Current position=Goal=Success=Victory(almost)

Comment by Clumberfeet — November 25, 2007 @ 12:00 pm

That boils it down. Mission accomplished. Time to go looking for some more victories.

Funny thing but Congress mandated that the Bush administration provide testimony covering 18 benchmarks as a requirement of the legislation funding the surge. Partial success on 3 of those hardly satisfies the mandate of the legislation. As I recall, the last time the benchmarks were addressed they testified that there was partial success on 4 of them. This means that with the surge we are seeing less “progress” toward the benchmarks than before.

In the short term:

An Iraq that is making steady progress in fighting terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency, meeting political milestones; building democratic institutions; standing up robust security forces to gather intelligence, destroy terrorist networks, and maintain security; and tackling key economic reforms to lay the foundation for a sound economy.

In the medium term:

An Iraq that is in the lead defeating terrorists and insurgents and providing its own security, with a constitutional, elected government in place, providing an inspiring example to reformers in the region, and well on its way to achieving its economic potential.

In the longer term:

An Iraq that has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency.
An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.
An Iraq that is a partner in the global war on terror and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, integrated into the international community, an engine for regional economic growth, and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region.

By lowering the bar, aren’t we admitting defeat?

Here goal post, come to Bushie!

They’ve got a plan. The plan is a weak and compliant puppet regime, but not in Iraq.

The Iraq escapade is, take your pick, either the world’s most expensive campaign commercial, or a second American civil-war-by-proxy.

It is a war about what this country is, and means, and does.

Eliminating effective, organized domestic opposition in this country to the Glorious Revolution — not oil per se, not democracy, not WMD’s, not human rights, not even revenge for 9/11 — was the goal of the operation.

The opportunity to write the tax code, craft the regulatory environment, determine fiscal and monetary policy, and appoint the judges in this country deep into the new century would be worth nearly any expenditure of blood and treasure. The ability to deploy the vastly increased police powers of the unitary executive against opponents could make such a victory permanent.

A smart criminal buys out a security firm, or suborns the accountants.

A really smart criminal doesn’t rob banks, he simply writes larceny out of the statute books, or repeals the statute of fraud.

Cheney and company sought an opportunity to to do a Mulroney on the Democratic party, and they needed a war to do it. A war was necessary — this particular war was convenient.

It might still work. The Democrats don’t seem to be interested in stopping the process.

Current position=Goal=Success=Victory(almost)

It’s time for the US government to say “mission accomplished” and come home. That way Bush can, in his fantasy world, think that he did something that was a success.

You never enter into a war unless it’s a last alternative. You never enter into a war without a well-constructed plan for the initial attack as well as the continued occupation.

In Bush’s world, he tabulates the cost of the war and eliminates the cost of caring for our war disabled – accounting doesn’t work that way and neither does war planning.

This is BUSH’S BLOOD FOR OIL WAR and it will go down in history as being a total and unequivocal disaster.

That’s precisely why this “highly illegal invasion” of a soverign country will haunt GWB for the rest of his natural life and well into his spiritual life. I certainly wouldn’t want to inhabit his body habitus or soul, that’s certain! And, if there is such a thing (and we know that there is) as “karma”, yikes!! The karmic debt which the Bush Family inherits will poison this genetic line for decades to come.

because in Iraq, the almighty Dollah doesnt carry as much weight as the almighty Allah, which these buggers can’t seem to agree about..

In other words, accomodation is preferred to reconciliation since it is the justification needed for keeping US troops in Iraq for decades. It’s an old tactic called “Divide and Rule”. Keep them divided in a state of permanent accomodation short of reconciliation, where your presence is required to keep them from fighting each other, or reconciling with each other. This allows you to occupy them and loot their land for as long as the suckers buy into it.

report: Senior military commanders now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaida terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias. Several U.S. military officials have expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but “it’s unclear how long that window is going to be open.”

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/95643.pdf (p.9)

But didn’t the law Bush signed spell out the benchmarks. How about holding Bush accountable for the whole package? Does Congress really have no say in this?

The idiocy continues.