Bush has often declared himself a "Wartime President". He seemed to do it with glee in a private interview with Tim Russert for Meet the Press a few years back. As ironic as it is for someone who went AWOL from their National Guard duty to now be Commander in Chief and declaring wars, he seems eager to not only continue his current wars but start new ones before he leaves.
General Petraeus is getting ready to give Congress that September report on Iraq as we have reported here several times. The media is gearing up for it by discussing how it might involve troop withdrawals from Iraq. It will be, as expected, positive media for Bush who will look like he's pulling some troops out and not being the complete stubborn prick he has been otherwise. The problem with this is the media again has no idea what they are talking about as troop rotations would require that some troops be redeployed or withdrawn anyway.
As I have said before, anything Petraeus says should be immediately dismissed. Republicans and Neo-Cons (like the World's Biggest Idiot, William Kristol on this The Daily Show appearance this week) try to play him off as some independent, non-partisan voice. As we know from my previous postings that is simply not true.
Not to mention everyone is waiting on his report to Congress as if whatever he says is what we need to act on. This would be a foolish decision for any Democrat in Congress to make especially now knowing that the White House is actually writing his report.
Yes, they've now admitted what I have been saying all along!
From the LA Times:
Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.
And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.
Well that pretty much sums up how truthful that report will be. Petraeus himself earlier this year slipped up and said the surge didn't stem the violence in Baghdad. Must have been a fleeting bout of conscience I guess.
As if that were not enough for Mr. Wartime President, his Vice-President Dick Cheney is urging for strikes on Iran. These people are unbelievable.
What I'd like to note here is that their flawed (as usual) premise is that the upswing in violence during the surge is somehow all Iran's fault and that all the Shiites that are fighting US forces in the surge are connected to Iran in some way.
Strange how they were surpressing the actual numbers of casualties by excluding deaths by bombing originally in this surge but are now using those numbers to justify a war with Iran.
The worst part is the lack of logic that goes into this explanation. Our surge, by it's very nature, is meant to induce more violence. We're going in and forcing more conflict with al-Sadr's Shiite sect and thus the violence between US Forces and Shiites has risen. It likely has little to do with Iranian influence as much as it does with Iraqi Shiites just wanting to force us out of their homeland.
From the Asia Times:
When a top US commander in Iraq reported last week that attacks by Shi'ite militias with links to Iran had risen to 73% of all July attacks that had killed or wounded US forces in Baghdad, he claimed it was because of an effort by Iran to oust the United States from Iraq, referring to "intelligence reports" of a "surge" in Iranian assistance.
But the obvious reason for the rise in Shi'ite-related US casualties - ignored in US media coverage of Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno's charge - is that the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr was defending itself against a rising tempo of attacks by US forces at the same time attacks by al-Qaeda forces had fallen.
-snip-
Odierno claimed intelligence reports supported his contention of an Iranian effort to influence public perceptions of the "surge" strategy. "They're sending more money in, they're training more individuals and they're sending more weapons in."
He repeated the charge in an interview with Michael R. Gordon of the New York Times published on its front page on August 8 under the headline "US says Iran-supplied bomb is killing more troops in Iraq". In that interview, he declared of Iran, "I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September."
What Odierno framed in terms of an Iranian policy, however, can be explained much more simply by the fact that the US military mounted more operations on Muqtada's Mahdi Army during the spring and summer.
Sounds like they're framing the Iranians to force a war to me. Not all that differently than how they framed Saddam for 9/11 so they could go to war with Iraq.
What goes through the minds of these people? Our President is supposed to keep us safe no matter what. Peace is always supposed to be the option and war is supposed to be a reluctant, last ditch effort made in self defense. Your job as President is to keep us OUT of wars. In doing so your job REQUIRES you to use diplomacy, even with those who have not traditionally been our allies or that completely agree with us. You use law enforcement here and abroad (with the help of partner countries) to capture terrorist suspects before they strike. You strengthen our own country's security at airports, nuclear facilities and ports. You make tactical strikes where you need to but with the cooperation of leadership in that country to have help in flushing out the enemy. But you DO NOT STRIKE PRE-EMPTIVELY JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO. That is NOT the President's job. Afghanistan you can make a strong case for after 9/11 but Iraq is absolutely wrong and Iran would be as well.
Not to mention our military is stretched beyond their limits. It's to the point where they'll accept anybody. They lowered standards and missed recruitment goals in 2005. They lowered them further and barely reached recruitment goals in 2006.
Much of the money we're sending to the Pentagon to handle this war has gone to overpay contractors like Blackwater, whose mercenaries go to Iraq with no United States military jurisdiction and kill at will. It's become a nightmare and they're killing our troops now... while we pay them!
So back to recruiters, they'll accept anybody right? Well almost anybody. Remember that Max Blumenthal video we posted about drafting College Republicans? Well apparently on townhall.com a College Republican wrote an editorial trashing him for it and proved why those cowardly jerks who used every cheap health excuse in the book, REALLY couldn't serve.
At the July 2007 National College Republican Committee Convention, whining wannabe journalist Max Blumenthal asked attendees why they weren’t fighting in Iraq. The college kids in his amateur ambush video fumbled with their words and gave medical excuses like asthma and bad knees. They were young, nervous and in front of a jerk holding a camera. Guilt isn’t necessary. The reality is that most of us wouldn’t make the cut.
There you have it. College Republicans are physically and mentally inferior to high school dropouts, felons, racists, convicts, and illegal immigrants and cannot join the military. They said it, not me.
That being said, if that is the case, none of them should then ever be considered qualified to be elected for a public office. After all they're too dumb to pass the military recruitment exams, do we really want them working on complex budget issues, passing laws, or worse dealing with complicated policy negotiations? Please. Time to treat this bunch of fools worse than drop outs are treated. At least the drop outs have the courage to stand and fight for their country, unlike these chickenshits who just call for war while hiding behind their parents' money.
-Rp
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