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The Decider's next decision
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by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
Dec. 15, 2006
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On Wednesday, President Bush announced that he
rejected advice on Iraq that will lead to defeat. From
this and other indications we can infer that he plans
to achieve "victory" in Iraq via an escalation of
military force.
I am fascinated with this new scenario...
Why? Bush has called himself a "war president" and "The
Decider." If that is his job
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description then we need
to start interviewing replacement candidates for his
position because he sucks at his job! Why did it take
him nearly four years to do this Deciding?!?
Bush is no longer running for office and believes
himself to be secure in his position and unimpeachable.
Thus he is now free to pursue unpopular courses of
action, like sending more troops to Iraq and
squandering an extra hundred billion dollars of
Unfortunately, it
will never be our oil and gas.
Not after the
atrocities Bush has committed on the Iraqi peoples.
Not
unless, one day, we buy it, one barrel at a time on the
open market.
The puppet regime in Iraq can go ahead an
sign all the rip-off production sharing agreements it
wants with Exxon, BP, Chevron and Shell, but the
successor regime will simply renege.
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borrowed money in 2007. It doesn't matter to him
personally, and not even to the Republican Party which
was swept out of office in the recent election.
And what makes that so interesting is that we now see
quite clearly that Bush's management of the war has
heretofore been dominated by domestic politics, not
military reality! In 2003 and 2004 he had to run for
President, so he could not escalate after his "Mission
Accomplished" photo op. And in 2005 and 2006 he
couldn't escalate because of the mid-term elections --
control of all branches of government trumped military
concerns, until now!
But now, all of a sudden, after nearly
four years of battle, Bush is intensely interested in
victory at all costs. For years he has told us we
were winning in Iraq and now we are supposed to
believe he has a new plan for victory?
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The time for "escalation" was at the start, when
General Eric Shinseki advised that several hundred thousand
troops were needed -- which resulted in Shinseki's rapid retirement. The time for escalation was when the
"Coalition of the Willing" was still in Iraq fighting
alongside us. The time for escalation was before we
spent billions of dollars rebuilding what we had
blown up!
There are a multitude of reasons why victory is now
unachievable in terms that are acceptable for America.
One huge problem with Bush's agenda is the monetary
cost. Military generals are saying that we will need to
be in Iraq for decades. But America's treasury is
already at the tipping point into long term insolvency.
During the first 6 years of
the Bush presidency the national debt increased by
three trillion dollars, and an open-ended military
commitment to subduing all of Iraq will just add to
that. A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon
you're talking real money!
The financial problems with Social Security and
Medicare are small by comparison and stretch over
decades, but at this rate, one day the
U.S. government will start
cutting benefits and letting
old people die in abject poverty -- and President
George W. Bush will be the reason why!
An even bigger problem with Bush's plan for victory at
any cost is the price in human life. I am referring to
all human life, not just Americans. More than 600,000
Iraqis have already died as a result of the war, and
1.6 million have fled the country. To "win" Bush will
need to kill many more, both Sunni and Shiite. Yes, it
is possible to escalate the air war
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and conserve our
ground forces, but as we saw in Lebanon and Viet Nam,
aerial bombardment cannot win a war of occupation
against a determined populace. And more large scale
killings by America can only create more enemies.
"Victory" on these terms is no victory at all because it
cannot lead to a peaceful political situation where
Americans are treated as liberators and allies in Iraq.
To "win" with massive killings now will mean we lose in
the long run.
The Iraq war was begun unjustly with deceit and
ignorance, Then it was prosecuted in a political manner
that ignored military reality. To suddenly focus on
military reality and ignore the likely geopolitical
outcome is equally stupid. The blogger Rude Pundit
was right to call Bush "the Terri Schiavo of
presidents".
The main reason why victory in Iraq is now impossible
is that the war was begun unjustly, immorally and
illegally. Right is not on our side. We are not in the
right. We are the aggressors in Iraq and we are the
military occupation. The Iraqi Resistance is full of
fighters who are willing to fight to the death, and
even to commit suicide if that means killing a few
Americans. But Americans are not willing to make
comparable sacrifices, not the way we did in WWII.
"Victory" would require all-out war, and that
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we are unwilling to do. Even if we were, the rest of the world is aligning against us now, and the longer this war
continues the worse our strategic position becomes.
Paradoxically, our victory in Iraq would mean our
defeat at the global level!
Iraq has some ten trillion dollars of oil and gas
underneath their sand. That is the tragic truth. It is
tragic because if that oil and gas were not there Bush
would never have started this war.
Unfortunately, it
will never be our oil and gas. Not after the
atrocities Bush has committed on the Iraqi peoples. Not
unless, one day, we buy it, one barrel at a time on the
open market. The puppet regime in Iraq can go ahead an
sign all the rip-off production sharing agreements it
wants with Exxon, BP, Chevron and Shell, but the
successor regime will simply renege. And that's how
that goes...
* * *
In case you're wondering, my view is that America
needs to withdraw from Iraq immediately. Yes, the civil
war will continue, but it will be Iraqis doing the
killing. If they want to have religious civil war
between themselves then, thanks to Bush, they are now
free to do so. Eventually they will sort themselves out
and peace will return. In the meantime, the U.S. can
use its power to protect Iraq from invasion by its
neighbors (remember that Iraq's military has no air
force or heavy weapons!) The sooner we withdraw from
Iraq, the sooner peace will return.
© by the author.
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