THE INDEPENDENT (London): A damning indictment of a President and his policy

[Apollo11]

Leading article: A damning indictment of a President and his policy

THE INDEPENDENT, 07 December 2006

A more devastating indictment of the strategy of a sitting American president could not be imagined. The cross-party Iraq Study Group's recommendations on future US policy in that blighted country were made public yesterday. Gone are the illusions of "progress" and "victory" peddled by George Bush - and, until recently, Tony Blair. Instead, it paints an unvarnished picture of the "dire" reality in Iraq. It breaks new ground not in the proposals it makes, but in the bluntness with which it speaks truth to power.

"Frankly, there are no new ideas on Iraq." These are the words of Robert Gates, the former CIA director and member of the ISG until he was nominated to the Pentagon. They should banish any notion that somewhere within this report is buried a lapidary cure-all for the gigantic mess Mr Bush has created.

<...>

Most important, however, is the reaction of this most obstinate of presidents. Mr Bush says he will take the report "very seriously". But he has hitherto shown little inclination to engage Iran and Syria, and none whatsoever to put pressure on Israel. He still talks of "seeing the job through", and says the ISG report is just one of several sets of proposals he is considering.

But none will be as authoritative. Can he now, for once, take the advice of people whose views are not his own? It is most certainly his best chance, and probably his last one, of salvaging something from one of the greatest foreign disasters in American history.

Read the full article here:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2054579.ece

And see the amazing front page:

[Apollo11]

1. Please recommend!

So far 26 views and no recommendations.

Come on people - time to wake up !!! ;-)

[Ferretherder]

2. Let me be the first.

K/R

[Greeby]

3. Appropriate title, funnily enough

I thought I could hear "The End" starting up :(

[Boo Boo]

4. k&r

[izzie]

5. Thinking it over I think we should pull the service money.

Then they would have to come home and it could be this month. Sorry it hurts egos but I do not find that the center or this at all. Iraq will be a blood bath? Is that any different than what it is now? We already look bad so why add to it for more and more years?

[eridani]

25. I'd earmark a special appropriation for armor and Kevlar

Take it from that obscene Star Wars BS.

[Possumpoint]

6. Change?

President Bush has shown himself as being unwilling to admit or accept the scope of his errors. He has continued to claim a winning status as the defeat is being displayed. I believe he will ignore the Baker Report as long as possible, hoping that some turn of events in Iraq or a report produced by the DOD will show him a winner. Our brave troops have yet to lose a battle but are fighting a losing cause. We cannot win this militarily without massive infusion of both men and materials and then would need to use a scorched earth policy. The time for that is well past. The costs in both our and Iraqi lives would be a price too high to pay.

Bring the troops home now! I don't care if Sunni will kill Shiite. I don't care if Shiite will kill Sunni. They have been doing so for centuries. The removal of combat troops and allowing the advisor's and contractors to stay makes no sense. That will only allow the lawlessness to expand. Kidnapping and killing of US citizens will grow to an unbearable level. Most of the Iraqi police and army are considered useless or worse part of the enemy by our troops who work with them. The Iraqi Police are suspected as being part of the criminal element.

Pull the troops out. Make the Iraqi's stand on their own two feet. If they can't or won't the place will go up in flames regardless. The blame for this will be laid at George W. Bush's and Dick chaney's feet. IMHO history will list this as the greatest blunder ever committed by a sitting President.

[ms liberty]

7. Well said...Welcome to DU! K&R on the OP n/t

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

8. Impeach Bush, Cheney. A new administration can go to the UN

The only way out of this is for another power with some credibility to step in and take over for us. The UN has no reason to help BushCo out of this mess.

Whistledick Bush declared the UN irrelevant in 2002, while Rumsfeld was declaring France and Germany irrelevant. We need all of these guys now.

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. The total arrogance of BushCo comes back to bite us in the ass and the only sources of help are the allies he and his dildo-headed surrogates alienated in starting the war.

What a pack of stooooooopid, short sited greedy arrogant republi-con bastards. They have destroyed what stability there was in the Middle Ease and placed the Saudis and Israel at much greater risk in the process. All because of their ignorant-ass egos. The all-mighty neo-cons and their PNAC fantasies.

Did I mention that I hate these bastards? Did I mention that millions marched world-wide to try and prevent this fiasco?

[pat_k]

19. Hear, Hear! Impeachment IS Our Positive Agenda! (and the ONLY moral option) -nt

[demo_not_full]

9. Does anyone actually believe anything he says?

Mr Bush says he will take the report "very seriously"

It's not hard to actually get a response from this guy. But it's obviously a put-on. It's like a 10 year old sitting on a throne who treats all the grownups like children. What have you people done to this country? ;p

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. i still find baker's excuse re: the timing of its release to be disgusting

by pretending to not play politics, he protected boy wonder. By delaying this report for months, he cost us hundreds of unnecessary US deaths, and thousands, perhaps 10s of thousands of iraqi deaths.

[jannyk]

24. Yeah, it's funny huh. Of all the things I've heard

in the past few days, that statement disgusted me most. Over 100 troops and uncounted Iraqi's died in the weeks they sat on that report just so we could have a 'pretty' election and enable a few Republicans to hang on to their 'seats'. I find that revolting.

[connecticut yankee]

11. So how

do we get out of this mess?

[maxsolomon]

12. only one man could have stopped GWB

tony blair. absent the british in our 'coalition', it wouldn't have happened.

the ISG report is eyewash, and too kind by a factor of 10.

we have lost. our hegemony is over. lets go home & figure out how to live without oil.

[Demeter]

13. I Would Say Rehnquist Was the One Who Could Have Stopped Bush

or Scalia, Thomas, or the erratic and perpetually offended Sandra Day, or the other traitor who voted Bush into an office he didn't earn, couldn't fulfill and never deserved.

[maxsolomon]

14. well i meant post-IWR

i concede your point.

blair knew better - the traitorous 5 obviously do not.

[IWantAChange]

15. anyone think the Iraq situation could cause public clamor for Impeachment?

The short window of opportunity that exists will be mightily tested - Dubyha is going to try and throw more troops into the fray and I would think the insurgents will do their worst to cause discord. It is so tragic that the Administration is willing to sacrifice more of our young men and women to 'honor' those that already have given life or limb in this massive blunder.

[Amonester]

16. Can he now, for once, take the advice of people whose views

are not his own?

No.

(A much too easy question to answer: why even bother to ask it...)


R they kidding? Six years later?

[classysassy]

17. Declare victory

and bug out.

[lazyriver]

18. Bush will not listen and he will not leave Iraq.

His interests and those of his entire crime syndicate are best served by staying the course. The ISG report and all the "advice" he claims he will consider before he puts his Decider hat on again are simply stall tactics and some smoke and mirrors to occupy the media and dupe the population into thinking things are starting to progress in the handling of Iraq.

There are still billions of dollars to be horded by his corporate puppet masters: weapons to sell, "rebuilding" and supply contracts to hand out under the table, and let's not forget the oil. Whether it's kept in the ground in Iraq so the Saudis can sell more now or swindled from the Iraqi people so we can sell lots of it later, Bush and his criminal enterprise make money...lots of it. The only thing that shuts off the profits is leaving. Why would he want to do that?

[L0oniX]

20. "The global standing of the United States could be diminished."

Could be??? WTF... It's already diminished and has been for a few years now. Put the crack pipe down! F*cking stupid ass carrots!

[MasonJar]

21. I think that we all tend to forget occasionally that Bush is pretty

much brain dead and that our policy is being directed by one of the most un-empathetic, arrogant, narcissistic sociopathic "morans" to ever un-grace public office and this neandrathal is led by the most callous bunch of Satanic evil-doers ever assembled. Do I need to clarify my opinion or do you understand the depths of my disdain?

[Christa]

22. K & R - 52 votes so far.

[Botany]

23. Fromt the article .... Some of the troops would stay imbedded with Iraqi ....

.... troops.

Rough Quote.

What a really bad idea. Our boys stay with Iraqi troops of questionable loyalty
and are out numbered 20 to 1.

Ah, NO!

This has murder, torture, and held prisoner written all over it.

[illinoisprogressive]

26. The subheading in the paper says

the standing of the united states could be diminished. I think it already is.
sobering and wrenching. But, I think bush will not see it like that. He sees it as dad interfering and sending his buddies to embarass him so he will dig in and deny.
In the meantime, I do wish that members of the gop and the bushbots in the country would come out of thier blind support for only Bush and open thier eyes to what is being said and sober up. They must see that this whole era has been a joke. A nightmarish immature fantasy of the far right and now the grown ups have to come in and clean it up and scold that the baby boomers cannot govern or be mature. Forever stuck in being childish.
This is an indictment of a generation and not just a man. Of a ideology and the need to rule and win at any cost and play games not caring that this is real life.
This is an indictment of an era.

[Apollo11]

27. That's a quote from the Iraq Study Group

It's the Baker Commission who is saying that the standing of the United States could be diminished.

I agree with you that "further diminished" would be more truthful.

[Apollo11]

28. Thanx everyone who recommended this topic

With 61 recommendations, it's the most recommended topic in the past 24 hours.

You helped get this up on the home page where more people got a chance to see it! :-)

I know THE INDEPENDENT is not the biggest selling newspaper in Britain. They usually sell less than 250 000 copies each day. But a lot more people read the main articles online. And it has been the most intelligent British newspaper on the Iraq issue. Came out against the invasion from before it started.

www.independent.co.uk

[Diclotican]

29. You cant say you warent warned before the war..

Hello

You cant say for a secound that US wasent warned before the war started,that Iraq was going to a tuff sell, and that it was more than likely that it wil end i caos, and houndres of thousands of dead sivilians....

For the last 6 year we on the outside of USA have seen the country we once admired and have verry found feeling about going down the toilet, and been replaced with powerhungry,arrogant leaders who dosent CARE to understand what the outside of US was feeling, or dosent care to hear to the vhoise of they Allied in Europe... You even called old Allied "the old europe, who dosent know anything, and are going to rotten in the new world"...

Now they want us to "help US out" In Afghanistan and in Iraq. And are "supriced" about the lack of "suport"...

US "own" Iraq now! And have to fix it someway somehow... And they have to do it ALONE!... Theyr old allied are not there to help them out, that have Mr President George Walker Bush jr doing a great job to do it...

Now both republicans and democrats "want a way out" wit some dignity... My guess is that you can leave, men not vith dignity and some respect.. You either fix the problems, or admit to the rest of the world that the current administration, and the former Republican-dominated Senat and Congress was doing a horrible work.... It wil take decades before US is back where it started in 2001...

You was warned before the war, you dont hear to us, in the old europe, and now you are stuck in Iraq for the long run.... Either way it wil cost US lot av ressourses to fix it....And you cant count of "the old europe"anymore... That have Mr Bush going big harm to do...

Good luck you all in America, maybee, after 2008 we in the "irellevant, old europe" want to help you out,but so long mr Bush are the president, you can dream about it, but cant count of it..

Diclotican