“Are They Going To Leave Us Again?”
Contrary to the beliefs of the seagull commenters that swoop in here every now and then, I am not a ideologically driven supporter of all things pertaining to President Bush. Actually, an objective reader would have to admit hat I have had my disagreements with Bush, most notably over the illegal immigration issue. Bush gave an interview to the Washington Post today. A couple of the statements he made are more important than the rest, I thing:
The enemy wants to know whether or not the United States has the will to stay engaged in this ideological struggle. They don't believe we do. That's what they say. And I believe that's what they believe.
The third group of people I speak to are the Iraqis. They wonder whether the United States has got the will to help them achieve their objectives. That's what they wonder. The leaders I have talked to wonder whether or not — what the elections mean, or what the Baker-Hamilton commission means, or what changing [former defense] secretary [Donald H.] Rumsfeld means — that's what they wonder. But in the back of their mind, they're saying, "Are they going to leave us again?" And that's an important question for them to have answered, because in order to make difficult choices and to take risk for peace, they're going to have to be assured that they'll get support. This is a group of people that have had their hopes dashed in the past.
And that is the rub that I have pointed out over and over. If the left forces a withdrawal, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq. And the blood will be on the people who push that withdrawal agenda.
UPDATE: It's always predictable when Daou Report links. Here is the comment policy. It is enforced.
Other Links to this Post
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Wake up America> — Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 10:30 am
By Carl Gordon, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 12:28 pm
You liberals have got it so wrong. The president is right, that’s why he’s the president. And he has surrounded himself with intelligunt people who, with their vast years of experience in the military and high office, he relies on for the most accurate assessment of the reality of Commie/Facist/Islamo plans to take over the world and take away our guns, just like you chickens want. That’s why he’s the decider, a do-gooder, and the MSM which is owned by liberal cut-and-runners like GE, Times/Warner, and Rupurt Mirdock are all in bed with the do-badders. He has a secret plan for total victory, so shut up, or else it won’t be a secret and the traitors win! Do you want to lose? All this talk about saving lives and money and you never thought about what’s good for America - Do you want to lose! I say we back him in whatever he wants to do because it’s good for America. Pinheads for Bush say: Re-elect Bush in 2008!
By ME, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 12:45 pm
“If the left forces a withdrawal, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq.”
Let me rewrite that in reality-speak:
“Since Bush lost the war, no matter what happens now, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq. And the blood will be on the people who started, and lost, the war.”
By Peter, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 1:25 pm
Have you not noticed that there is currently a blood bath going on in Iraq? Pull your heads out kids, Glorious Leader has screwed this thing up from day one. It’s amazing you can’t admit how wrong you guys are in the face of the facts right before your eyes. Even with the under-reporting going on by the DoD/Pentagon, the numbers are still horrific. You’re right, we are responsible for this hell we’ve created for the Iraqis. Throwing more of our brave young people at the situation is not going to make it any better. Face, the shock and awe is neither.
By Punditguy, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 1:26 pm
Seriously, what’s going on in Iraq right at this very second? A blood bidet?
By Dave I, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 1:46 pm
test test test
By Dave I, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 2:04 pm
Drat, I failed your math test. That’s what us English majors do. There goes my longwinded post, which would have explained everything in the world to you and made you say “ah, you are right, I am wrong, please have the keys to my car and my bank balance as penance.” I forget what I said.
At any rate, I hardly think it can be said anymore that the “left” would be forcing a withdrawal. 54% of Americans in the latest CNN poll support withdrawal within a year, of which a significant portion would figure to be other than “left.” No breakdown is given in the poll results, at least not that I saw.
Even if you don’t trust polls, you can’t seriously think only lefties want us out?
Either way, the blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of those who egregiously launched and bungled the war effort.
By Fred, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 2:09 pm
The enemy in Iraq certainly wants us to stay. As long as we are there they can grind us down and that is their aim. They don’t need to ‘come over here’ to get us, they are getting us now. How many insurgents are killed for each US soldier? Since the Pentagon ‘doesn’t do body counts’ we will probably never know. Since the number of insurgents is essentially unlimited, they can and will keep feeding them in and keep grinding down the US army. Iraq is nothing but a grinding wheel and as long as we stay they will keep grinding us down as much as they want.
Something the rest of learned in kindergarden, but Bush obviously didn’t:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
and all Bush’s horses-asses
and all Bush’s conmen
couldn’t put Humpty together again.
The point of the poem was to teach people that some things you do cannot be undone. Bush never learned this because every time he screwed up, his dad or his dads friends fixed it for him. You can’t unscramble the omlet. Unfortunately we are now caught in a trap with an idiot that does not understand this, and we will keep grinding the gears until this man is gone. The sooner the better.
By shamanic, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 2:13 pm
“If the left forces a withdrawal, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq.”
A few points on this sentence. First, there is already a bloodbath happening in Iraq. Arguably, the United States is maintaining it as a slow motion bloodbath, but given the daily body count among Iraqis, I have a hard time thinking of it in other terms.
Second, polls have for some time shown a majority of Americans with increasing levels of dissatisfaction with the Iraq war. If “the left” is now a 50+% majority in the United States, then there’s an alarming lack of awareness of this among “the left”.
Third, the American public voted pretty decisively for a dramatic change in Iraq policy, and it’s fair to say that for many, that means withdrawal along some timeline or another.
Finally, “the left” is a small fraction of the public and the electorate. Events on the ground are pushing public opinion on this one. Bush took us into a war he wanted us to fight, and he chose to do it ineptly. I’m afraid he can’t pass the buck on this one.
By madmatt, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 2:16 pm
I believe the left didn’t want us in Iraq in the first place…and if we had to go we wanted the process thought out…
By liberalpercy, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 2:55 pm
If you don’t think there’s a bloodbath there now, let’s use some of those math skills. Iraq has roughly 1/12 of the US population. If 3000 people are killed a month as a part of this not-a-civil-war war, that’s equivalent to 36,000 Americans.
What part of that is NOT a bloodbath? We lose 3000 people on 9/11 and we go insane. Imaging how it would be if we lost 36,000 people month after month after month. With no hospitals to speak of. Where no neighborhood is safe if you went to the wrong church, or even had the wrong parents.
Bush was criminally ignorant to start Iraq and he’s criminally insane to keep sending more of our military to add to the bloodbath. The blood is on the hands of Bush and Cheney and Rummy and YOU! Not on the hands of those who tried to warn you that this would happen.
By Poopsy, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 3:49 pm
Dec 20 (Reuters) - Following are security and other developments in Iraq as of 1700 GMT on Wednesday:
* denotes new or updated item.
*BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found 76 bodies around Baghdad, all with gunshot wounds and most with signs of torture, the Interior Ministry said.
*BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.
*MOSUL - Police said they found 11 bodies, all with gunshot wounds, in the northern city of Mosul.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed university professor Muntathar Mohammed Mehdi in his car, along with his brother and cousin, relatives and hospital sources said. Relatives said Mehdi was a member of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political movement.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb in the parking lot of an Interior Ministry office charged with issuing identity cards killed four people and wounded eight in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said.
BAIJI - A roadside bomb killed two motorists and wounded three north of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a police checkpoint near Baghdad University in the southwestern Jadriya district, killing 11 people and wounding 31, including some students, an Interior Ministry source said.
MOSUL - U.S. forces said they captured a senior al Qaeda leader and five insurgents in a raid in the northern city of Mosul. It said the main suspect, whom it did not name, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
MAHMUDIYA - Two bodies with gunshot wounds and signs of torture were found in the town of Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb wounded two people in Bayaa district in southern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb wounded two people in Camp Sara district in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
By Winston Smith, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 3:59 pm
Many other comments have pointed out that Iraq is already a bloodbath, so “what they said.”
On the subject of “Are they going to leave us again?”: we had our reasons then, and we have our reasons now. In 1991, we withdrew our support from the Shi’a and Kurds in their nearly-successful overthrow of Saddam. One official explained our decision not to topple Hussein:
All excellent questions that nobody seemed to care about in 2003. Where was this guy when Bush Jr. was planning his invasion? Oh yeah, he was Vice President. Go figure.
By Aurin, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 4:13 pm
Most Americans, Iraq citizens, US soldiers, and DoD people want us to leave. Every poll of the people who count in this conflict shows that the vast majorty think we shouldn’t have gone in and that we need to leave.
This is a mushroom cloud catastrophe that extends beyond party lines, Republicans vs. Democrats, conservatives vs. liberals. This is a disaster of hubris, greed, and ignorance among the few and privileged. We have all been let down, but most especially the Iraqi people and the US troops who are dying for leadership that doesn’t deserve the courage, intelligence, and honor that our men and women show every day.
By Sirkowski, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 5:00 pm
Uh, no. The blood is on your hand for starting a useless war over a lie.
By Bill Franklin, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 5:05 pm
You seem very concerned about what the Iraqis will think of us if we leave. Meanwhile you acknowledge they’re killing each other. If Iraqis are killing fellow Iraqis, does their opinion of us even factor into the equation?
Have you acknowledged that the Iraq invasion was a huge mistake?
Bush is falling into the Einstein definition of insanity, doing the same thing day after day and expecting a different result.
I also find it amusing that you claim ‘Nam was lost because we didn’t let the military fight the war, yet now when the joint chiefs say “no troop surge in Iraq” we have to ignore them and remind them they were for us civilians. Which is it?
By Gaius, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 5:21 pm
Don’t put words in my mouth, Bill.
By michael, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 5:26 pm
We interviewed the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran the other day about the his time in Iraq and about the days of the CPA.
In it, he discusses his experience in Iraq as bureau chief, the Iraqi journalists who became an important part of the Post’s coverage and pinpoints key moments where the Bush administration and its war planners erred in their post-war strategy.
It’s an interesting and related listen to what’s being discussed here.
http://www.scribemedia.org/2006/12/20/imperial-life/
By BGS, Wednesday, 20 December , 2006 @ 6:44 pm
“It’s always predictable when Daou Report links.”
Yes, because God forbid you have some people reading this with views that differ from yours.
By jerry swedlund, Thursday, 21 December , 2006 @ 2:26 am
abbr title=”Joker10″ “Our military doesn’t just deserve our “funding†them, but they deserve our respect, our thanks and our moral support. They are not asking YOU to pick up a gun and fight, they are willing to do it for you…… is it so much to ask that we support th…”
Full disclosure: I am a retired military officer, who attended a mid-level military college. My question is: Since “the Military” includes officers and leaders (with the duty to protect and safeguard the precious resource of our youthful soldiers) who are supposedly trained extensively in insurgencies, guerilla wars and civil uprisings, why has this war been prosecuted so poorly? Nearly all Americans have learned to support the troops, as I do, but I am having trouble supporting their leaders, who are not doing their jobs.
By UncleBestraffe, Thursday, 21 December , 2006 @ 10:37 am
I’m really diappointed in you war-lovers–”stay/surge the course/victory.” Is that really the best you can do?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19720
Is a good place to start, if you have anything meaningful to contribute. “W for win” doesn’t even start. “W” stands for witless, and all the War-mongers who will go down with him in his little bunker when he finally chews the pill or ingests the bullet.
We can win? What a joke. The military conflict was over in August 2003 when brainless bremmer, probably at the behest of dumbsfeld, created, virtually over-night, 400,000+ well-armed, well-connected enemies of the US occupation. Since then the concept of “victory” with the mere presence of 100K US troops is a really sick delusion. “Iraq-nam” only scratches the surface.
Perhaps, at that point, there were some other options, like 400,000+ US troops for 2 or 3 decades, similar to what we did in Germany or Korea, but that reality was not dealt with.
The blood is already on our collective hands. Of course it will be messy–probably close to 100,000 will die the day after we pull-out. If it makes you feel better to blame us “liberals” or whatever, well, have at it. And it won’t make a bit of difference if we pull out tomorrow or in June of 2009.
My questions then: 1) So, why not leave tomorrow? 2) When do the trials of Bush/Cheney/et. al. begin?
By Ramon E. Creager, Thursday, 21 December , 2006 @ 12:06 pm
Among the reasons the Left opposed this war in the first place was that wars like this (what our military euphemistically terms “assymetrical warfare”) inevitably lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of these of innocent and helpless civilians. Further, success, as defined by the invader, is almost never achieved. There is ample historical data to back this up, of course. One need only go back to the Vietnam war for the canonical example, though others exist (Algeria, the Phillipines, etc.). To now blame the deaths wrought by the Iraq War on the Left, who opposed it in the first place, and to absolve the Right of any responsibility in this crime against humanity, is a perversion of logic, and all notions of accountability, that is breathtaking in its scope.
By paul, Thursday, 21 December , 2006 @ 4:52 pm
Good call, Ramon. When I was directed here from another site I was planning on saying something to that effect. Since you already said it, I’ll just say that EVERY drop of blood that has been shed in Iraq and that will be shed in Iraq, including the 250,000 to 500,000 civilians and 3,000 Americans that have died fall squarely on the hands of the neo-cons and the current administration. Blaming those that rejected the war from the start for the mess in Iraq is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard in my life.
By Finnegan, Thursday, 21 December , 2006 @ 6:24 pm
It’s an interesting question, whether or not Iraqis want us there. According to a PIPA poll conducted in September, 71% of Iraqis want us gone within a year, and 60% support attacks against U.S. troops. How would you reconcile those poll numbers with your view of the war?
Source: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/250.php?nid=&id=&pnt=250&lb=brme