Friday, December 08, 2006
The Most Stubborn President in the last 100 years?
Sorry for lack of updates....
George W. Bush just boggles my mind. This isn't going to be about how Iraq was ill conceived in the first place. This is about the current situation on the ground and what the Iraq Study Group has suggested.
As you may or may not know the Iraq Study Group's overall reccomendation was to find a way of disengagement in Iraq with honour. They believe that victory is out of the question. Unlike what some conservatives will have you believe they're not saying "pull the plug". In fact, one of the suggestions struck me as being realistic and pragmatic. The suggestion is to have a Middle East Summit with all of Iraq's neighbours (and yes this includes Iran) and try to find a way to come to an amicable solution to the problems of the region.
Another suggestion is to work on Israel/Palestinian peace talks. This could be done by having Israel offer the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and sensible dealings with the Israelis. Now while this doesn't have anything to do with Iraq it would be a good thing to do to provide some stabilization to the region.
So now let's look at President Bush, clearly the United States is NOT winning in Iraq. The possible new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates concedes that the country is not winning the war. He then had to clarify and say and I paraphrase "While we're not losing in Iraq we're not winning either". So basically he's saying it's a stalemate situation at best. The President obviously is grasping at straws hoping that by being delusional and thinking "Yeah we're successful in Iraq" that things will get better.
They are not....
Yet, we hear this happy talk coming from the President on down. President Bush's Counselor Dan Bartlett was even bold enough to state in an interview that "we are winning"! Now there's a history of presidents having trouble accepting their mistakes and a need for change. Once again the war Iraq is most compared to has a parallel in this situation. Lyndon Johnson AGONIZED over the "boys" in Vietnam. In fact, in one of his biographies there's vivid scenes of LBJ personally writing condolence letters to the families of fallen soldiers. He truly believed in the Falling Domino theory. He felt that Vietnam was a battle that needed to be won. Near the end of his presidency he recognized the folly and tried to change course but it was too little too late. Nixon came into office and actually intensified the war in some aspects with the massive bombings of North Vietnam and Cambodia.
George Bush just can't accept failure. I swear there needs to be a psychological study done about him because he has this very black/white view of the world. He won't even be pragmatic and TRULY take the ISG recommendations into consideration. He would rather take the military's recommendations and more or less stay the course while still parotting the "everything is good" line. Apparently Mr. Bush doesn't care about his legacy because if there's one thing that history has taught us is that America does not like it when its being blatantly lied to in the manner that the Bush Admin has been doing the last couple years.
It will be interesting to see what happens between now and the end of the Bush admin's term.
And now for something completely different......
I often listen to music when I make a posting so at the end of every post I will reveal what song is playing at the moment.
What i'm hearing now:
"You Make me Feel so Young" - Frank Sinatra
George W. Bush just boggles my mind. This isn't going to be about how Iraq was ill conceived in the first place. This is about the current situation on the ground and what the Iraq Study Group has suggested.
As you may or may not know the Iraq Study Group's overall reccomendation was to find a way of disengagement in Iraq with honour. They believe that victory is out of the question. Unlike what some conservatives will have you believe they're not saying "pull the plug". In fact, one of the suggestions struck me as being realistic and pragmatic. The suggestion is to have a Middle East Summit with all of Iraq's neighbours (and yes this includes Iran) and try to find a way to come to an amicable solution to the problems of the region.
Another suggestion is to work on Israel/Palestinian peace talks. This could be done by having Israel offer the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and sensible dealings with the Israelis. Now while this doesn't have anything to do with Iraq it would be a good thing to do to provide some stabilization to the region.
So now let's look at President Bush, clearly the United States is NOT winning in Iraq. The possible new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates concedes that the country is not winning the war. He then had to clarify and say and I paraphrase "While we're not losing in Iraq we're not winning either". So basically he's saying it's a stalemate situation at best. The President obviously is grasping at straws hoping that by being delusional and thinking "Yeah we're successful in Iraq" that things will get better.
They are not....
Yet, we hear this happy talk coming from the President on down. President Bush's Counselor Dan Bartlett was even bold enough to state in an interview that "we are winning"! Now there's a history of presidents having trouble accepting their mistakes and a need for change. Once again the war Iraq is most compared to has a parallel in this situation. Lyndon Johnson AGONIZED over the "boys" in Vietnam. In fact, in one of his biographies there's vivid scenes of LBJ personally writing condolence letters to the families of fallen soldiers. He truly believed in the Falling Domino theory. He felt that Vietnam was a battle that needed to be won. Near the end of his presidency he recognized the folly and tried to change course but it was too little too late. Nixon came into office and actually intensified the war in some aspects with the massive bombings of North Vietnam and Cambodia.
George Bush just can't accept failure. I swear there needs to be a psychological study done about him because he has this very black/white view of the world. He won't even be pragmatic and TRULY take the ISG recommendations into consideration. He would rather take the military's recommendations and more or less stay the course while still parotting the "everything is good" line. Apparently Mr. Bush doesn't care about his legacy because if there's one thing that history has taught us is that America does not like it when its being blatantly lied to in the manner that the Bush Admin has been doing the last couple years.
It will be interesting to see what happens between now and the end of the Bush admin's term.
And now for something completely different......
I often listen to music when I make a posting so at the end of every post I will reveal what song is playing at the moment.
What i'm hearing now:
"You Make me Feel so Young" - Frank Sinatra
# posted by Chris Fung @ 12:27 AM 
Comments:
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I agree with some aspects such as the "optimism when things aren't going well" but have to strongly disagree with the Israel part:
"Another suggestion is to work on Israel/Palestinian peace talks. This could be done by having Israel offer the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and sensible dealings with the Israelis. Now while this doesn't have anything to do with Iraq it would be a good thing to do to provide some stabilization to the region."
I hope this doesn't happen. Besides being an enormous strategic area for Syria to launch an attack against Israel as they have before, well actually that would be the major problem.
And hasn't Israel given up concessions in the past to "get peace"? I hope you don't think that giving the Golan Heights will seriously cause any war with Israel to not happen.
"Another suggestion is to work on Israel/Palestinian peace talks. This could be done by having Israel offer the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and sensible dealings with the Israelis. Now while this doesn't have anything to do with Iraq it would be a good thing to do to provide some stabilization to the region."
I hope this doesn't happen. Besides being an enormous strategic area for Syria to launch an attack against Israel as they have before, well actually that would be the major problem.
And hasn't Israel given up concessions in the past to "get peace"? I hope you don't think that giving the Golan Heights will seriously cause any war with Israel to not happen.
# posted by 
: 5:39 PM
: 5:39 PM
It probably wouldn't insure peace but the ICG panelists that i've heard on several News Shows have said this isn't just giving up land and blindly hoping that peace will break out. There will have to be certain conditions met.
Having not read the report myself I can't get into specifics but if the Israeli "problem" can be calmed down a bit it would make trying to settle things in Iraq a lot easier as there wouldn't necessarily be the thought of "at any moment Israel could break out into war".
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Having not read the report myself I can't get into specifics but if the Israeli "problem" can be calmed down a bit it would make trying to settle things in Iraq a lot easier as there wouldn't necessarily be the thought of "at any moment Israel could break out into war".
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