Bush he remains relevant, chides do-nothing Congress:
President Bush declared yesterday that he remains “relevant” despite his political troubles, and he derided Democrats for running a do-nothing Congress that has failed to address critical domestic, economic and security issues. . . .
Defending his rejection of a popular children’s health program expansion, Bush said his veto power gives him leverage. “That’s one way to ensure that I am relevant,” he said. “That’s one way to ensure that I am in the process. And I intend to use the veto.”
Bush remains relevant by vetoing legislation passed by Congress or blocking its actual passage, and then criticizing Congress for not passing laws.
I wonder if the Ravens defensive coordinator criticized the Rams for failing to score a touchdown last week. . . .
Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key U.S. Goal
Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power
For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.
Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.
“I don’t think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. “To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power.”
The so-called “Surge” was as a means of furthering Iraq’s national reconciliation:
“. . . in January I announced a new way forward — sending reinforcements to help the Iraqis protect their people, improve their security forces, and advance the difficult process of reconciliation at both the national and local levels.”
It is the very goal of this strategy which the Iraqis themselves view as alien and have rejected. They understand, and have understood for a long time, even if Bush is too dense or stubborn to admit it, that U.S. goals of a stable, pluralisitic and unified Iraq are unattainable, precisely because the Iraqis themselves do not desire them. The factions in Iraq want power on their own terms, not compromise.
Whatever tactical success the surge may have achieved — and one can argue the point and the methodologies used to quantify that success — the current U.S. strategy is a miserable failure (Bush’s , after all) on a strategic level.
Even if we exclude car bombs, gunshots to the face, intra-religious killings and other forms of violence endemic to Iraq and claim we are reducing violence, Bush’s policy of sacrificing American lives in the hopes that Iraqis will come to an epiphany and seek national reconciliation is a colossal failure.
In response, we can expect the administration to continue to shift focus in Iraq from its actual goals to more attainable one. As the people of Iraq continue to reject the foreign al Qaeda elements, Bush will advance the argument that the surge was intended to oust al Qaeda. Forget that our “surge” troops are tasked with completely different goals, and al Qaeda has always been a vastly unpopular element in the equation of Iraq violence and no threat to dominate a country comprised primarily of Shia and Kurds who loathe the Sunni fanatics. Bush will continue to claim success in Iraq is just around the corner, regardless of the facts, until he hands over the whole mess to the next president.
Finally, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from poverty and despair. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, [and] to just and favorable conditions of work.”
Not :
Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic
Origin: 1959 to 2006
(Numbers in thousands. People as of March of the following year.)
Every civilized nation also has a responsibility to stand up for the people suffering under dictatorship. In Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration
Not :
Bush didn’t mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA’s “rendition” kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.
“At first read, it’s little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. His words about human rights ring hollow because his credibility is nonexistent,” said Curt Goering, the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. “The gap between the rhetoric and the actual record is stunning. I can’t help but believe many people in the audience were thinking, ‘What was this man thinking?’ “
Second, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from hunger and disease. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food and clothing and housing and medical care.”
Not :
A broad House majority gave final approval last night to a $35 billion expansion of the popular children’s health insurance program, with members from both parties brushing aside a stern veto threat from President Bush to vote their support, 265 to 159.
The Senate will take up the bill later this week and is expected to send it to the president with a veto-proof, bipartisan majority. But amid furious White House lobbying, even Republican advocates in the House ruefully conceded that they will probably fall short of the 290 votes they will need next week to override the promised veto.
“Everyone,” it seems, does not include American children.
Would have been a better title for Bill Sammon’s new book than The Evangelical President.
Mind you, I didn’t actually read the thing, let alone buy it, but I did look at the covers and the flaps, which contained these reality-altering takes on President Bush:
“. . . through it all, Sammon shows that President Bush took the high road, fighting to spread moral democracy around the world while the low-minded press focused on Vice President Cheney’s accidental shooting of a friend while hunting and Virginia senator George Allen’s use of the word macaca on the campaign trail.”
Because, you know, because the press should be focused on spinning Bush’s failures as successes, instead of on Cheney shooting a guy in the face and avoiding the cops ’til he sobered up, or on a senator using a racial slur.
Then there is this gem:
“How the media has continuously underestimated President Bush, mocking him for his faith and ignoring his achievements.”
His achievements, like the spread of “moral democracy” in Iraq, you see.
And this thrilling summation from the back flap:
“The Evangelical President is an unforgettable glimpse of a president at war, supported by an evangelical belief that tyranny should be overthrown, democracy supported, and America defended, combined with a steely stubbornness to see these goals through.”
Not to mention supported by a fantastic rightwing propaganda machine comprised of boot-licking lunatics like Sammon (who prominently blew President Bush at a press conference recently, offering up the softball question about MoveOn’s Petreaus ad), and corporate disinformation machines like FauxNews, the Moonie Times, and Regnery Publishing, which published this tripe.
As for the steely stubbornness, it seems more like the deer-frozen-in-the-headlights thing we saw on 9/11 as the President read The Pet Goat after being told “Mr. President, the nation is under attack.”
(ht to actor for mentioning this mess in and comment)
Watching Bush cling to Anbar as a model for success is sad enough, but now the and the are trying to sell the idea that alliances with tribal leaders can solve the problem of a violent and fragmenting Iraq:
“KUT, Iraq ? American commanders in southern Iraq say Shiite sheiks are showing interest in joining forces with the U.S. military against extremists, in much the same way that Sunni clansmen in the western part of the country have worked with American forces against Al Qaeda.”
Because, you know, we’re so popular in Anbar now:
In a survey conducted Aug. 17-24 for ABC News, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqis, 72 percent in Anbar expressed no confidence whatsoever in United States forces. Seventy-six percent said the United States should withdraw now ? up from 49 percent when we polled there in March, and far above the national average.
Withdrawal timetable aside, every Anbar respondent in our survey opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq ? 69 percent ?strongly? so. Every Anbar respondent called attacks on coalition forces ?acceptable,? far more than anywhere else in the country. All called the United States-led invasion wrong, including 68 percent who called it ?absolutely wrong.? No wonder: Anbar, in western Iraq, is almost entirely populated by Sunni Arabs, long protected by Saddam Hussein and dispossessed by his overthrow.
Although residents of Anbar, like most Iraqis, loathe al Qaeda even more than they loathe us, and have for a long time.
It seems that tribal leaders are the last, best hope for proponents of the war, and yet a thin reed to grasp:
Indeed, one other result from our poll may be of particular interest to Anbar?s tribal leaders and the United States military alike: Just 23 percent in Anbar expressed confidence in their ?local leaders?; 77 percent had little or none. That?s better than it was in March ? but still nearly the lowest level of confidence in local leaders we measured anywhere in Iraq.
These numbers suggest that, at best, any alliance between the US occupation and the Anbar tribal leaders is purely the result of a common enemy: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Once that common enemy is gone, these tribal sheiks will have likely turn on their remaining enemies — the foremost of which happens to be us.
Bush plans to announce a increase in the chocolate ration in Iraq:
When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to ?find common ground? on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to ?start doing some redeployment,? the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.
?No you?re not, Mr. President,? Ms. Pelosi interjected. ?You?re just going back to the presurge level.?
With lawmakers openly skeptical of his troop buildup, Mr. Bush will cast his plan for a gradual, limited withdrawal as a way to bring a divided America together ? even as he resists demands from those who want him to move much faster.
The prime-time address will be the eighth by Mr. Bush on Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, the latest iteration of his efforts to sketch what he calls ?the way forward.? It will be the first time he has described a plan for troop reductions, a radical departure for a president who has repeatedly defied his critics? calls to bring the troops home.
~~~
Under the plan, at least 130,000 American troops would remain in Iraq next July, down from more than 160,000, decreasing to about the same level as before the buildup began. . .
All that remains to be seen is whether Bush can arrange some demonstrations thanking him for bringing the troops home.
“For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen. It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen.”
— George Orwell, 1984
I’ve been saying for a while, most recently yesterday, that Bush’s Exit strategy for Iraq is for him to Exit the White House with a shitload of troops in Iraq, and then claim his Iraq fuck up was a success, and then blame his successor or some other suitable fall guy when he inevitably pulls the plug on his fuck up. :
The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically.
“Bush has found his exit strategy,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former government Mideast specialist now at the Brookings Institution. As Petraeus met with lawmakers and unveiled chart upon chart showing declining troop levels, the U.S. commander seemed to have opened a new discussion about how the United States would wind up its commitment to Iraq. Yet viewed more closely, his presentation, and that of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, were better suited to the defense of an earlier strategy: “stay the course.”
That is obviously Bush’s Plan for Victory at this point: Keep our 100,000+ troops in Iraq, dying and being wounded in large numbers, all the while proclaiming their mission is a success, for the next 15 months.
When the next President, no longer willing to trade American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in order to prop Bush’s relentless campaign to spin his disastrous Iraq policy, and his presidency, as a success pulls the plug, Bush and his agents will try to sell the history that Iraq was a success until the next guy fucked it up.
At this point, Bush is selling American lives and spending American treasure so that he can try to sell a false narrative to cover up his unmatched hubris and incompetence. It’s all about trying to make the next President the Fall Guy. Maybe Murdoch is planning to buy the NY Times, and the History Channel.
MORE: The Post’s Eugene Robinson : “It’s clear by now that playing for time is the real White House strategy for Iraq. Everything else is tactical maneuver and rhetorical legerdemain — nothing up my sleeve — with which the administration is buying time, roughly in six-month increments.”
