Saturday, June 11, 2005

Exit strategy? We don' need no steenkin' exit strategy.


And the news for Commander Chimpy and his war-happy gang of neocons just gets better and better:

Faced with plummeting public support for the war in Iraq, a growing number of members of Congress from both parties are reevaluating the reasons for the invasion and demanding the Bush administration produce a plan for withdrawing US troops.

But ... but ... don't these people know that the insurgency is in its last throes? Really, Dick Cheney said so, and Dick Cheney wouldn't lie to you, would he?

A bipartisan group of House members is drafting a resolution that calls on the administration to present a strategy for getting the United States out of Iraq, reflecting an increasing restlessness about the war in a chamber that 2 1/2 years ago voted overwhelmingly to support the use of force in Iraq.

Whoa -- notice that word "bipartisan"? Yes, even some members of the GOP have finally had enough of this. It's not like you had to beat it into them or anything. And it's always nice to have someone in Chimpy's own party not mince words:

Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, a conservative Republican who voted to authorize force, said his district is growing weary of a war that has cost the lives of more than 1,600 US troops and left more than 12,000 wounded.

''I'm hearing: 'How much do we have to do? We're giving blood. We're giving money. What is the final chapter for our involvement?' I think people are looking to the administration for an explanation, whether we have done all we can do," said Jones, whose district is home to 60,000 retired military personnel.

Jones said he felt misled by the administration on the reasons for the war because no weapons of mass destruction have been found. "If I knew [then] what I knew today, I would not have voted for the resolution," Jones said.

That's about as straightforward a condemnation as you can get, isn't it? One wonders if any members of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders (Canadian auxiliary) might be ready to admit they missed the boat entirely on this one. Apologies? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

P.S. Just FYI, I'll bet you had absolutely no idea that using the well-recognized term "neocon" was being anti-Semitic, did you? But there it is, straight from the keyboard of David Brooks:

We'd sit around the magazine guffawing at the ludicrous stories that kept sprouting, but belief in shadowy neocon influence has now hardened into common knowledge. Wesley Clark, among others, cannot go a week without bringing it up.

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another.

Apparently, then, if you use the adjective "neo" (meaning "Jewish"), you're being anti-Semitic. Or something like that. Therefore, in biological circles, describing someone as a "neo-Darwinist" means they're ... what? ... a Jewish evolutionist?

Hey, don't look at me. I just read it in the New York Times. Blame them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

John Fitzgerald Kerry had the "Exit Strategy" soltuion with his Two Step Program.

Step 1: By criticizing the lack of troops with boots on the ground, Kerry would reassure the enemy that we're greatly outnumbered, while emphasizing the necessity to surrender the whole freak show to the UN.

Step 2: By publicly announcing that he would withdraw troops in the midst of battle, Kerry would give the enemy hope to fight on, while crushing our own force's misguided sense of purpose. If this seems to contradict Step #1, do not worry. He's John Kerry, and he has three Purple Hearts.


Progressive Paul

Cathie from Canada said...

While the bush strategy has worked so, so well -- obviously the insurgency has been completely demoralized by the US refusal to announce any plan of action whatsoever and now we can see that they are surrenduring all over the place.
Kerry, the other hand, had enough international credibility that he actually might have got some other nations to help out with a substantial number of troops -- or maybe not, but it couldn't have been any worse than it is now under Commander Cookoo Bananas.