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government against the Mujahideen resistance.

The War in Afghanistan [began in 1979 and] has been called “the Soviet Union’s Vietnam War,” a conflict that pitted Soviet regulars against a relentless, elusive, and ultimately unbeatable Afghan guerrilla force (the mujahideen). The hit-and-run bloodletting across the war’s decade tallied more than 25,000 dead Soviet soldiers plus a great many more casualties and further demoralized a USSR on the verge of disintegration.

In 1989 Ten Years After a little more time, a lot more money, and a lot more lives lost, the USSR finally was forced to give up it’s dreams of domination of Afghanistan and withdrew… and collapsed.