I don't know why they bother
Saturday, December 9th, 2006 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seraiThe Iraq Study Group, with all its good intentions and concern for how this country is going, basically took on a futile task. Honorable they were indeed for attempting it, but the fact remains that the friggin' baboon in the White House is simply never going to be willing to even contemplate the suggestion that he might be wrong about anything. For all their dignified and civilized attempt at turning the course of this nation's suicidal monkey-dance on the edge of the cliff (and no, it's not just the administration; the populace that voted this dipshit into office is just as much to blame), it's just not going to work.
But kudos for trying, guys!
Seeking a graceful exit
Dec 6th 2006 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com
The Iraq Study Group calls for American troops to withdraw from combat operations in Iraq and for new diplomatic efforts in the Middle East
THE 9/11 Commission set the standard, in recent memory, for a group of grandees advising a president. The commissioners’ political weight, and the support of victims’ families, made their policy recommendations hard to ignore. Some, like a reorganisation of intelligence, are now law, despite initial opposition from George Bush’s administration.
It is a different story today. On Wednesday December 6th the long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission headed by James Baker, a former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman was published. Its recommendations included suggestions that American troops should withdraw from combat operations and instead just offer support to Iraqi soldiers, and that America “must not make open-ended commitments to keep large numbers of troops there in Iraq”. The latter may be a cumbersome way of arguing that many soldiers should be pulled out of the country, perhaps in 2008.
Aftermath
But there is little evidence that Mr Bush will listen. He has already been preparing the ground to marginalise the report’s suggestions. He has said several times in the past week that he is not inclined to withdraw soldiers from operational duties. At the NATO summit in Latvia last week he explained “there's one thing I'm not going to do: I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.” Elsewhere, he put it more bluntly: “This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all.” Over the weekend his national-security advisor, Stephen Hadley, trailed the same message on America’s closely-followed Sunday-morning political chat shows. He dismissed suggestions that the Baker commission would give political cover for Mr Bush to withdraw from Iraq: “Cut and run is not his cup of tea.”
Yet there is evidently pressure on Mr Bush to show that something is changing in Iraq. His outgoing defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said in a memo written shortly before the elections in early November, and leaked (perhaps by Mr Rumsfeld himself) at the weekend, that a major course-correction was needed. As striking, Mr Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates, echoed this in his confirmation hearings before the Senate on Tuesday. Asked if America was winning in Iraq, he said simply “no sir”.
On troop levels, there are broadly three options: “go big”, “go long” or “go home”, as the Pentagon has dubbed it in a review parallel to Mr Baker’s. Going big by adding many more troops seems unlikely, other than for short-term ends. Nor does packing up and going home seem on the cards. Instead going long, by reducing numbers but committing to the long-haul in Iraq, may have the best chance of getting a consensus. That might depend on setting out a clear timetable for withdrawal, along with a promise to keep American forces on standby in the region, perhaps in bases in Kuwait.
The Baker commission also suggests “a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region”. That means doing more to sort out the festering Arab-Israeli conflict, and talking to Iran and Syria about how they can help in Iraq, or at least stop doing harm. Mr Bush has not aired a clear view on this. Mr Rumsfeld, in his memo, dismissed the idea of a “Dayton-like” international conference on Iraq. Mr Gates, on the other hand, seems more sympathetic to the idea of getting international help. In his confirmation hearings he said that he thought Iran was not trustworthy, but he also recalled that America had open channels with its adversaries Russia and China during the cold war. A regional “grand bargain” that discourages Iran and Syria from fanning flames in Iraq may remain a hope, albeit a distant one.
Just what path Mr Bush intends to take may become clearer soon. Mr Bush said he would take the report “very seriously”. Mr Hadley has been promising that his boss will listen to the Baker report (and the many others who are offering their ideas), and will then describe his own “way forward”, to be announced in “weeks, not months”. Mr Bush will also have a chance to swap ideas with Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, at a meeting on Thursday. Whatever advice he is given, and despite last month’s electoral drubbing, Mr Bush wants the world to know that he is still, firmly, “the decider”.
I just wish there had been more voices like this four years ago, before this idiot and his crowd of philistines even stepped foot in the quagmire in which they've sunk us all.
The report is something I plan to read, and I recommend that you all do so as well. It's available to buy, cheap in price and not even long - at only 160 pages, you could inhale it in a single afternoon. Not much of an effort in exchange for a cogent and well laid out set of arguments in favor of...oh, I don't know...SANITY???
But kudos for trying, guys!
Seeking a graceful exit
Dec 6th 2006 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com
The Iraq Study Group calls for American troops to withdraw from combat operations in Iraq and for new diplomatic efforts in the Middle East
THE 9/11 Commission set the standard, in recent memory, for a group of grandees advising a president. The commissioners’ political weight, and the support of victims’ families, made their policy recommendations hard to ignore. Some, like a reorganisation of intelligence, are now law, despite initial opposition from George Bush’s administration.
It is a different story today. On Wednesday December 6th the long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission headed by James Baker, a former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman was published. Its recommendations included suggestions that American troops should withdraw from combat operations and instead just offer support to Iraqi soldiers, and that America “must not make open-ended commitments to keep large numbers of troops there in Iraq”. The latter may be a cumbersome way of arguing that many soldiers should be pulled out of the country, perhaps in 2008.
Aftermath
But there is little evidence that Mr Bush will listen. He has already been preparing the ground to marginalise the report’s suggestions. He has said several times in the past week that he is not inclined to withdraw soldiers from operational duties. At the NATO summit in Latvia last week he explained “there's one thing I'm not going to do: I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.” Elsewhere, he put it more bluntly: “This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all.” Over the weekend his national-security advisor, Stephen Hadley, trailed the same message on America’s closely-followed Sunday-morning political chat shows. He dismissed suggestions that the Baker commission would give political cover for Mr Bush to withdraw from Iraq: “Cut and run is not his cup of tea.”
Yet there is evidently pressure on Mr Bush to show that something is changing in Iraq. His outgoing defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said in a memo written shortly before the elections in early November, and leaked (perhaps by Mr Rumsfeld himself) at the weekend, that a major course-correction was needed. As striking, Mr Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates, echoed this in his confirmation hearings before the Senate on Tuesday. Asked if America was winning in Iraq, he said simply “no sir”.
On troop levels, there are broadly three options: “go big”, “go long” or “go home”, as the Pentagon has dubbed it in a review parallel to Mr Baker’s. Going big by adding many more troops seems unlikely, other than for short-term ends. Nor does packing up and going home seem on the cards. Instead going long, by reducing numbers but committing to the long-haul in Iraq, may have the best chance of getting a consensus. That might depend on setting out a clear timetable for withdrawal, along with a promise to keep American forces on standby in the region, perhaps in bases in Kuwait.
The Baker commission also suggests “a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region”. That means doing more to sort out the festering Arab-Israeli conflict, and talking to Iran and Syria about how they can help in Iraq, or at least stop doing harm. Mr Bush has not aired a clear view on this. Mr Rumsfeld, in his memo, dismissed the idea of a “Dayton-like” international conference on Iraq. Mr Gates, on the other hand, seems more sympathetic to the idea of getting international help. In his confirmation hearings he said that he thought Iran was not trustworthy, but he also recalled that America had open channels with its adversaries Russia and China during the cold war. A regional “grand bargain” that discourages Iran and Syria from fanning flames in Iraq may remain a hope, albeit a distant one.
Just what path Mr Bush intends to take may become clearer soon. Mr Bush said he would take the report “very seriously”. Mr Hadley has been promising that his boss will listen to the Baker report (and the many others who are offering their ideas), and will then describe his own “way forward”, to be announced in “weeks, not months”. Mr Bush will also have a chance to swap ideas with Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, at a meeting on Thursday. Whatever advice he is given, and despite last month’s electoral drubbing, Mr Bush wants the world to know that he is still, firmly, “the decider”.
I just wish there had been more voices like this four years ago, before this idiot and his crowd of philistines even stepped foot in the quagmire in which they've sunk us all.
The report is something I plan to read, and I recommend that you all do so as well. It's available to buy, cheap in price and not even long - at only 160 pages, you could inhale it in a single afternoon. Not much of an effort in exchange for a cogent and well laid out set of arguments in favor of...oh, I don't know...SANITY???
