Wednesday, January 10, 2007

on the Bush "Surge" in Iraq

I listened to Baby Bush's speech tonight citing his plan to enable us to withdraw from Iraq. He says it has become the new haven for terrorists and so we have to clean it up before we can leave. We virtually left Afghanistan long before the mission was completed and the Taliban (allies of Al Queda in case you've forgotten) are making a come back in the mountains. Now if we leave Iraq it will become a haven for terrorists which it wasn't before we invaded. Saddam may have been a minor level promoter of terrorist projects but it was mostly by mouth with few weapons or financial help.

But, tonight, for the first time I was able to watch a Bush speech. He was subdued, there was no doubt about it and he appeared smaller and less forceful than in previous efforts. I noticed, however, that he did not use the body language or the gestures that he has in previous speeches, nor did he lean forward dipping his left shoulder and extending his left arm in the recurrent gesture that he has used in the past to try to convey sincerity that is insincere. This time he stood behind the podium and spoke without moving around or shifting his body. He was like a small boy facing the principal, knowing he has done wrong and will pay for it.

As an addendum, I suspect we have seen the Bush method of getting out of Iraq. Can the current Iraqi government meet the demands he placed on it? If not, and I doubt it will happen, we're out of there.

Monday, January 08, 2007

on ed butcher

Ed Butcher, the reactionary know nothing from Winifred, has put his feed in his mouth again, believing, he says, that the way he used "chief" to refer to a fellow (Native American) legislature was a positive not a negative. He doesn't understand that the tone in which he says something is as bad as an intended insult. But, then, it's Butcher. If his toes were as flexible as his fingers he could play piano on his teeth.

Monday, January 01, 2007

About Saddam's hanging

Everyone's had their revenge now. The horrible ogre is dead, hung by the neck with a new rope (I suspect). And I wonder what difference it will make in Iraq. I think those who expect the insurgency to die a rapid death at this point are whistling in the dark (to use old coin). We won the war when Saddam fled. We made sure it was over by capturing him. The war is over. Make no mistake about that. We are not fighting a war in Iraq; the term Iraqi war is a misnomer. What we are trying to do is to prop up a government that we hope will be able to give us the back protection to get out of there. After messing up an economy and going into an area where we didn't know what we were doing for reasons that have proved to be lies, the only thing we can hope for is to come out of it. The death toll of American troops is over 3,000 now and rising daily. I support the troops and they need all the support they can get in dealing with poor leadership fighting a situation which had and has no bearing on the defense of their country. The war is over. What should we call what we're doing now?

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