Someone Tell the President the War Is Over - New York Times

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over - New York Times

I like this guy. Frank Rich...

"A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire. "

"Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

"But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it."

"WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month."

Welcome to MichaelMoore.com!

Welcome to MichaelMoore.com!: "May 6th, 2005 6:37 pm
British memo indicates Bush made intelligence fit Iraq policy

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott / Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON - A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.

The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.

The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.

'There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable,' the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. 'Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,' weapons of mass destruction.

The memo said 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'"

I think it is time to start Impeachment investigations.

The Raw Story | Rep. calls for deeper inquiry into secret Iraq attack plan

The Raw Story | Rep. calls for deeper inquiry into secret Iraq attack plan: "Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan

RAW STORY

Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

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In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.

'Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a 'runaway bride' to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers,' Conyers writes. 'The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so.'

'The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for 'regime change' through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal,' he adds. 'Blair also discussed the need for America to 'create' conditions to justify the war.'

The members say they are seeking an inquiry."

I have the outrage! Where is the media! REPORT IT!

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Swindler on a Gusher

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Swindler on a Gusher: "The Iraqis have thrown us another curveball.

Ahmad Chalabi - convicted embezzler in Jordan, suspected Iranian spy, double-crosser of America, purveyor of phony war-instigating intelligence - is the new acting Iraqi oil minister.

Is that why we went to war, to put the oily in charge of the oil, to set the swindler who pretended to be Spartacus atop the ultimate gusher?

Does anybody still think the path to war wasn't greased by oil?

The neocons' con man had been paid millions by the U.S. to tell the Bushies what they wanted to hear on Iraqi W.M.D. A year ago, the State Department and factions in the Pentagon turned on him after he began bashing America and using Saddam's secret files to discredit his enemies."

It goes on... where is the outrage?

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: U.N.leash Woolly Bully Bolton

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: U.N.leash Woolly Bully Bolton

BRAVO Ms. Dowd!

Matthew Rothschild comments on the news of the day. | The Progressive magazine

Matthew Rothschild comments on the news of the day. | The Progressive magazine: "Rice Erases Terror Scoreboard

The Bush motto seems to be, if you can't beat terrorism, stop keeping score.

Condoleezza Rice, who has been getting all sorts of underserved praise in the mainstream media these days, just decided to deep-six the State Department's annual report on international terrorism, according to a story by Jonathan S. Landay of Knight Ridder."

Debt Slavery: What The Bankruptcy Bill Could Do To You

Debt Slavery: What The Bankruptcy Bill Could Do To You

So much for that plan. No bankruptcy for me!

BBC NEWS | Europe | Revolutionary bike 'too quiet'

BBC NEWS | Europe | Revolutionary bike 'too quiet'

No! Adding a noise maker to make it less quiet? Ha ha ha! Just put a horn on it.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Coming End of the American Superpower

Paul Craig Roberts: The Coming End of the American Superpower

Here is a Regan administration official who thinks we are screwed. I agree with him. The falling dollar leading to loss of forgein banks using dollars leading to very high interest rates leading to housing market crash and so on.

MSNBC - Razzies tap Berry, 'Catwoman' as year's worst

MSNBC - Razzies tap Berry, 'Catwoman' as year's worst

Ha ha ha! This busted me up! Very funny. A clip from it:
"President Bush won the worst-actor award for his appearance in news and archival footage of Michael Moore’s satiric documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was voted worst supporting-actor for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” while Britney Spears’ fleeting cameo in the documentary brought her the worst supporting-actress award.

Razzies founder John Wilson said the prizes were not meant to mock Moore’s film, only the statements Bush and the others make while “putting their highly paid, highly skilled feet in their mouths repeatedly and sucking on them.”"

Seven Deadly Absurdities

Seven Deadly Absurdities

I had never liked No Child Left Behind act of Bush's and this site helped me consolidate my thoughts on the subject. I am sure there are others. This punishing schools for not performing seemed like a bad idea. Most schools and parents aren't willing to let schools slide as a whole and this act doesn't help at all. It is funny also how a Republican president who is so into minimalist government can want such an intrusive act into local government. It is more evidence of the incompetence of this administration, it sees a problem and thrashes out at it without thought or reasoning. That is what I see in almost every action it takes. Conspiracy people think Bush has darker, selfish motives that drives it... I don't think he is smart enough to have his own thoughts and can't direct the smart folks around him to keep things in control.

Impeach Bush!

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

Why does this matter?
"This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?"

How America Can Afford to Grow Older: A Vision for the Future

How America Can Afford to Grow Older: A Vision for the Future

AARP's Bill Novelli made a lot of sense in this speech on health care costs and social security. I was channel surfing and ran into him on CSPAN. Excellent speech.

Liberal Patriots

Liberal Patriots

I agree with this guy, where is the outrage about the FAA memos? I am! Condi was told about Al Qaeda, as these memos show by Clark. Did she lie? Clinton got impeached for lying about sex in the Oval Office, I think Bush should get impeached for lying about what he knew, what he told us about Iraq, his incompetence with Al Qaeda and Iraq and the rest of his foreign policies, if you want to call them that. Then there are his domestic policies. Different blog.

meat-eating leftist

meat-eating leftist

I like this site! I need to figure the ATOM thing or RSS and add it to my web page or this blog. Try the Freeway Blogger link. Some pretty funny freeway signs.