What should Bush say tomorrow

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

and will undoubtedly fall into the hands of a dictator more ruthless than Saddam was.

I figure something like this is the most likely outcome, unless we turn the whole place into a posession like American Samoa.

 

[Nords]

I'll bet Gates returns to the previous pattern when he's making his own choices from scratch.

Well, no one's named the new PACOM yet. And I can only imagine how the cockroaches are scurrying staff is running around working the issues for the new guy. No doubt with plenty of help, support, and solicitous queries from every office in the Pentagon's E-ring.

I'm glad I'm not hanging around any flag offices to watch the nasty backstabbing knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth thoughtful deliberations spread their ripples on this one.

Glad my spouse's PACOM billet ended last month, and a good family friend retired from there last October. Don't miss this stuff a bit.

 

[saluki9]

I do like Vietnamese food. - Never had Iraqi food!

It's really good! You should try it

 

[teejayevans]

That would be a much better strategy than what he will do. What he will do, is propose an increase of troop strength, cementing his legacy at the bottom of the barrel of U.S. Presidents.

Being too hard on the guy, there are plenty of 1 term presidents that were worst:
Carter, LB Johnson come to mind, now if we're talking 2 term presidents, I believe
he is on the bottom.

 

[laurence]

Grant was a pretty rotten President, too. But I'm reaching into the way-back machine for that one. But doesn't Nixon count as a two term? I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that!

What puzzles me is all the same arguments proven false during vietnam are being used today. Back then, we were told that if we didn't stop the commies there, all the surrounding countries would fall like dominoes under the red star. We left anyway, and last I checked Japan still hasn't installed "People's Republic" in front of their name. Now it's the same argument re-hashed, if we don't fight them in Iraq then the whole region will fall under their sway and we'll be fighting them on the streets of Peoria. I can just hear Al Quaida now, "Dang, we have tickets booked for D.C. to conduct more terrorist attacks, but since their's fighting in Iraq, I guess we just have to put that on hold. Hope that finished up soon, since everyone knows it's impossible to get on an airplane when there is a war going on!"

 

[sooner]

Samclem is right. The only reason we lost Vietnam was the half measures made.

 

[Dawg52]

It's really good! You should try it

What do they eat?

 

[brewer12345]

Samclem is right. The only reason we lost Vietnam was the half measures made.

What a convincing argument!!!! I'm sold (not).

 

[USK Coastie]

He should say:

All militias are outlawed. Turn in your weapons in 48 hours or we turn loose the troups to kick a%% and take names.

Shoot at us from a Mosque we level the Mosque too bad so sad.

In Iraq we need to fight this war and not be beholden to some pussy footing JAG officer's PC Rules of Engegement. After all, last time I looked the only rules of engegement our enemy uses is "Kill the Infedel"

Engage the enemy and kill them wherever they reside in the reagion including the training camps in Iran and Syria.

As for Iran dismantle your NUC program within 30 days or most of your conutry will get an instant transformation from sand to glass with US weapons.

The only thing these animals hiding behind the " Religion of Peace" understand is brut force imposed until they decide the pain is not worth it or they are dead.

Never ,never , engage in a conflict unless you are willing to use total overwhelming force to suceed.

As you can tell I'm somewhat to the right of Attilla the Hun. He was just too
liberal for my taste.

Alas the Bush and the US Public at large are not willing to pay the present price to remain free. Should we fail in Iraq we will pay a much greater price in lives and treasure when the battle for Islamic domination of the world is joined again.

As for those who have stood by the current goverment in Iraq we are signing their death warrants. Just as we did to the 3 million people in Southeast Asia we we cut and ran due to congressional failure to honor our committments to our allies in that area. The blood of three million souls is on our hands for cutting and running. How many millions more will have to be sacrificed to the alter of political expediency because we are unwilling to finish the job?

 

[Elderdude]

I suggest we make a drinking game of it. Everytime he uses terms like "brave," "patriotic," "freedom," "courageous," "democratic," we eat a protein snack, everytime he says, "mistake," "error," "poor plan," "sorry," "my bad," etc. we take a long drink. I think it will be sobering.

 

[brewer12345]

I suggest we make a drinking game of it. Everytime he uses terms like "brave," "patriotic," "freedom," "courageous," "democratic," we eat a protein snack, everytime he says, "mistake," "error," "poor plan," "sorry," "my bad," etc. we take a long drink. I think it will be sobering.

Constipating, too.

 

[ScaredtoQuit]

Interesting responses.

I'm curious. How many of you naysayers voted for this SOB in the first place.

I CAN say that I've been totally consistent!! Hated him in 2000. Hate him in 2007!

 

[saluki9]

What do they eat?

Lot's of stews, lamb, chickpeas, grilled meats, really sweet deserts. On top of that, they make great tea.

I have a good friend who is an Iraqi christian. He's taken me to some family events where I stuff myself like a pig (Which thanks to a general lack of regional demand isn't on the menu)

 

[Caroline]

My humble suggestion:

"Many of you expect me to comment on the details of the war in Iraq tonight. But this war is more than a problem in itself. It's a symtom of a cancer that is eating away at the wealth, the happiness, and the noble founding principles of this great country. It's a symptom of our dependence on an oil economy.

We THINK we pay $X or $Y dollars for oil, as measured by cost per barrel. But the TRUE cost is thousands of times greater. It includes the costs of contolling oil producing nations and peoples. It includes the costs of diplomacy, the costs of direct transfers through foreign aid, loans, grants, etc., and the costs of military intervention when these non-military efforts fail.

It includes the cost of guarding ourselves against terrorist attack. (Our lost productivity as we stand in line at airports, every day, year after year, across the country, is but one example.) And it includes the terrible costs we pay when our anti-terrorist measures fail.

Finally, it does unmeasurable but profound damage to our national psyche. It causes us to fight amongst ourselves, and to monitor one another, and to distrust one another. It does violence to our view of ourselves as a nation of fair and decent people.

Taken together these costs are staggering, and they are unacceptable.

Today, I propose that we take the incredible sums of money we are wasting on the Iraq occupation and apply them immediately to a bigger and more important challenge: the transfer of our economy from one based on oil to one based on renewable energies. We will take the same level of funding, motivation, and top-level research capability currently applied to the development of our military technology and apply it to solving the energy problem once and for all. We'll increase wind power, find ways to produce energy from the vast tidal power we enjoy on both coasts, and ramp up solar power. We'll work hard on any other method we can find of producing power safely, cleanly, and without emissions.

By doing so we will break our corrupt ties with oil producing nations throughout the world. We will radically reduce our involvement in oil-rich regions, and save billions of dollars in military expenditures. And we will eliminate the damage caused to our environment and to our peoples through air and water pollution. With enough luck and hard work, we will address the looming danger of global warming before it is too late.

This will be a tremendous effort. But we know we can pull it off. We made a similar effort to fight against tyranny in WWII. Americans mobilized, volunteered, sacrtificed, and contributed to the common good. We pulled together as one, for the betterment of all, and we won the good fight.

We ARE a great nation, but we must continue to prove it by continuing to improve the world and the lives of the people in it. Because that is what great nations do. Please join me in this noble mission.

Thank you and good night."

 

[Elderdude]

Thank you, Caroline.

 

[Brat]

Caroline, spot on!

I am one of those 'cloth coat' Republicans. A progressive. I haven't had the stomach to vote for a Republican presidential candidate for many many years. The party in the State of WA has been taken over by the Christian Right, so I haven't seen any other candidates who are suitable (could be why the state votes for Democrats).

In Oregon (my natal state) Republicans tend to be progressive and have demonstrated the ability to lead (vs push).

I think it was on CNN today where a commentator observed that Bush's venture has decreased our security because we have no forces left to project militarily.

I think it will be a LONG time before the voters trust Republicans again.

 

[Elderdude]

Hmm, Brewer,
I think you have identified my problem. My game, my rules so I've decided to reverse the two and drink myself silly during his speech. Maybe he'll make sense that way.

Naww,
No way will he ever make sense. But maybe his screwed up face and verbal diarhea won't be so annoying.

Nope,
Don't guess a full twelve pack can fix that, either. What's the chance the newspaper will bother to print the entire address tomorrow? OK that's too silly, anyone know how to unblock a cable channel, say like Fox? I'm sure Limbaugh will hit the "high spots" on the radio too. Ok I better not, it took me too long to lock and load Air America.

Maybe I'll just check this group tomorrow for highlights from the "I want to kill..." group to give thier glorious praise for our brave freedom fighter and almost completed Texas air reservist.

 

[laurence]

Hah! Meanwhile I spent all day working with someone who has a framed picture of Dick Cheney in his cube. It's kind of fun to hear opposing opinions simultaneously!

 

[samclem]

The "Iraq is all about oil" argument appeals to some folks, but it really doesn't hold up to examnination. If the US were really seeking to control oil be seizing nations that have it, there are many lower risk/higher payoff opportunities than Iraq. Is Mexico quaking in their boots? Kuwait?

Perhaps next we'll next hear that the US operations in Afghanistan are because the evil US wants to corner the market on . . . ummh . . . gritty dirt?

 

[teejayevans]

Hah! Meanwhile I spent all day working with someone who has a framed picture of Dick Cheney in his cube. It's kind of fun to hear opposing opinions simultaneously!

Cheney is good for only 1 thing, he shoots lawyers.
Tom

 

[Caroline]

well, of what I WANTED to hear I got "thank you and good night."

Sigh.

God help our troops and their families.

 

[genghis]

Maybe he should ask Saddam to take back over and fix everything he has screwed up....oops, too late

 

[ladelfina]

samclem.. Mexico and Kuwait have graciously allowed people like Exxon and Shell to pump it for them.

Under Saddam Hussein the oil production was state-run (but he was being courted by France and Russia; see below).

If the US were really seeking to control oil be seizing nations that have it, there are many lower risk/higher payoff opportunities than Iraq. Is Mexico quaking in their boots? Kuwait?

Now if you'd said "Venezuela", I'd say, "let's wait and see". They HATE that (democratically-elected) Chavez guy not (primarily) because of his name-calling, but because he wants to take the oil back out of the private sphere.

An April 2001 report by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy -- commissioned by Cheney to help shape the new energy policy -- also devoted serious attention to Iraq.

The report, "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," complained about Hussein's oil leverage:

"Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S. government. ... Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East.

"Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets."

Significantly, the report concluded that the United States should immediately review its Iraq policy, including its military options.

http://tinyurl.com/397du

Why do you think there was such a desire to know vs. secrecy over Cheney's Energy Task Force and oil co. meetings?

In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act, Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the task force. Those documents include maps of Iraqi and other mideast oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."

In January 2003, The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from Halliburton, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron-Texaco Corp. and Conoco-Phillips, among others, had met with Vice President Cheney's staff to plan the post-war revival of Iraq's oil industry. However, both Cheney and the companies deny the meeting took place.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/energytf.html

Cheney was carving up Iraq's oil fields before any of us ever heard of 9/11 or mobile bioweapons labs. The contracts are going to be ratified soon, giving the oil multinationals 75% of profits until costs are re-couped and 20% of profits thereafter. Oil is estimated at 95% of Iraq's GDP. Do the math.. 19% of the country's GDP will go to directly to Chevron, BP, etc. off the top.

Back to the first story:

...during the 1990s, U.S. policy- makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States including France's Total and Russia's LukOil.

The New York Times reported the LukOil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 billion barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq's reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge -- a "colossal amount."

As early as April 17, 1995, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. petroleum giants realized that "Iraq is the biggie" in terms of future oil production, that the U.S. oil companies were "worried about being left out" of Iraq's oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that "the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century."

U.N. sanctions against Iraq, maintained at the insistence of the United States and Britain, prevented these deals from being consummated.

Saddam Hussein's removal in 2003 has left the deals in a state of limbo, but the Bush administration's insistence that only countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are eligible for postwar reconstruction does not bode well for French and Russian concerns.

Next stop, Iran!

 

[samclem]

- I'm not sure how the CFR's report is relevant. The CFR is not a US government entity, just one of hundreds of think tanks.

- Some people continue to cite the low Iraqi oil production as evidence of US failure in Iraq. I'm glad somebody was planning before the war to get oil production up and running or the oil production situation wold certainly be worse.

I don't see the smoking gun.

I recall the amazing argument that the US got involved in Vietnam only to protect the interests of US rubber producers there, and I didn't "get" that argument either.

 

[Craig]

samclem, thanks for your thoughtful, and brave post, considering the overall forum bias.

Caroline, I thought your post was on the mark as well, and while I might not agree with the oil conspiracy / tin foil hat approach of some (not directed at you), I do agree our energy policy is a factor.

I don't see samclem's and Caroline's approaches as necessarily mutually exclusive.

Frankly, our society's relative freedom, our economic model, our open door for immigrants, and a successful focus on developing renewable energy could be America's major success factors for the early 21st century.


I remain fascinated by those who don't see the fascistic tendencies of radical Islam ... soon to be nuclear. But, of course ... we must wait for that shoe to drop before we believe, eh? ...


Most of all ... nice to see intelligent discourse sprinkled between the sophomoric Bush bashing, while brewer maintains his high standards ...