I just heard Bush refer to “artificial deadlines” again with regards to troop pull-outs from Iraq. While I’ll concede that trying to figure out anything Bush says is a fool’s errand, I wonder if anyone understands what he thinks he means by this phrase. A deadline is deadline. I thought the dates that congress put in the last bill he vetoed were the real deadlines that they wanted. Nothing artificial about them. They were real dates that exist on any calendar. Unless the dates are things like January 45th, -99.0.5.6, they aren’t artificial in any sense that I understand.
Is he using the word “artificial” to imply a negative feeling the way politicians use “scheme” to refer to an opponents “plan” or the way “patriot” is used in the Patriot Act to imply a positive feeling? I always thought that “The Mom, God, Rainbows and Puppies Act” would be a good name for a particularly heinous piece of legislation.
It’s a deadline that has been arbitrarily decided on. Especially if it is unreasonably short and there is no compelling reason to make it so.
For example, if your boss says “this HAS to get done by Monday” and forces you to work all through the weekend to finish. There may be a legitimate reason, like you have an SEC filing or something that needs that material on that day. If, on the other hand, there is no reason that you can’t get it done on Tuesday, it’s an ‘artifical deadline’.
Another way to look at it is if the only person who will get upset if it’s late is the guy who told you the deadline, it’s probably artificial.
If you take it seriously, I guess he is saying the “real” deadline will be when the mission is accomplished (say, wasn’t it already . . . ? Oh, why bother). Any date before our goals are attained (whatever they are at this point – I suppose the current phrasing would be something like “stabilizing things sufficiently to allow the Iraqis to take over and preserve their flourishing democratic society”) is then an “artificial” deadline.
I suspect you are right though that “artificial” is also serving as a scare word or redundant intensifier. Bush and his neocon brainiacs are the ones who understand hardheaded military strategy – everyone else are triflers who try to impose their “aritificial” political agendas and desires for neat endings by a date certain on the down and dirty reality of war. Something like that.
Actually I think what they are saying is that the proposes deadline for winding up our involvement in Iraq bears no relationship to the need for our presence.
It seems to me that the need for our presence should be debated first. Are we actually being helpful? If not then no deadline is needed, we should get out. If we are then some sort of time limit for the Iraqis to get their act together should be set. Based on Iraqi progress so far, and their lackadaisical approach to taking advantage of the “surge” it would appear that 25 years is not too long.
We aren’t going to be there forever so those who bitch about an “artificial deadline” really ought to come up with what they thing is a real deadline.
Ya gotta give GW credit. He said that resolution of the affair will be up to his successore and he appears to be holding to that.