An advance word: I welcome intelligent comments on any of my posts, and I try to keep an open mind, but play nice or your comments get booted out the sandbox, okay? Politics is something I'm passionate about, so I'm including the subject here on occasion. If you disagree that's your right, but don't get snarky about it here. I make no apologies for my politics, but you're always welcome to roll your eyes at my musings and depart this page. Cool, we're good then. On with the show.
The third anniversary of the Iraq adventure has arrived. I think if the current administration put as much forethought into planning the invasion as effort toward selling it to the American people, we'd be out of there already. Instead, the administration rumbles on, unaffected by reality. Our troops deserve more.
I don't have the space here to fully list the many errors made in this war, but they are legion—from "Mission Accomplished" to the latest flare-up of "sectarian violence" (Bush-speak for low-grade civil war). This past weekend Cheney (whose poll numbers have now dropped lower than Nixon's during the height of Watergate) stated on Face the Nation that his earlier statements about "the Resistance being in its last throes" and our being "greeted as liberators" were accurate. Huh?
General Casey meanwhile made the rounds, looking noticeably nervous under Russert's blanket of questions on Meet the Press. He looked like a man terrified of being quoted saying anything negative. It seems the prediction he made a year ago about there being a "fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces" in the Spring or Summer of 2006 if the training of Iraqis proceeded according to plan will fall flat. When questioned on this, he said that troops were already being drawn down, and cited his not accepting additional troops offered in December. Sorry buster, not accepting new troops isn't what I'd call a draw-down. Tommy Franks had also predicted drawing down to 30,000 troops before the end of 2003. Oops.
I know war is an unpredictable business, but if we had been right maybe once, I'd have more confidence in these guys.
I don't vote for a hasty pull-out—we've created enough chaos as it is—but it's time for the drumbeat of reality to reach additional ears in Washington. It's time for a few people to get sacked, as the British say, beginning with Rummy. It's time to bring in new ideas. The neocon agenda, while it may have our nation's best interests at heart, has been a disaster. Forcing democracy at the point of a gun doesn't work, especially if your intelligence gathering and pre-war planning stink. Encouraging nations to democratically elect leaders also doesn't always go according to plan—just ask the folks in Israel about recent elections in neighboring states. Political history has demonstrated that organized groups tend to win elections and fanatical groups can often be surprisingly (if unfortunately) organized.
During dinner tonight A mentioned that she feels that the criticism of the Press is correct, in that they don't run much good news. It's true, there are good things happening over there, but we rarely hear about them; watching the troops rebuilding a village well isn't as exciting or ratings-worthy as blood on the street I suppose. Worse yet, at this point the White House Press Corps and the White House are playing a distressing game of tag. This Administration is more secretive than most, and their reluctance to give straight answers (or even take unscripted questions at times) is at least partially responsible for the reporters acting like a pack of hungry wolves. David Gregory, perhaps realizing that viewers expected to find him rolling on the carpet with Scott McClellan soon and losing credibility by the day, has since dialed it back a notch and even speaks more moderately on the talk shows. Good.
I'm not letting the Democrats off the hook either—their ranks haven't exactly swelled with good Iraq ideas, beyond sitting back and eating popcorn while the President stumbles. The best way for them to earn some respect (for a change) is to come up with a valid plan, rally behind it together (another foreign concept that), and sell it just as hard as the President sells his "stay the course" strategy. That would be a start.
Like it or not, we're over there, and our security is still important. We are dumping 150 million dollars a day into Iraq, and folks are dying. We need to face reality, admit where mistakes have been made, and come up with a better game plan as one united nation.
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