And so it’s goodnight from him
Post-invasion iraq - - Posted on April, 11 at 1:52 pm by Ken L
After more than five years of incoherent actions in Iraq, the most incompetent president in living memory has decided to lock the door and tiptoe quietly away, leaving the incoming president to deal with the mess.
He has, however, graciously decided that members of the US military will henceforth only have to spend 12 months out of every 24 on the Eastern Front. I’m sure they’ll be over the moon.
The symbolism is instructive:
After Petraeus and Crocker finished their first progress report to Congress in September, the president addressed the nation in prime time.
Bush is set to head to Texas later Thursday for a few days of rest at his Crawford ranch.
I guess after all that incredible mental strain the poor bugger deserves a bit of time off. After all, he feels their pain (the American soldiers’ families’ pain that is … I don’t recall him ever expressing much in the way of sympathy for the invisible millions of dead, injured and displaced Iraqis).
UPDATE:
Posted in Post-invasion iraq |
April 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Ken, those schools the military have infiltrated in Chicago will come in mighty handy when they need a new generation of “Eastern Fronters”.
Yep, I reckon GW is retiring soon into a cocoon of “an unfortunate & unexpected illness” reports the NY Times…”but the signs were becoming more obvious by the day” said glum & saddened political strategist Karl Rove…”he so loved the people…now this great President, fighter for all kinds of freedom, this Superman of America must sadly…tragically…be kept far from the madding crowd”…
yep, a cosy retirement w/ more than a little help from his friends…& some gullible types on the so called LEFT who might have fallen for a very sneaky strategy.
I’ve found it rather interesting that many on the Right & Left have joined together to go “crazy” on the Chinese government. I’m all for human rights & demanding social change, protesting in a peaceful manner etc. But something doesn’t quite fit for this fella.
My suspicions derive from…the timing…the strange mixture of protesting bedfellows…& the fact China got the Olympics in the first place…
It seems to me that just as we close in on the Bushevik war criminals…
this WAVE OF DISGUST is an effective diversion from the crimes of the Busheviks (conveniently Chimp has played the “good guy” by chumming up to the Dalai Lama…tho I don’t think he’s fooling many…he just loves promoting religious freedom…particularly any that send cash to the Repugs & propagandized robots to work in the White House…I imagine the Buddhists would get bugger all attention if they were preventing Texans from building oil wells in a protected area)…
And of course, the RAGE AGAINST THE CHINESE TOTALITARIAN MACHINE - has conveniently come very late in Bush’s 2nd term:
“we grabs the cheap goodies from them short-sighted types, keep Walmart & the zombie shoppers happy, create a Nation of blissfully stupid consumers, suck ‘em into lifelong debt, make the money on the resources & energy used to transport goodies & pump out carbon…then use war profits to shift to “raking in the profits” from clean energy & ethanol…& then pull the plug on those Chinese amateurs…he, he, he…”
Note: lead painted “mocking” figure of GW not included w/ rubber “sneering” version…batteries not necessary…toy runs on its own BS
Interestingly, as The Orstrahyun has also noted, News Corp has been going full bore on the “bash China” front. It’s worth reading.
And of course the pre-Olympic FRENZY (baaah, baaah) helps to divert attention away from the buildup to the strike on Iran…
and is possibly a devious way to damage Chinese/Australian trade just as Labor grapples w/ an inflation problem…& Kevin Rudd hopes to play it more diplomatically.
Fanning the flames of social turmoil in China also assists the “China encirclement plan”…it’s a race for energy…& in turn the Military Indust. Complex & their private corporate allies get to increase their missile & jet-related technology & sell to countries like Australia & others who are told by many in the Murdoch camp…& interestingly, elements of the ABC…to “be afraid of China…be very afraid”. (Think 7:30 Report & powerful jets)
Just another way of looking at it. Hope I’m wrong.
Not sure GW has quite finished all his duties yet…what w/ Iran…& a few pardons to hand out.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
This man is a skid mark on the sheets of history, right up there with Hitler, Poll Pot and Idi Amin. The sad thing is the children of the empire supported him twice and the sadder thing is they seem to be supporting his deciple Mc Cain ahead of the other two anti war canidates.
No wonder they are having trouble in selling their type of democracy to the world.
I thought we were twits when we backed Howard 3 times, but these guys take the cake.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
David, from what I’ve observed about McCain I don’t feel he is a deciple of Bushes, I think he is a monger a class apart and the world will rue if he is elected.
Nask, for the last few months I really felt that Bush would be goaded by the neocons to blow buggery out a selected areas of the Middle East to shore up their lusts,maybe that won’t happen, maybe.Now if McCain gets the nod we will live in interesting times.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Lang Mack said: “Nask, for the last few months I really felt that Bush would be goaded by the neocons to blow buggery out a selected areas of the Middle East to shore up their lusts,maybe that won’t happen, maybe.”
Lang Mack, I’m hoping same. But I’m now worried that the Busheviks & their Media supporters have hijacked part of this “Free Tibet” etc. campaign & are going to surf it all the way escaping justice…whilst hitting Iran along the way.
If internal Repug polls reveal that McCain has bugger all chance of winning, then plenty of “hooked on war” money makers and those terrified of Iran’s influence in the region will DEMAND an aggressive response before their boy leaves office…unless of course, one of the Democratic Party nominees has secretly agreed to “take action on Iran”…
I’m not sure what to think of this from PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS:
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression–a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard–by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited “a high-ranking security source: “The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran.”
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said “that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.”
more at:
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts03312008.html
April 11th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Thanks for the link Nask, sobering. Cheney through boof head Bush has been white anting Iran for a long time and I recon it ain’t all over yet.What a pack of bastards.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
China imports about 13 percent of its oil from Iran…
Beijing may have some problems with the neocon plans for Iran.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Thanks for the link Nask
You’re welcome LM. Pack of bastards indeed…real hyenas.
GW Bush today: “Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: Al-Qaeda and Iran,” said Bush, who accuses Tehran of backing Iraqi militias hostile to US forces and of covertly seeking nuclear weapons.
“If we succeed in Iraq after all that Al-Qaeda and Iran have invested there, it would be a historic blow to the global terrorist movement and a severe setback for Iran,” he said.
(Yahoo! News)
Bush stops troop withdrawals, gets rid of the Cent-Com general who disagreed w/ him on Iran…now this speech.
Anyone who is anti-war & just watched Frontline’s “Bush’s War” will be feeling a chill up their spine remembering the similarities between this and others made by the Busheviks on the eve of the Iraq invasion.
BTW, I found “Bush’s War” a “get out of responsibility free” card for Powell & his team. Having not resigned so many times after supposedly feeling so much angst over the torturing of prisoners, the admins f*ckin’ w/ the Geneva Convention, the “sexing up of intelligence evidence on Iraq” etc…well, you can only make so many excuses…particularly if you’re the guy who sells the BS to the United Nations & helps bring the masses on side for the Iraq invasion. I don’t trust any of that lot. I reckon they just want to keep some of their so called “more moderate” mates in the system to play a part in new administrations…& to pardon the War Criminals. Powell is adept at that:
He returned to Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 where he served as the executive officer and later as the assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division (the 23rd Infantry Division) with the rank of Major, was charged with investigating a detailed letter by Tom Glen (a soldier from the 11th Light Infantry Brigade), which backed up rumored allegations of the My Lai Massacre. Powell wrote: “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Later, Powell’s assessment would be described as whitewashing the news of the massacre, and questions would continue to remain undisclosed to the public. On May 4, 2004, United States Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said to Larry King, “I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened.
(Wiki pedia: Colin Powell)
ahhh…the fog of war.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Slightly off topic…
Who remembers the images of the commander-in-chimp strutting around on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit? Remember the “mission accomplished” banner?
What a tosser!
Yet the flag-waving corporate meeja just lapped it up without question.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I think it’s outrageous that some nations have to “live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” It’s thuggery plain and simple.
How is a nation supposed to react to such behaviour?
April 11th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Yep, in the Nation that gave us TOP GUN.
Reality meets fiction:
The producers wanted the assistance of the United States Navy in production of the film. The US Navy was influential in relation to script approval, which saw changes being made; the opening dogfight was moved to international waters as opposed to Cuba, salty language was trimmed down, and a scene that involved a crash on the deck of an aircraft carrier was also scrapped. Also, Maverick’s love interest in the film was originally intended to be a female enlisted member of the Navy, but due to the US Department of Defense prohibition of fraternization between officer and enlisted personnel, her position was changed to be that of an outside contractor.
(Top Gun: Wikipedia)
the “mission accomplished” bit w/ Bush was just another piece of fiction…another inglorious moment of rampant propaganda being shoved down the throats of a Nation too often LOST in fiction….& lies.
Unfortunately.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
The nation that gave us TOP GUN.
What infuriated me about the Bush charade was that it was so transparent and pathetic. So obviously staged to cast the American preznit as some sort of warrior.
For goodness sakes! Condoleezza Rice, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Chief of Staff Andy Card were standing around it their civvies waiting for the idiot prince to make his heroic entrance.
Did anyone wonder why they could manage to get on deck without much fuss while the Crawford buffoon needed to get all suited up for his crotch display?
BAH!
April 12th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Love the Youtube vid.
Brings back a few memories of yesteryear: Of Gen Westmoreland, Robbie MacNamara and Old LBJ hisself speaking about “turning points” and lights at the end of tunnels. They sure had plenty of both, way back when.
Its the same shitty story. Only the names change.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:18 am
A bit of bedtime reading on Colin Powell…
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin6.html
(Behind Colin Powell’s Legend — Iran-Contra Amnesia…by Robert Parry & Norman Solomon)
a taste:
When Iran-contra broke in 1986-87, Powell would claim to know next to nothing about unlawful 1985 shipments of U.S. weapons from Israel to Iran — or about illegal third-country financing of the Nicaraguan contra rebels. But was the general lying? The documentary record made clear certainly that his boss, Weinberger, knew a great deal.
Weinberger, a close adviser to President Reagan, was one of the first officials outside the White House to learn that Reagan had put the arm on Saudi Arabia to give the contras $1 million a month in 1984, as Congress cut off aid. Like Weinberger, Powell was a very close friend to Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador who handled that transaction. Powell and Bandar, who had met in the 1970s, were frequent tennis partners.
But exactly when Weinberger learned of the Saudi contributions and what he told Powell are still not clear. On June 20, 1984, Weinberger attended a State Department meeting on the contras, and his scribbled notes cited the need to “plan for other sources for $.” But secrecy would be vital, the defense secretary understood. “Keep US fingerprints off,” he wrote.
Over the summer, Gen. John Vessey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learned from a foreign visitor about the Saudi money and passed on word to the defense secretary. “I reported it to Secretary Weinberger,” Vessey said in a deposition. “His reaction was about the same as mine, sort of surprise first that [Saudi Arabia] would do it.”
————-
Americans, Saudis, Iranians, problematic Central American states…you’d almost think it was this year…sigh.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Thanks a bunch Colon…
Powell: Troops in Iraq Must Be Reduced
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 10, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that President Bush’s successor will have to come to grips with the reality that the United States cannot continue to keep such large numbers of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Without taking sides in the race for the White House, Powell said, ”Whichever one of them becomes president on Jan. 1, 2009, they will face a military force that cannot continue to sustain 140,000 people deployed in Iraq and the 20 (thousand) odd or 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan and our other deployments.”
Powell’s comments in an interview on ABC’s ”Good Morning America” seemed to undercut Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain’s position that the U.S. should stay the course in Iraq. But Powell also said that the next president will face limitations on bringing troops home, as Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton — rivals for the Democratic nomination — have promised to do.
”They will have to continue to draw down at some pace,” he said. ”None of them are going to have the flexibility of just saying we’re out of here, turn off the switch, turn off the lights, we’re leaving. They will have a situation before them.”
Powell, who is a former chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued publicly for the invasion of Iraq early in Bush’s presidency. He said Thursday that he considers each of the presidential candidates a friend.
”I’m looking at all three candidates … I have not decided who I will vote for yet,” said Powell, who donated $2,300 to McCain’s campaign last year.
Questioned about Powell’s comments on ABC’s ”The View,” McCain said, ”One of the great mistakes, of the many mistakes that was made for nearly four years, is that we continued to reduce the size of the military.” He noted that some troops have been back time after time which has put stress on them and their families, ”but there’s only one thing worse than an overstressed military and that’s a defeated military… blah blah
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Powell-Iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
April 12th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
yep, it’s kinda like convincin’ a community to accept a toxic dump ’cause it’s the patriotic thing to do…then a few years later, when all the kids are glowin’ in the dark and plenty of adults are activatin’ the worms six feet under, you go and say:
“I reckon you all need to move…it’s not right you should have to put up w/ these conditions”
Colin Powell…riding in like the cavalry to save the troops he helped mobolise for this stankin’ war.
“Here I come to save the day!…again”…wooooshhh…