"We stay in fight," says Bush (while being awarded Dumbshit of the Decade Award)

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

Bush vows to “stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory our brave troops have fought for.”

Er, what victory, George? How do we define “won” and when do we get to go home? Seeing as we’re a year-and-a-half passed “Mission Accomplished”, what, the fuck, exactly is it we’re aspiring to accomplish? The Iraqis have their constitution and their fledgling, delicate, likely-to-come-apart-at-high-speeds democracy. Saddam Hussein has been restricted to complete domination of his jail cell. There are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in evidence, and indeed, all available data point to the conclusion that Hussein was largely bluffing when he played his hand of 7 Card Stud with weapons inspectors. Similarly, there is no credible evidence that Hussein did anything more to support Al-Queda other than provide right-of-way; not financial, logistical, or military support that would justify invasion and ongoing occupation.

We know that your intellectual and academic attainments are of a measure best quantified in fractional units, and that by dint of your family connections and conveniently capricous patriotism you managed to miss out on the last major, long-term military adventure our nation embarked on, but good-fucking-Christ could you at least crack open a high school history text and see what happened last time we unilaterally committed to an armed engagement halfway around the globe without any well-defined goals or strategy? The single most important lesson that military and political commanders got out of Vietnam is to have an exit strategy. Fuck, even your father understood that in the last Desert Brawl; go in, accomplish said mission, get the fuck out, and let that part of the world settle their own problems. Remaining in place, indefinitely, is just going to expose our troops and innocent civilians to more insurgent bombing; and as long as we are in place and effectively occupying (whether baldly so or at the behest of the goverment we installed) there will be no lack of fundamentalist Muslims willing to detonate themselves in order to rid their country of Crusaders.

And as an aside, please the fuck would you stop giving speeches and press briefings in a bomber jacket. You don’t look cool, or tough, or authoritative. You aren’t General Douglas MacArthur. You aren’t Jack Ryan. You aren’t Dirk Pitt. You’re a half-wit former coked-up alcoholic frat boy who has attained the rank of chief exec by name recognition, family connections, and blatant exploitation of peoples’ fears and illusions. The least you can do is wear a Og-damned suit and try to look presentable.

Oh, and thanks for totally fucking up the space program, too. The waves of people who are being laid off at JPL right now because decade-long programs are arbitrarily being cut to pay for this dim-bulb, underfunded bullshit program to go to Mars really appreciate your sudden interest in science, but wish that you’d learn even but the slightest bit of information before you start making radical policy changes.

You stupid shit.

Stranger

[GIGObuster]

@the stupid shit

``So long as I am commander-in-chief, our strategy in Iraq will be driven by the sober judgment of our military commanders on the ground,’’

Problem is, the Republican now are accusing the sober judgment of military men of being treasonous or cowardly.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/18/iraq.plan/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.

Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades – usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each – begin pulling out of Iraq early next year.

The proposal comes as tension grows in both Washington and Baghdad following a call by a senior House Democrat to bring U.S. troops home and the deaths of scores of people by suicide bombers in two Iraqi cities.

We really need to take the power away from this bogus POTUS.

[GIGObuster]

I think Joshua Marshall hits the nail on the head:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

I was just reading over a news account of the president’s speech in South Korea in which he said “We will stay in the fight until we have achieved the … victory that our brave troops have fought for.” In the speech, he describes the war as being fought in theaters in Beslan, Bali, Riyadh, Madrid, Iraq – virtually every place in the world over the last four years where any Muslim fundamentalists have blown anything up.

The real problem though – and this becomes clear listening to the president, and increasingly from his supporters – is that the president no longer has any coherent idea of what the war he’s fighting amounts to or what victory would look like.

He says we’ll fight it out to victory or that “as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” But it’s been a really long time since I’ve heard any coherent plan for what we’re trying to do besides slogans like this.

If we’re honest I think what the president is saying is this: We’re going to stay in Iraq until the place calms down and we can leave with a sense that we’ve accomplished something.

…

So at the moment, there’s not even a reasoned fight between staying in and getting out. Getting out is the only coherent strategy or approach on the table. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. But it is clear and defineable. On the other hand, there is the president, who hasn’t put forward any concrete description of what our goals are or any coherent (let alone, a good plan) plan for accomplishing them. Under President Bush’s leadership, in Iraq, we’ve become the national embodiment of the eternal Mr. Micawber, always waiting “for something to turn up.”

[GIGObuster]

Q: What’s the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War?

A: George W. Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam War.
Sorry for the triple post, but this pit would not be complete without the opinion of Dubya regarding an exit strategy:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.” – Bush criticizing President Clinton on not setting a timetable for troops in Kosovo, 4/9/99

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.” – 6/5/99

And from the presidential debate of 2000:

“I’m going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious.” – 10/12/00.

[Marley23]

“Whatever we’re doing, for whatever reason and however we’re doing it, it’s imperative we keep doing it and I will not hear any suggestion to the contrary.”

[elucidator]

What else has he got? He has to hope for a miracle. Even a fragile state tottering on the edge of civil war will do, he can skeedaddle and say “Well, we gave them a thriving democracy and they screwed it up!”

What worries me most is the increasing likelihood of our being seen as taking sides in a sectarian religious stuggle between Sunni and Shia. Wherein the Shia are perfectly content to let us bleed and die for thier cause, without despising us any the less for it, and the Sunni hating our guts with a fury that burns, etc.

[soulmurk]

@Marley23

“Whatever we’re doing, for whatever reason and however we’re doing it, it’s imperative we keep doing it and I will not hear any suggestion to the contrary.”

I very specifically vaguely agree with that; you’re a patriot and a good American. Unless it would hurt public opinion of me to do so, in which case I very specifically vaguely disagree and you’re a treasonous bastard and a Commie who hates freedom and puppies.

[yojimbo]

I find the whole US political scene quite disheartening to tell you the truth.

Living in Ireland I have access to all of Britain’s media, TV, radio and newspapers. This debate is happening over there as well but it’s without all this shallow, button pushing, emotional twaddle. Blair and Co. give reasons why they must stay. People who disagree, and there are many, get met with debate not scorn. A situation like the one with Murtha just wouldn’t happen.

I can understand it from politicians and their shills but even some regular people I see on TV and read here seem to have so much invested into their side(both sides do this BTW) that they are just blind to the other side and will view them as not opponents but liars at best and traitors at worst.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve read and seen on US TV(I also get CNN, CNBC and to a lesser degree FOX) a lot of solid thinking debate as well but the roar from the side of shallow partisan drivel is almost deafening.

Bush would be a joke if this wasn’t just so damn serious. I hope that the damage that this current Admin(and the media) has by done to America can be fixed by the next Admin whatever side they may be but I think that will be a very hard job. They will inherit a completely fractured nation, large debts and a ongoing “war” without goals or reason.

As to the war both Iraq and the allies are fucked in the short-mid term. The allies are in a lose/lose situation. A situation mostly of their own making. Iraq is a rampaging bull now and all they can do is try to hang on or let go. Both options have their own risks and dangers.

FUBAR.

[Scissorjack]

@Marley23

“Whatever we’re doing, for whatever reason and however we’re doing it, it’s imperative we keep doing it and I will not hear any suggestion to the contrary.”

Ah, the “something must be done” syllogism. Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do this.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Stranger On A Train

Bush vows to “stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory our brave troops have fought for.”

So is the “Dumbshit of the Decade Award” an official Award? What organization gave it out? I find your ideas interesting, do you perhaps run an independent newsletter I could subscribe to?

Er, what victory, George? How do we define “won” and when do we get to go home? Seeing as we’re a year-and-a-half passed “Mission Accomplished”, what, the fuck, exactly is it we’re aspiring to accomplish?

Establish a stable government in Iraq. I know you have no problem labelling Bush an idiot, but it certainly takes a “special” individual to not understand something so specific.

The Iraqis have their constitution and their fledgling, delicate, likely-to-come-apart-at-high-speeds democracy.

You seem almost happy about this. Surely you wouldn’t want this to happen just so the Republicans and Bush get embarassed? What kind of monster would wish that on the Iraqi people just so his party can make political hay?

You know most people didn’t expect American democracy to work out that well, either. And it didn’t for awhile, it took about 15 years. I think some of us are being a bit unrealistic about what it takes to make democracy works. We’re not even at year 5 yet, and it’s going to be year 10 before things are close to where they need to be.

Saddam Hussein has been restricted to complete domination of his jail cell. There are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in evidence, and indeed, all available data point to the conclusion that Hussein was largely bluffing when he played his hand of 7 Card Stud with weapons inspectors.

Well, who’s fault is it he was bluffing? He could have shown his cards at any time.

Similarly, there is no credible evidence that Hussein did anything more to support Al-Queda other than provide right-of-way; not financial, logistical, or military support that would justify invasion and ongoing occupation.

Combined with his many other actions I’d say providing right-of-way is a good part of the overall justification we had to invade.

We know that your intellectual and academic attainments are of a measure best quantified in fractional units, and that by dint of your family connections and conveniently capricous patriotism you managed to miss out on the last major, long-term military adventure our nation embarked on, but good-fucking-Christ could you at least crack open a high school history text and see what happened last time we unilaterally committed to an armed engagement halfway around the globe without any well-defined goals or strategy? The single most important lesson that military and political commanders got out of Vietnam is to have an exit strategy.

Wow, live in the past much?

In Vietnam we were trying to prop up the government of South Vietnam, fight an active insurgency, and fight off a generalized invasion from the North while maintaining a policy that specifically forbade us from doing anything to crush the North’s ability to supply the Southern insurgency.

That’s a little bit of a different situation than what we have in Iraq.

As it is, in Iraq we don’t need an exit strategy until Iraq has stabilized, so there’s really nothing more to talk about. We’ll start bringing home the troops when Iraq can survive without the training wheels. Anything before that and we’re just screwing the Iraqi people.

Fuck, even your father understood that in the last Desert Brawl; go in, accomplish said mission, get the fuck out, and let that part of the world settle their own problems. Remaining in place, indefinitely, is just going to expose our troops and innocent civilians to more insurgent bombing; and as long as we are in place and effectively occupying (whether baldly so or at the behest of the goverment we installed) there will be no lack of fundamentalist Muslims willing to detonate themselves in order to rid their country of Crusaders.

Yeah, and that worked out so well because Saddam didn’t you know, kill tons of his own civilians right after Gulf War I because they thought the U.S. would help them overthrow the man who made them live in hell for the last 20 years.

And what’s the rest of your rant, “isolationism?” Yeah, American isolationism was always good for the rest of the world.

And as an aside, please the fuck would you stop giving speeches and press briefings in a bomber jacket. You don’t look cool, or tough, or authoritative. You aren’t General Douglas MacArthur. You aren’t Jack Ryan. You aren’t Dirk Pitt. You’re a half-wit former coked-up alcoholic frat boy who has attained the rank of chief exec by name recognition, family connections, and blatant exploitation of peoples’ fears and illusions. The least you can do is wear a Og-damned suit and try to look presentable.

I didn’t realize the President’s fashion was cause for such animosity. You may need to calm down a little bit before you choke on all the foam spewing out of your mouth.

Oh, and thanks for totally fucking up the space program, too. The waves of people who are being laid off at JPL right now because decade-long programs are arbitrarily being cut to pay for this dim-bulb, underfunded bullshit program to go to Mars really appreciate your sudden interest in science, but wish that you’d learn even but the slightest bit of information before you start making radical policy changes.

Space exploration is a vast watse of resources. The only thing society has to gain from space is in the field of near-earth space ventures. Dreams of colonizing space are crack-pot ideas that any real scientist will explain away as an impossibility.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Martin Hyde

You seem almost happy about this. Surely you wouldn’t want this to happen just so the Republicans and Bush get embarassed? What kind of monster would wish that on the Iraqi people just so his party can make political hay?

Uh, yeah. I’m a monster. So, when did you stop beating your wife, again?

@Martin Hyde

As it is, in Iraq we don’t need an exit strategy until Iraq has stabilized, so there’s really nothing more to talk about.

Any military excursion always requires an exit strategy, i.e. definition of goals, metrics of quantifying success, and a strategic and logistical plan for extraction. That’s called “thinking through the problem,” something this Administration hasn’t done with any program since Jan 20th, 2001.

@Martin Hyde

I didn’t realize the President’s fashion was cause for such animosity. You may need to calm down a little bit before you choke on all the foam spewing out of your mouth.

It’s a pathetically transparent attempt to appeal to the increasingly dwindling minority of people who confuse Bush’s attempt to look “tough” or “military” with “remotely competent.”

@Martin Hyde

Space exploration is a vast watse of resources. The only thing society has to gain from space is in the field of near-earth space ventures.

Just :rolleyes:.

Stranger

[elucidator]

So what happened to “Mars, my little bitches! Mars!”?

[George_Kaplin]

@Martin Hyde

Establish a stable government in Iraq. I know you have no problem labelling Bush an idiot, but it certainly takes a “special” individual to not understand something so specific.

The problem is that this is not a specific mission statement. The successful implementation of democracy in Iraq can only be attained by overcoming a whole slew of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We need to crush an insurgency that hides in the shadows, doesn’t fear death, and for which every American casualty is a propaganda coup. We need to pump billions of dollars into Iraq’s infrastructure. We need to ensure that the new Iraqi government is free from corruption and impregnable to outside influence. We need to do a hell of a lot, frankly, and from where I’m sitting we’re not really making any headway. Merely stating, as Bush has, that our mission is to ‘Establish a stable government in Iraq’ is to oversimplify to the point of absurdity.

If the manager of a soccer team, when asked to give his strategy for winning the World Cup, simply replied ‘Score goals and win games’, you could be forgiven for thinking him a pretty lousy manager.

[Frostillicus]

@Stranger On A Train

Seeing as we’re a year-and-a-half passed “Mission Accomplished”, what, the fuck, exactly is it we’re aspiring to accomplish?

I hate to depress you even more than you already seem to be, but President Codpiece’s “mission-accomplished” stunt took place on May 1, 2003, which is over 2 1/2 years ago.

[AskNott]

Bush says we’re not bringing the troops home until “the mission is complete.” That means “until Halliburton has made enough money.” And not a moment sooner.

[Denis]

I’m convinced Bush and his fellow travellers take their advice on handling people from the pointy-haired boss in “Dilbert.”

As deeply disturbing and destructive as this is, it is still a cosmic class joke.

[lonesome_loser]

Can’t this man see that things are getting worse? Baghdad still doesn’t have electricity all of the time after three years. Most of the water is not potable. after three years of our occupation.

Our troops are nothing but targets, civilians die every day and it appears there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Chaos reigns. There can be no victory.

The man is in way over his head.

It won’t be over until everyone is dead.

That’s it!

That’s his exit strategy.

[HPL]

@lonesome loser

It won’t be over until everyone is dead.

That’s it!

That’s his exit strategy.

Reminds me of WW1.

[SteveG1]

@GiGobuster

he describes the war as being fought in theaters in Beslan, Bali, Riyadh, Madrid, Iraq – virtually every place in the world over the last four years where any Muslim fundamentalists have blown anything up.

The real problem though – and this becomes clear listening to the president, and increasingly from his supporters – is that the president no longer has any coherent idea of what the war he’s fighting amounts to or what victory would look like.

He says we’ll fight it out to victory or that “as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” But it’s been a really long time since I’ve heard any coherent plan for what we’re trying to do besides slogans like this.

If we’re honest I think what the president is saying is this: We’re going to stay in Iraq until the place calms down and we can leave with a sense that we’ve accomplished something.

Is it just me, or do these “Bushisms” sound a bit too much like the ramblings of a madman???

[SteveG1]

@Marley23

“Whatever we’re doing, for whatever reason and however we’re doing it, it’s imperative we keep doing it and I will not hear any suggestion to the contrary.”

Nod nod. In short, he is saying Keep doing it even though it’s a total disaster.