Political Whispers: A Look Into Today's World of Dark Politics

BUSH'S NEW WAR STRATEGY: STAY THE COURSE

By Schuyler Thorpe
Author and Political Activist

Naturally, General Petraeus plays the same tune that Bush wants to here: “Stay the course–because we are making progress.”

But unfortunately, the reality on the ground is proving all that more harder to cover up with optimism and political spin:

Just this week, a leading Sunni sheik was assassinated by an Iraqi bomb.

The Iraqi police force needs to be disbanded and started over from scratch.

The Iraqi government is completely dysfunctional.

Only one of the political benchmarks have actually been met. (Or actually not. The meeting--between the leaders of the sects on August 26th--caused the Pentagon to revise that de-Baathification objective from being "unsatisfactory" to "satisfactory". All because of that meeting! But the funny thing, is that no legislation has been passed!)

The rest have failed.

The Iraqi security forces need another 18 months to be "effective." (Not that we haven't heard this before...)

And the list goes on.

This is the reality of the war in which we have effectively lost to the insurgents.

No amount of ‘good news’ and spin from the White House can erase what many Americans see now as a lost cause.

You don't hear victory, just a "redefining of definitions of progress" and goals which can't possibly be met now or in the near future.

Certainly not when Bush leaves office.

Things are too far gone to simply turn a blind eye towards our failures and try to start things over--which is what this adminstration has been trying to do.

Try to restart a war in which events of the last 4.5 years never existed at all. In reality, Bush is trying to rewrite history before his term of dishonor completes itself.

Sp his idea to bring home the troops is nothing more than an insult, and a slap in the face for our serving military.

Considering that the conditions on the ground mirror a low-level civil war, all Bush is doing is buying time for himself–not the troops. Those troops whom were added to the surge have to be pulled back anyways.

Not because they succeeded in doing anything impressive, but because they are stretched past the breaking point and have no fresh replacements on tap to replace them.

So they have to come home. But rumors are circulating even now that the President and his military crony advisors are planning on extending tours once more and shortening leaves--to make his surge more permanent through 2008.

With no stability, unity, or democracy in sight, Bush is just trying to escape the mess he’s created by announcing that he is indeed the Decider--no matter--and he has decided that no change in course is warranted–until after he leaves office.

Which begs the question:

Is the Iraq war still worth it?

Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.com

Labels: Bush, civil war, insurgents, Iraq, stay the course, troops

posted by Schuyler Thorpe @ 3:21 PM