And given that statement, I’d say that unless his plan to get elected president includes assassinating everyone running against him, he’s got no plan there either.
Where the fuck are people like McCain getting their news from? ‘Cause as far as I can tell, the shit ain’t workin’! People are still getting blown up in Iraq and I’ve heard nothing from this Administration along the lines of, “We’re opening schools, people are going to work, they’ve got electricity.” in ages. It’s all, “We’re making progress.” We are? News ta fuckin’ me, baby! We’ve supposedly been making progress since we took control of the country, but people are still dying in large numbers. Shit, when we first invaded the country, they weren’t blowing up tankers filled with chlorine like they are now! So, I guess that is some progress: We’ve now got insurgents who’re more creative at finding ways of killing people! God bless America! (Where’s the flag waving smilie when you need it?)
Let’s see if we can predict the success of this plan with FutureVision[sup]tm[/sup]:
“Ladies and gentlemen, with 30% of the votes in across the country, we are now prepared to call the 2008 Presidential Election for…this inanimate carbon rod! A stunning landslide victory for the write-in candidate against Senator John McCain.”
I really can’t believe there are people left that will defend this war at all. Especially with this administration that can only add empty rhetoric and soundbites and nothing else. All they do is say ad infinitum that we are making progress, that we must win this war that has no purpose or objectives, occasionally Cheney crawls out from underneath his rock and mumbles “Democrats are pussies and want our soldiers dead” and then crawls back under said rock for about a month, and meanwhile everyday more carbombs, more killings, more bodies in the streets. Where is the fucking progress?
The only good thing about the war is that it is allowing McCain to dig himself further into his little hole. Every week, he says something that makes him look worse.
I don’t know what’s going on with Sen. McCain. I think I get why the current administration doesn’t have a Plan B – their whole world-view is based on a series of bizarre wish-really-hard fantasies. (In 2003, the fantasy was that we’d invade Iraq, quickly win, be greeted with flowers and candy, then hand the country over to national hero Ahmed Chalabi, who’d soon be president of a pro-Western democracy in the Cradle of Civilization.)
You know it is possible that we are watching a man honestly tell us what he thinks. That is not to say he is right, but that it is the truth as he sees it.
A whacky theory, but it just might explain the facts.
A while back USA Today ran a column by Ralph Peters, noted military writer and novelist and, at first, a huge hawk. Peters wrote about how he was invited to a high level Pentagon meeting and went in with the plan to reinforce the Administration of the need for a Plan B.
He was extremely dismayed to find that the White House did not, in fact, have a Plan A.
Folks, when you talk about the need for a Plan B, you’re TWO steps ahead of them.
Except that he said not that long ago that the surge was too small.
So, which is it? Are there enough troops being committed to Iraq? Or not? Because McCain is all over the damned place.
And I really like how he is preemptively blaming Bush fils for the loss. Well, and the will of the people. Thereby setting up decades of nonsense about how the US was poised for total victory, but the populace chickened out, and the liberal media forced the hand of whatever administration ends this idiocy.
OK, you’ve stated McCain’s take, and apparently your take also, on the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately that’s a US oriented slant on how the US should fix things in Iraq.
There is an Iraqi slant too, you know. And it would seem that it is increasingly tending toward the attitude exemplified by these two articles from the Los Angeles Times for 15 Mar.
Bush doesn’t want a deadline for US withdrawal, but more and more Iraqis seem to. It will probably be argued that these are merely Iraqis supporting Sadr and that’s true. However, much as our media my try to dismiss Sadr as a “radical cleric” in every mention of him, he has a lot of supporters and is a voice that must be listened to whether or not we like it.
After the owner of the house begins to hint that maybe it’s time you left, it may pay to begin the process of leaving even if all you are doing is trying to clean up the kettle of stew that you dropped on the dining room carpet.
Oh, yeah. You got it buddy. We were staying the course and just about to turn the corner, and then the Democrats chickened out and lost the war because they hate America and love the terrorists.
I swear I fucking hate people that espouse that bullshit. It’s so damned un-American.
Sadr’s actions are subject to interpretation. Clearly, by whatever means, the Shia are going to win. Then the question becomes which Shia.
WAG:
The Maliki government has two motives for “permitting” a continuing US presence.
First, they can call upon America to sacrifice blood and treasure on their behalf. American troops kill Sunni insurgents, the Sunni insurgents (mostly) blame the Americans, leaving the Malikites free to mildly deplore the dreadful loss of human life, and urge their Sunni brethren to submit to the inevitable. They can also be sicced on al-Sadr.
Secondly, somebody over there is raking in a ton of money. Whether you deem such persons to be collaborators, legitimate contractors or entrepreneurs doesn’t mean shit to a tree. Upon close examination of their bread, they note the butter. I have to ask myself, how many of the major players in the Iraqi “government” have passports issued by other countrys? As, for instance, Chalabi, who is as British as he is Iraqi. Such men can depart the premises toot damn sweet, when the trajectory of the shit intersects the locus of the fan. And how many others figure they can catch a ride on the last helicopters out of the Green Zone? Why should they care what happens so long as they can take a duffel bag full of Benjamins and light out?
The inherent corruption of the client-state relationship was bitterly learned in Viet Nam. And, apparently, forgotten.
I can explain this bit, or at least I can repeat the explanation given by our Deciderer in Chief. See, it’s pretty simple: the more progress we make, the nastier the Tearists have to fight, because they got to work extra hard to stop us the closer we get.
Or, to put it another way, we know things are getting better by how they’re getting worse.
