Winning A Battle But Losing A War
Rumor has it that the reason the Donk junta on Capitol Hill stalled on getting their doomed soldier-backstabbing retreat and porkbelly legislation to the White House for President Bush's veto was in order to use it to highlight the four-year anniversary of his carrier landing photo-op on the USS Abraham Lincoln under the now (considered by the ignorant) infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner. The talking point being sold by this ploy is that "mission accomplished" meant the Iraqi campaign was over, and that that was the message Dubya himself delivered in his subsequent speech on that same aircraft carrier.
That is not, of course, what he actually said:
Therein those words lay the seeds of the eventual collapse of public support for the overall war effort, of course. While we couldn't just leave Iraq in a vacuum, the President has put so much emphasis on democratic nation-building to the exclusion of virtually every other aspect of the war that he has put himself into a public relations box where every car bomb and IED and American GI body bag makes it look like his depiction of the mission is functionally impossible. Yes, it is preferable for Iraq to be a democracy than to be another brand of authoritarian state like every other Muslim country aside from Turkey, all other things being equal. But the larger strategic point isn't carrying out an experiment in Jeffersonian civics in the heart of Mesopotamia, but to eliminate Iraq as a national security threat and use it as a forward base and staging area for the next campaigns of the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism. If the latter could be done quicker and cheaper by installing a friendly "thug" or "warlord," facilitating the defeat of Iran and Syria AND THEN sorting out the virtuosity of the successor regimes in Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran, and Damascus, so much the better.
Put all your eggs in one basket, in short, and the chances are significantly enhanced for an impromptu omlette. Invest your entire war strategy in the remaking of one Muslim state in the hopes of using that transformation to subvert the autocracies and dictatorships around it without first defeating those states whose interest is clearly in preventing said transformation, and a positive return is most unlikely.
Doesn't sound like I've ever been all that thrilled with what the President said four years ago on the Lincoln. And I'm not. But my criticisms are honest; those of the Democrats are not.
Unfortunately the latter have been hammered from here to ubiquity, and are part of the settled conventional wisdom - an oxymoron if ever there was one.
~ ~ ~
So the President issued the second veto of his presidency, an appalling paucity even given his party's control of Congress for his first six years in office, and how RINOesque it became in the last two. To the question of, "Now what?", I think the answer is clear. First and foremost, there will be no compromise from the Democrat side of the aisle. Don't believe me? Just listen to their reaction:
It takes a deafness to irony for Crazy Nancy to talk about Bush seeking "blank checks" given the shameless extent to which her party larded up this war funding bill with all manner of fiscal hog slop having not the slightest thing to do with the war. On the other hand, another message may be getting delivered in the clear: the Democrats working up the audacity to openly defund the war. That's certainly consistent with the "willfully defiant" tone of Dirty Harry, whose clearly focus-grouped "change the direction of this war" crack is "retreat" by any other name.
Well, perhaps not so openly. The whole point of passing the Iraq/Afghanistan appropriation with the withdrawal poison pill attached was to enable the Dems to say that they provided money for the troops, and it was Bush who blocked it, just like he's blocking Donk attempts to "support the troops" by forcing them to run away from the terrorists they're thrashing. A damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. Now there's no withdrawal timetable, but no money for the troops either. And the Pelosi/Reid axis can take their own sweet time coming up with a fresh bill. "Defunding" by any other name.
The mandatory-drawdown-without-saying-so has already begun. The "Surge," particularly the training and expansion of Iraqi security forces, is already slowing down, and a vehicle called the Mine Resistant Ambush Protector vehicle, which is capable of reducing casualties from IED attacks by as much as 80%, will now not be available. Overall, by money-juggling and making Abe Lincoln (not the carrier) scream, Middle East operations can be stretched out to almost the end of July, but then will grind to a halt. After that the best military in the world will be like an abandoned windup toy, or a Lamborghini sitting by the side of the road with an empty gas tank, defeated by the one enemy over which their unparalleled martial prowess has no power: the Democrat Party. al Qaeda and its Iranian sponsors will simply be the cleanup crew.
On that bright, sunny mid-summer day, you can bet your booyeah that Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry, the oddest couple since Michael Moore (think about it....), will be in front of the cameras blaming George W. Bush for "betraying" our men and women in uniform. The President will doubtless turn the other cheek yet again. And most Americans will probably buy it.
Will the Speakerette and Senate Majority Chisler have their own "mission accomplished" banner hanging in the background when they celebrate their moment of "triumph"? That'd be a level of irony that even Crazy Nancy would be able to appreciate.
That is not, of course, what he actually said:
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.
The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq. [emphasis added]
Therein those words lay the seeds of the eventual collapse of public support for the overall war effort, of course. While we couldn't just leave Iraq in a vacuum, the President has put so much emphasis on democratic nation-building to the exclusion of virtually every other aspect of the war that he has put himself into a public relations box where every car bomb and IED and American GI body bag makes it look like his depiction of the mission is functionally impossible. Yes, it is preferable for Iraq to be a democracy than to be another brand of authoritarian state like every other Muslim country aside from Turkey, all other things being equal. But the larger strategic point isn't carrying out an experiment in Jeffersonian civics in the heart of Mesopotamia, but to eliminate Iraq as a national security threat and use it as a forward base and staging area for the next campaigns of the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism. If the latter could be done quicker and cheaper by installing a friendly "thug" or "warlord," facilitating the defeat of Iran and Syria AND THEN sorting out the virtuosity of the successor regimes in Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran, and Damascus, so much the better.
Put all your eggs in one basket, in short, and the chances are significantly enhanced for an impromptu omlette. Invest your entire war strategy in the remaking of one Muslim state in the hopes of using that transformation to subvert the autocracies and dictatorships around it without first defeating those states whose interest is clearly in preventing said transformation, and a positive return is most unlikely.
Doesn't sound like I've ever been all that thrilled with what the President said four years ago on the Lincoln. And I'm not. But my criticisms are honest; those of the Democrats are not.
Unfortunately the latter have been hammered from here to ubiquity, and are part of the settled conventional wisdom - an oxymoron if ever there was one.
~ ~ ~
So the President issued the second veto of his presidency, an appalling paucity even given his party's control of Congress for his first six years in office, and how RINOesque it became in the last two. To the question of, "Now what?", I think the answer is clear. First and foremost, there will be no compromise from the Democrat side of the aisle. Don't believe me? Just listen to their reaction:
Democratic congressional leaders cast the veto as willful defiance of the American people. "The President wants a blank check," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) said just minutes after Bush's statement. "The Congress is not going to give it to him." Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (NV) said that "if the President thinks that by vetoing this bill he will stop us from trying to change the direction of this war, he is mistaken."
It takes a deafness to irony for Crazy Nancy to talk about Bush seeking "blank checks" given the shameless extent to which her party larded up this war funding bill with all manner of fiscal hog slop having not the slightest thing to do with the war. On the other hand, another message may be getting delivered in the clear: the Democrats working up the audacity to openly defund the war. That's certainly consistent with the "willfully defiant" tone of Dirty Harry, whose clearly focus-grouped "change the direction of this war" crack is "retreat" by any other name.
Well, perhaps not so openly. The whole point of passing the Iraq/Afghanistan appropriation with the withdrawal poison pill attached was to enable the Dems to say that they provided money for the troops, and it was Bush who blocked it, just like he's blocking Donk attempts to "support the troops" by forcing them to run away from the terrorists they're thrashing. A damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. Now there's no withdrawal timetable, but no money for the troops either. And the Pelosi/Reid axis can take their own sweet time coming up with a fresh bill. "Defunding" by any other name.
The mandatory-drawdown-without-saying-so has already begun. The "Surge," particularly the training and expansion of Iraqi security forces, is already slowing down, and a vehicle called the Mine Resistant Ambush Protector vehicle, which is capable of reducing casualties from IED attacks by as much as 80%, will now not be available. Overall, by money-juggling and making Abe Lincoln (not the carrier) scream, Middle East operations can be stretched out to almost the end of July, but then will grind to a halt. After that the best military in the world will be like an abandoned windup toy, or a Lamborghini sitting by the side of the road with an empty gas tank, defeated by the one enemy over which their unparalleled martial prowess has no power: the Democrat Party. al Qaeda and its Iranian sponsors will simply be the cleanup crew.
On that bright, sunny mid-summer day, you can bet your booyeah that Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry, the oddest couple since Michael Moore (think about it....), will be in front of the cameras blaming George W. Bush for "betraying" our men and women in uniform. The President will doubtless turn the other cheek yet again. And most Americans will probably buy it.
Will the Speakerette and Senate Majority Chisler have their own "mission accomplished" banner hanging in the background when they celebrate their moment of "triumph"? That'd be a level of irony that even Crazy Nancy would be able to appreciate.
posted by JASmius at 12:40 AM
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