If THEY think the Presidential election's more important than Iraq, why shouldn't WE?

It’s no secret here that I want Bush out. I think he’s bad for the country, and bad for the world. (This is background, not a subject of debate.)

An argument could be made that it would be better, overall, if things went badly in Iraq in the short run, so that we’d be rid of Bush. I personally think that’s a cynical argument, and when things really do go well in Iraq (e.g. Saddam’s capture, Saddam’s sons getting killed, finding all sorts of info on the resistance when we captured Saddam), I rejoice. The people in that corner of the world have seen enough trouble already; they deserve any breaks they can get. If things go well over there, and the result is that Bush gets re-elected, I’d certainly rather see that than see Bush lose because Iraq’s erupted into civil war.

Not that how I feel about this affects things one whit.

So I was more than a little bit bothered when I read this:

Underlining mine, of course.

So here you have these people who, unlike me, presumably do make a difference to the success of our mission in Iraq, and they’re saying it’s time to leave, not just because they’re tired and are ready to go back home, but because they’ve got a President to re-elect.

(Lucky for them that they’re beyond the reach of stop-loss orders. Guess they aren’t interested in showing much solidarity with those that have been so ordered.)

Anyway, there it is: here you’ve got people who, at least in theory, are making a difference over there. And they seemingly believe the good they can do for Iraq is less important than the good they can do by working for Bush’s re-election. So exactly why should we liberals, whose mere opinions in blogs and on message boards don’t affect the outcome in Iraq at all, feel compelled to place Iraq’s well-being over the outcome of the election?

[quote]
Over the next two months, the State Department will be intensively recruiting to staff the U.S. Embassy [in Iraq].

Staffing has been an issue in recent months. Many on the staff of L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, are young, comparatively inexperienced in the Middle East, non-Arabic speakers and political appointees rather than career Foreign Service officers. Some have already left or plan to do so before the occupation ends to work on the president’s reelection campaign, according to U.S. officials.

“There will be a fairly dramatic shift of personnel over the next six months,” the U.S. official said. “It can’t be precipitous and happen all at once.”

[quote]

No, dude, they’re not making a difference. They are political appointees. They don’t know the language or the culture. They don’t have the training that civil servants would normally get, especially the ones in sensitive areas like Foreign Affairs.

They’re pawns of the administration who are quite probably the offspring of older GOP buddies who were owed a favour or two, and sending the kid on a free trip to Iraq where they’d make lots of money doing relatively little seemed an easy way to repay. Now the kids are coming home to stuff letterboxes before the next election and will be replaced by (hopefully) experienced staff who speak arabic and know some of the region’s background. Then maybe something can begin to get done.

Aw crap. One of the first times I’ve stuffed the coding in 301 posts.

You will notice that I said, “people who, at least in theory, are making a difference over there.”

But maybe you’re right - what the Bushies should really be Pitted for is for turning the Iraqis’ plight into a junket opportunity for their friends’ children.

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by big_yellow_kingswood *
**

WTF, so, now we send some competent people (hopefully), is that what you are saying?

And we haven’t until this point because?

We should hope that things go bad for American policy? Where to start?

Oh, let me begin by saying I hope for the sake of Iraqis that support us, we should just pull out. That’ll teach those freedom-loving fucks to hope for SOMEONE to come along and help them try to live a life without constant fear. I’d personally keep contributing to the Red Cross for Iraqi help.

ACK!!! It’s not what they’re used to!! Let’s all bitch about how the USA is so bad off with the current administration, that we have to change! We need change for the sake of change here! The majority has been affected by the 2000 election!
(Oh, wait, the WWII generation could still kick our asses)

I agree, we should have NEVER gone into Iraq. I had no problem with Saddam killing political prisoners and appointing his son’s to set up officially-sanctioned rape rooms. I had no problem that they wanted to arbitrarilly execute people that made the horriffic, HORRIFFIC(!) crime of voicing dissidence.

Damnit Coalition, leave them be! They are independent! What? Dictator? Huh, go away American Pig Swine, we have checks to cash here.

Flashback: Um, we have a dictator that is leading a country to the second invasion and occupation of our country. Can you help us out, and spend a shitload of money, again?

(Deal with it, ask your grandparents, it IS the same)

Can we have a cite that it’s any Bush cronies children who are currently staffing the US embassy in Iraq?

This whole thing is very thin. According to U.S. officials, some of Bremer’s staff plans to leave to work on Bush’s campaign.

What US officials are saying this? Do we have any reason to believe this is true?

What do they mean by some? How many? Two people, a hundred people?

They have plans to leave? So what? Every American in Iraq right now probably plans on leaving sometime for some reason. You go over there and do your job then you come home.

Even if a group of people working over there are going to come home to work on Bush’s election, so what? They believe in what we are doing in Iraq and they want to support the president who led the effort. I don’t see anything nefarious about this.


One thing did get my attention in the article. 30,000 people to work in the embassy in Iraq eventually?! Wow, that’s a lot of people. I was also shocked to see that 7,000 work in Egypt. I was under the impression that embassy’s weren’t that large of an organization.

I would venture that the embassies themselves aren’t that big, but once you add in all the spooks that use embassy work as their cover, there you go…

Heh, ya.

There’s the spooks. And the marines to keep an eye on the place. And don’t forget the good folks down in accounting. And the cleaning staff. (Probably a union thing) And the lifeguards for the inground pool. And the animal trainers for the circus. And all of the families of these people. And…

I’m picturing the place looking like the big ship from Spaceballs.

This is almost staggering in its incoherence.

I must have missed the speech where Bush went on television to state that we had to go to war to stop Saddam from killing political prisoners. I must not have seen Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on the officially-sanctioned rape rooms. Must have not read the paper the day that Rummy and Condi and the rest of the gang said that preserving the right of the Iraqi people was the reason for going to war.

No, all I saw was the stuff where we had to get in there on the ground right now before Saddam unleashed the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION that he had lying thick upon the ground (although we didn’t seem to have any problem with the WMD he used on the Kurds while Grampa Reagan and Papa Bush were president and Saddam was a brave and noble leader battling the forces of Iranian darkness).

duffer, your incoherent, strawman-filled rant lives down to your handle, and then a bit down past that.

Debased, I can’t figure out where you’re responding to kingswood, and where you’re responding to me, so I’ll just wait for you to sort it out, if you don’t mind.

point noted.

duffer:

What the fuck are you on about? Who the hell mentioned any of that crap? Surely you agree that when you take over the administration of another country, especially one that has been damaged by a recent war, where a significant number of the population are at minimum passively hostile towards you and a small number of others are still engaging your troops in gunfire/bombings, and the eyes of the entire world are critically examining your every move, that staffing your head man on the ground with people who
[ul]
[li]speak the language[/li][li]are familiar with the culture[/li][li]have a number of years worth of prior experience working in difficult situations[/li][/ul]
would be common sense, not to mention basic diplomacy.

This isn’t the thread to go over that shit again. I’m starting to believe that “rape rooms” is a varient of Godwin’s Law as far as the Iraq war is concerned.

Debaser:
How many of the ground soldiers would be permitted to up and come home to assist GWB in his re-election campaign?

When I said it was the kids of older republicans I was making a cynical hypothesis. These officials are:

Now, would the administration find these people off the street and give them jobs directly under Bremer, or would they find them from among the party faithful? They are political appointees, after all. The fact that these kids are heading home to help with the campaign speaks volumes to me.