With banking and housing problems in this nation, American officials can now start thinking about solutions to our economic problems.
Read on: Daily News Record Jan 16, 2008:
Americans know there is success in Iraq because news from the conflict has been basically obliterated from nightly and morning news broadcasts. If things go badly, there's a story every night and every morning. If things go well in Iraq, there's stone-cold silence on the airwaves.
Except for Fox News... and the Daily News Record editorial page who are working overtime to fill in the gap. Today's editorial is exhibit A.
Although Secretary of State Rice and Prime Minister Maliki did not discuss timetables, they both talked of a reduction of American and multinational forces this year.
Just like they've "talked about" political benchmarks, military strategy, bringing the troops home, ending the war, bringing democracy to the Middle East, etc etc... How is this meaningful?
As Sens. John McCain, R-Az., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have noted in a recent column, the amazing success of the "surge" can be lost if too many American forces withdraw too quickly but, with the diminishing of violence, it seems possible to withdraw some of our troops.
Crooks and Liars has this equal but opposite reaction:
Today has been the anniversary of Bush’s surge in Iraq. Clearly there is no political reconciliation in Iraq so the surge is and always will be a failure no matter how many times Joe Lieberman and John McCain proclaim it so. This has been an immoral war started by neocon warmongers and the end result at this point is that the Iraqi people have suffered dearly for our sins.
The "amazing success of the surge" is described in the latest posting of the National Security Network:
The troops have performed bravely and violence in Iraq appears to be diminishing. But there is still no political plan to turn the recent tactical gains into lasting strategic success or a plan for bringing our troops home. There has been no progress on any of the key political benchmarks so critical to bringing Iraq together and producing last stability: the oil law, de-Baathification reform, the Constitution and provincial elections are all stalled. If anything, the political situation has gotten worse. The Administration’s regional diplomacy remains woefully inadequate as it has failed to constructively engage Iraq’s neighbors. Moreover, the President’s decision to fund and arm local Sunni militias will likely exacerbate sectarian strife as the Sunnis become increasingly frustrated with the Shi’a central government’s refusal to integrate them into the government and security forces.
Changes in military tactics can lead to short term gains, but only a comprehensive political strategy to bring Iraq’s warring factions together can lead to a permanent solution to the conflict. One year since the President announced the “surge,” it remains clear that he has no such strategy.
Juan Cole posts on the cost of the war to the Iraqi people:
One of the arguments warmongers gave for overthrowing Saddam Hussein was that his regime was responsible for the violent deaths of some 300,000 civilians between 1968 and 2003. That estimate now appears exaggerated, since the number of bodies in mass graves has not borne it out. But what is tragic is that in 4 1/2 short years, a foreign military occupation has unleashed killing on a scale achieved by the murderous Saddam Hussein regime only over decades. Bush did not kill all those people directly, of course, but he did indirectly cause them to be killed, since these are excess deaths beyond what you would have expected if there had been no invasion and occupation.
I am often struck by how clueless the American public is to the vast destruction we have wrought on Iraq and its people, directly or indirectly. It strikes me as a bitter joke that 4 million are displaced, often facing hunger and disease, and the rightwing periodicals and presidential candidates are talking about how the "surge" has "turned things around." For whom? How many orphans have we created? How many widows? How many people who weep and cry every night while trying to fall asleep on straw mats? I estimate on the basis of a UN study of refugees in Syria that as many as 600,000 or 700,000 Baghdadis were ethnically cleansed from the capital under the nose of the American troops implementing the surge. There is an old Chinese proverb, "Children throw stones at frogs in jest, but the frogs die in earnest."
How anyone can think that the horror this tragic war has brought to the Iraqi people can be good news is a horror in itself. America invaded this country, pounded it to rubble, uprooted, injured, killed, and tortured its citizens. It is truly despicable that there is still a strong faction of war-lovers, militarists, and sufferers of Bush Admiration Syndrome that truly think that this is "good news." What kind of depraved thinking is it celebrates the destruction of a country and proudly proclaims, "more rubble, less trouble?"
When the number of displaced civilians is over 4 million, the number of orphans over 5 million, the number of killed and injured is in the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, when all we can do to stop violence is arm one of the sectarian factions that will be the enemy of the government WE support, when the official casualty reports don't even count many of the the injured, how can any sane, human being, congratulate themselves on a job well done?
To the good Squire... You sir, need to shut up. Your warmongering, hateful, spiteful, self-righteous, insanity needs to stop. Do not congratulate America for joining the ranks of the most despised nations on earth. Do not congratulate yourself for beating the drums of war so loudly. Consider the cost, sir. Consider the lives that have been lost, the soldiers that have been maimed and scarred for life, the millions of Iraqis whose lives have been uprooted or destroyed. Then consider your simple comment that
Another bit of good news is Iraqi oil production, once crippled by the terrorists, has returned to pre-war levels.
For the OIL,sir?? For the OIL??
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