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Mac Gs World

Planet BUSH and the Daily Reality in the County that Used to be Known as Iraq

PLANET BUSH!
My man Froomkin summarizes the reality outside of Bush's small world, you know, real life.

In the alternate universe that President Bush occupies, he gave a smashing speech last night.

Over there, the people of Iraq need our help to save them from the al Qaeda terrorists who intend to overthrow their brave and united government on the way to attacking America. It's a battle of good versus evil. We have 36 countries fighting alongside us. And the fight is going very well indeed. Ordinary life is returning to Baghdad.

A few more things about Bush's universe: There, the president can make things true simply by solemnly pronouncing them from the Oval Office. He can reach out to his critics just by saying he is doing so. And people believe him.

But over here in the real world, things are different.

Iraq is mostly ruled by armed gangs, not a central government. American troops are dying in the crossfire as the country continues to violently disintegrate along ethnic and sectarian lines. We're in it pretty much alone. There's no end in sight. And the real al Qaeda is regrouping in Pakistan.

President Bush is trying and failing to rally support for a war that the majority of Americans have concluded is not worth fighting. He's not going to change anyone's mind because he's too stubborn to change his own. And in any case, his credibility is shot to hell.

PLANET BUSH


Please Check out this video and this is the type of reporting that we do not hear from our US media at all. It shows how messed up our policy is and we have no long term solutions for the mess at all.


Juan Cole had posted this great video.

You Call that Center?

The President tonight plans on telling the country that the his "Surge" 30,000 troops will be coming home next year but will still leave the same number of troops as before he announced the surge last January.

I can not comprehend this shit anymore. I just want to drop F bombs all over the place. This action is WAY out of touch with what the public wants.

Kids keep dying, Iraqi refugees are fleeing(2mil and rising), Hundreds of separate highly armed Militias control their own individual neighborhoods and could care less what is going on in some inconsequential "Green Zone."The propped up US Iraqi Govt has absolutely no control over them.

Osama is still alive and we keep going further into debt as a nation.

People against the war are continually smeared as unpatriotic, defeatists but pro war supporters are labeled as strong Americans who fight for freedom and want victory.

Against the War= Pussies, Losers, Un American
For the War= Tough, Winners, True Patriots

Being against this war is a pretty main stream idea and no matter how hard the WH spins this "Surge," all it really is more death and destruction for Iraqis/US soldiers. Losing more US life sure does not seem to bother House Minority Leader John Boehner. He was on CNN saying more US troop deaths are a small price to him. Of course, they are not HIS kids or HIS family members. Check out the video here.

Our political debate has sunk to new lows. We can not even admit our mistakes and try to move forward. The policy is a complete failure and has been since the day we disbanded the Iraqi Army. Do not ask Bush about the decision to create large numbers of unemployed, highly military trained insurgents with arms. He can not recall who made the decision. SHOCKER!

"The policy had been to keep the [Iraqi] army intact; didn't happen," Bush told Draper. Asked how he had reacted to Bremer's reversal, Bush replied, "Yeah, I can't remember. I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?' "

The Pro War cheerleaders keep arguing things are not mistakes and that they need more time to prove everyone wrong. Where is the leadership in this country to finally say hey, after 4 1/2 years, 600 bill, 30,000 casulaties that we have no clue to what we are doing. Therefore, it is time to cut our losses and get international help out of this situation.

F BOMB times FBOMBS!

No one wants to abandon what our shitty leaders did to these poor people in the middle east because of our imperliastic hatred of their former dictator. We have to find real solutions for them and us. Political ones and not military.

The people in charge are so vested in to "winning" that they will not face reality.

FBOMBS!

My Man Froomkin sums up our political leaders ignoring the demands of the people up quite well in his column today.

You Call That the Center?
What's a middle-road approach to Iraq?

The White House would like you to believe the middle road is what President Bush will announce tonight from the Oval Office: The possible return to approximately pre-surge troop levels by sometime next summer.

A growing bipartisan movement on Capitol Hill would like you to believe the middle road is Congress agreeing on some modest, incremental, and in some cases non-binding limits on the president's policy.

But what's middle-road for the American public? A sizeable majority wants Bush to bring most of the 160,000 troops home from Iraq in about the same time frame that he is proposing to withdraw less than 30,000. According to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, for instance, 55 percent of Americans support "legislation that would set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq by next spring."

On the antiwar extreme, some Americans want all U.S. troops of out Iraq right now; on the prowar extreme, some want those troops to stay indefinitely. But the consensus view is that Americans want out -- starting now, ending soon.

How, then, has the political debate in Washington become so skewed? Why is it so out of step with the will of the people?

One answer, of course, is that most Republican members of Congress are sticking with Bush. But a lot of the credit belongs to the White House, for a public-relations push that flooded the zone starting in early August.

The emphatic and persistent White House message about nominal military successes in Iraq, culminating with Gen. David Petraeus's congressional testimony this week, dominated the airwaves and shifted the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom about Iraq policy -- while not, interestingly enough, diminishing the public's desire to get the hell out one bit.

Froomkin Column
US deaths are a small price to Boehner
One Sided Political Debate
Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army? We Still Do No Know

Hey General, what year is this? 04 or 07?

My Man Glenn Grenwald, one of the best writers and minds on these sets of tubes is on fire lately. His Blog on Salon is a must a bookmark or rss feed. He exposes both parties, the Washington political class and the beltway media on a daily basis. Check out the above video for some truth about General Petraeus' report and more background on earlier rosy predictions from this same General.

As MGsW has expressed in my recent rant, Mr. Greenwald is equally distrustful of General Petraeus' report and the total PR spin of the hollow surge. He touches on how out of touch the Washington Establishment is on what the public truly wants.

Ever since the Surge was announced (and allowed) back in January, Conventional Beltway Media Wisdom continuously insisted that September was going to be the Dramatic Month of Reckoning, when droves of fair-minded and election-fearing Republicans finally abandoned the President and compelled an end to the war. But the opposite has occurred.

Democratic Congressional leaders -- due either to illusory fears of political repercussions and/or a desire that the war continue -- seem more supportive than ever of the ongoing occupation (or at least more unwilling than ever to stop it).

They are going to do nothing to mandate meaningful troop withdrawal. Most Republicans are hiding behind the shiny badges of Gen. Petraeus and his typically sunny claims about Progress in Iraq, and they, too, are as unified as ever that we cannot end our occupation.

The public wants the war to end and is not buying this "Pro-Surge" PR campaign.

Perhaps most remarkably, in light of the bipartisan canonization rituals to which we have been subjected, a strong majority (53-39%) believes that Gen. Petreaus' report "will try to make things look better than they really are" (rather than "honestly reflect the situation in Iraq").

Moreover, huge majorities continue to believe that the war was not worth fighting (62-36%) and that the U.S. "is not making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq" (60-36%).

Only a small minority (28%) believe the Surge has made the situation in Iraq better, while vast majorities believe it has made no difference (58%) or has made the situation worse (12%). And a sizable plurality continues to believe the U.S. is losing the war (48-34%).

More significantly still, overwhelming numbers of Americans understand what the D.C. Establishment refuses to accept: namely, that even if there are marginal and isolated security improvements, there is still no point in continuing to stay in Iraq.

Large majorities want the number of U.S. troops in Iraq decreased (58-39%); believe overwhelmingly that a decrease should begin "right away," rather than by the end of the year or next year (62-33%); and favor legislation now to compel troop withdrawal by the spring (55-41%).

He explains with great clarity why the war will not end anytime soon.

The Establishment is so invested in ensuring that the war they created can be painted as a Success, and even more so in the notion that forced withdrawal is something only the Unserious People advocate, that they will never follow their premise (we are doing nothing good in Iraq) to its logical conclusion (therefore we should force Bush to withdraw whether he wants to or not).

And the entire leadership strata of our political class, including Congressional Democrats, either shares those premises and/or are far too weak and afraid to defy them. The war thus continues, and the gap between our political class and American public opinion continues to grow.

His other post focuses on the Pro War crowd and their never ending obsession with being right, even though they ALWAYS have been wrong. Only a 1/4 of Iraqis actually see any improvements but that does not stop the war mongers and policy experts from blurting out their own statistics.

When determining whether "progress" is being made, fewer things could be less relevant to our genius war scholars and our DC Establishment pundits than whether the Iraqis whom we have Liberated actually say they are more secure.

Far more trustworthy are American War Supporters and Members of Congress who take week-long, highly planned jaunts to Iraq, spend every night protected in the Green Zone, spend their days talking to American military officials, and then return and declare Iraq to be Much Safer. That is much more reliable.

But whatever else is true, the viewpoint of actual Iraqi is fairly compelling "primary source data" suggesting that Gen. Petraeus' sunny claims about Iraq are anything but "undeniable."

American Public Wants War To End Very Soon, Political Class Does Not Care
One Day Guide to War Supporters
Glenn Greenwald's Blog
Fire Dog Lake

Mac Gs World

A New Way Nowhere (Long Political Rant)

(This is a long political rant on Iraq and does not contain Poon, hot chicks, or sports.)

Down below is a Daily Show segment to get everyone in the mood for today's General Petraeus' expected and most likely "Pro Surge" Iraq testimony in front of Congress this afternoon. I can not even follow this topic anymore and my head is about to explode. Of Course, I still will and it sucks because this is the most important discussion American's will face in our lifetime: What to do about the Iraqi Clusterfuk. All of our options are bad, very bad, and awful.

Congressional Republicans have locked in to letting Bush control their parties destiny by continuing their recent foreign policy platform of nation building/kicking the can down the road and "hoping" things just work themselves out eventually. They steadfastly support this policy no matter the continual cost of our precious blood and treasure. HUGE Mistake for our country and the GOP's electoral future. More on the Republican Party on a another post. I can not let this rant spiral out of control like the national debt or my late night drunken messages on buddy's voice mails.

It is laughable that the Bush administration, who prided themselves in running the government like a business and placed boatloads of CEO's in charge of Cabinet offices and Federal Agencies, would continue to throw unlimited amount of money at a major problem(Iraq) with no concrete results. Typical successful CEOs would look at their flailing stock price, listen to their shareholders, and figure out ways to cut their losses and move on. The inability of the Administration to truly recognize or admit their failures just baffles the mind. It could be one of the main contributors to consistent near record low approval ratings for Bush.

Also, this "Whack a Mole" surge strategy is the biggest joke ever and this cartoon depicts it quite well.

20K more troops in a country the size of California is a "Surge?" I would say 500K troops would be my definition of a "surge" or its correct definition of increasing US forces in an area: "An Escalation."

Are you ready for some popular talking points in the next few days? Drumroll Please:

"6 more months, We need more time, Signs things are working, We can not lose, Al Qaeda is evil" and my personal favorite: "Progress."

I could be on an island beach sipping drinks with umbrellas if I had a dollar for every time progress has been mentioned by the media, White House or GOP officials over the past 4 and 1/2 years. They can barely answer a question on Iraq without talking about a Friedman Unit.

Repeating the word, "Progress" is some gag reflex for pro war politicians. It should be illegal to play any political drinking game where "progress" is a key word. Everyone would black out quickly.

I actually feel like blacking out when I read about US Soldier's Arlington Cemetery funerals in the Wpost. This is the reality of WAR, broken families and shattered lives. Here are some faces and names of our fallen US Soldiers.

Please REPEAT after me:

There is NO military solution in Iraq and we will NEVER EVER "WIN" an occupation. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, Al Qaeda was never in Iraq before we invaded and destroyed the Iraqi government infrastructure and we are in the middle of a century old Sunni/Shiite civil war. REPEAT.

There is no military solution in Iraq and we will NEVER EVER "WIN" an occupation.

The War will continue because the Democrats have no spine or GOP votes to over ride any presidential veto on continuing the Iraqi war funding albatross. It burns my progressive bones to say this but Democrats would rather have the Iraqi War as an issue for the 08 election cycle. They do not want to take a true stance on this issue like Shut the FN government down until Bush caves! Even though it is also the right thing to do for our country, the Democrats do not want to risk their political capital/advantage and open themselves up to the likely "Dems hate the troops" attacks by the GOP. Pathetic.

Welcome to Washington bubble of partisan politics and the two parties never ending tug of war for power. I sometimes believe that I am watching a debate class gone wrong, where no one really cares about the position they are defending but just are arguing to argue. Once again, another blog post for another time.

Back to the Clusterfuk. Even though the an overwhelming majority of the public wants the war to end, the only way Congress makes it happen is if the Republican Caucus splits and starts to vote with the Democratic majority on gradual troop redeployments. I highly, highly doubt this will occur and this is my chilly, pound my head into the wall conclusion:

There are no true plans or momentum to end our occupation in Iraq by either party, PERIOD.

Oh, We are probably going to bomb Iran at some point soon too. Maybe the public will get really pissed when we bomb another country and they will get their fat asses off of their lazy boys. Actually, most Americans are too busy watching a chubby, washed up pop star dance like a mannequin and forget she was lip syncing on national TV to care about our broken foreign policy. Sometimes I do not blame them.

The Media continues to let the president set the terms of the debate too.
Most pundits would have never predicted that the bumbling Governor from Texas dwindling power relevance as president would be his lone access to the Bully Pulpit.

"Dang Gum, The Good Ole Decider is still deciding."

Huffington points the lackluster job of the media and its lazy reporting about Iraq,"The time has come for the media to stop acting as if there are two sides to the story of what's happening in Iraq when there is only one."

Eric Boehlert has an excellent column about the press taking the summer off on reporting about Iraq.

From the cost and length of the war(50 billion&3 months) to the reasons for it (UN/WMDs/Iraqi Democracy/War on Terror/Al Queda), the American people have continually been misled and straight up lied to about Iraq. Every single one of theses "experts" predictions on Iraq has turned out wrong. Why should any American keep believing in the administration or their pro war cheerleaders on this topic?

They long ago lost the benefit of the doubt and it is why I believe this country's next executive leader in 2009 needs to be someone Americans can believe in. This country needs a JFK, a Reagan or a Clinton. Someone to renew their faith in our country/government and reclaim the respect of the world. Americans are good, honest, caring people and I am fed up that a few shitty leaders has made us all look like selfish, greedy, imperialistic pigs. I am too busy worrying about the lives of our US Soldiers to start commenting on the 08 presidential Horse race.

The worst part is that I can not even believe a word these government officials say about Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. They can be telling some truths about these countries but their track record gives them ZERO credibility.

Matthew Dowd, Bush's main campaign strategist in his 00, 04 election victories, no longer believes in anything Bush says about Iraq.

My biggest problem with the policy discussion in Washington right now is that both parties and the media should be talking about answers to the obvious problem in the Mid East. We should be discussing the pros and cons of our bad options out of this hornets nest, analyzing what are the best ways to protect our interests and prevent more US deaths.

Instead, the administration keeps spewing talk of us "winning," and keeping faith in their repetitive hollow promises. I do not have all of the answers nor does anyone for that matter but until the public and media demand a true debate from our political leaders, we will continue to deny the reality of our problem in Iraq. Things only have the chance to get worse and not better.

Now Enjoy this video and I am sorry if you made it to the bottom of my rant. Happy Munday.




The Real Heros in Life, Our Fallen Soliders
Cartoon by Stuart Carlson
Whack A Mole
Dowd NOW disagrees with Bush, thanks Pal
Bush Sets Debate
Dems Folding on Iraq
Our Pointless Pilate Press
Press Blackout Summer
9 US Soliders Died in Iraq

Mac Gs World

Mr. US Debt Rising, Got to Keep on RISING

Bush wants 50 billion more for his illegal disastrous invasion of a sovereign nation or otherwise known as the Iraqi Clusterfuck. My analogy of Bush and Cheney in casino continually racing to the ATM with our tax payers money keeps ringing true.

I remember one of the main issues of the 2000 campaign was which candidate would do what with our budget surpluses. Surpluses? that is a good one.

Now, the Democrats are the party of fiscal discipline and the Republican party continues to support unlimited spending of tax dollars for nation building. Ronald Reagan must be rolling around in his grave.

The National Debt is now 7.9 trillion and rising.

Some debt is not a bad thing but having too much is quite obviously bad fiscal behavior. Go ask any American straddled with large payments on their credit cards. How long do you have to pay the interest before you can actually pay the capitol.

In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.

We spend 4 times the money on the interest on our debt than we do on education and transportation COMBINED!

This 50 billion that Bush wants is additional from the $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and the $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nor does it include the 456 Billion that we already have spent in Iraq.

I am sure Congress will cave and keep giving Bush all that he wants. I have no idea how to end this Fn war and I am scared shitless that he will start another one with Iran before his god awful White House tenure is over. Read this if you think a Iran war is far fetched.

It was the 2 year anniversary of Kartina. Remember the disaster that nearly wiped out one of our coolest cities. Bush's boy Brownie the horse trader sure knew how to respond. The disaster knocked the invincibility swagger out of the Bush Administration's sails and they have never ever recovered. It unmasked their total incompetency and highlighted their lackluster compassion towards poor people. The strategy of blaming state and local officials was highly ineffective. People wanted results and actions.

Wonder if those people could use some federal money not caught up in red tape?
It’s hard to get an accurate estimate because the [cost of occupying Iraq] mounts so rapidly every minute. Can’t help wondering how much farther along the [Gulf Coast] rebuilding would be, how much more could be spent to improve public education, insure the 43 million Americans without health insurance, ad nauseum. Great legacy you’re leaving, George.

I could not have said it better myself.

Mac Gs World

The Lost Year

My man Dan Froomkin could not have summed it up any better in his column today.

A new national intelligence estimate concludes that President Bush's troop surge shows no signs of accomplishing its goal of encouraging political reconciliation in Iraq.

An influential Republican senator and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff now favor a troop withdrawal. (Sen. John Warner wants Bush to demonstrate that the commitment in Iraq is not open-ended; Marine Gen. Peter Pace argues that the military simply can't keep this up.)

These and other developments take us back in some ways to December 2006. It was then, in the wake of the November election and the report of the Iraq Study Group, that the debate in Washington finally appeared to be shifting away from how to achieve victory and toward how to cut our losses.

Instead, Bush ignored public sentiment, overruled his military commanders and opted for escalation.

And now it appears that the only thing the surge has bought him is time -- nine months or maybe a year, during which he was able to postpone the inevitable.

What has that year cost America -- and Iraq? For starters, a year in Iraq translates to over 1,000 more dead American soldiers; over $100 billion more in direct appropriations; over 15,000 more dead Iraqi civilians; and countless grievous wounds and shattered families both here and there.

In light of the costs, having bought a year of time may not seem like much of an accomplishment. But if Bush can drag things out another year or so, he can wash his hands of the whole mess and leave it for his successor to deal with.

Mac Gs World

Shiites, Sunnis and George Bush

Mac G is rolling with political commentary today. This article is a must read for every citizen no matter if you want to nuke the Mideast, impeach Cheney, or avoid the ballot box every first Tuesday in November like Rosie does a treadmill.(That is my last Rosie joke, well at least for the rest of June.)

Iraq is the biggest foreign policy disaster of our lifetime, period. While Islamic extremism still wants to kill the "West" and energizes in Pakistan, our precious blood and treasure keeps draining everyday in Iraq. 4 American soldiers and 100 Iraqis die every single day. The US Govt spends 256 million tax payers' dollars every day. EVERY Fn DAY! And with no end in sight.

The Neocons swirled up a hornets nest by invading Iraq and had no clue how to run the country after flatting Saddam's Army. Frontline had a PBS documentary on the half ass planning on part of the Bush Administration, Pentagon and the Defense Department.

Now our undermanned American troops are stuck policing a country the size of California, with little to zero Arabic speaking skills and no clue to the difference between the "good and bad" people. Our troops drive around everyday waiting to get blown up by IEDs or car bombs. Their reward is to have their tours extended, over and over. And if they are unfortunate enough to get injured, they are sent back to America to live in shit hole, rat infested conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Facility.

It is hard to see us "winning" when we do not have any idea who we are really fighting. There is no way to "win" an occupation. The worst problem is that our soldiers are in the middle of a bazillion year long civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis. I knew the 2 fractions hated each for eternity and it is hard for Americans to understand since our civilization here is minuscule in comparison. I just knew that they wanted to kill each other.

This article by Abbas Sand gives a historical insight into the conflict. It has been reported that GW Bush had no idea about 2 different sects of Islam only months before he ordered the Iraq invasion.

GW must have been at a 12 step meeting or Texas Rangers Spring training during the first Iraq war, when his FATHER was president!

After reading this, I hope you realize what a monumental ego hard on our leaders had to believe that USA was going to solve this conflict by military force without the world's support.

In dealing with the current problems of the Middle East, obviously it is quite important to understand the differences between Shiites and Sunnies. Furthermore, with the addition of the American presence, this situation has become more complicated. Unfortunately, there is very little in-depth analysis of this topic, leaving the impression that these are just a bunch of primitive people who just like to fight.

The conflicts and problems between Shiites and Sunnies are so deep, and the history is so long, that one can write volumes on the topic and only scratch the surface. This article is an attempt to give a historical overview of the problem itself, as well as, to discuss the additional complication caused by the United States presence in this region, and their decisions on how to conduct the war. My hope is that the reader would realize that the Sunni Shiite division is not a problem like Catholic Vs Protestant.

Shiites, Sunnis and George Bush
Frontline: The End Game
Bush Clueless on Arab World Before Iraq War
14 US Soldiers Die
Rat Hole Walter Reed