Bush lies and the ISG report

[ProSense]

Bush aims for Iraq policy change before Christmas: White House

39 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush will next week hold intense discussions with top advisors to weigh changes to Iraq strategy that he aims to announce before Christmas, the White House has said.

Bush will meet top State Department, Defense Department and military officials, as well as US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and outside experts, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.

Perino told reporters that the goal is for Bush "to be able to give a speech before Christmas (December 25), but it's not set in stone."

Bush has said he will consider recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which proposed a complete overhaul of US policy in Iraq, as well as the results of several internal administration reviews before announcing his decision.

On Thursday, he rebuffed several of the Iraq Study Group's key policy recommendations released Wednesday, though commented "we need a new approach." He also described the situation in Iraq as "bad."

Bush was most cool on two key commission proposals -- talks with Iran and Syria, and withdrawing most US combat troops by early 2008.

"I've always said we'd like our troops out as fast as possible," he said, while insisting on the need to be "flexible and realistic" and tying any change in troop level to advice from US military commanders, as he has in the past.

RJ Eskow
12.08.2006

Bipartisan With a Bullet - A Nonpartisan Expert Vs. the Center

Snip...

The real purpose of the Iraq Study Group was to preserve the "bipartisan" consensus for continued war, or at least avoiding withdrawal discussions that embarrass the "center," at a time when 60% of Americans want withdrawal within six months (and 71% want it within two years). It defers the tough decisions by suggesting some training and other goals for 2007.

But what does one of the Study Group's most qualified, truly non-partisan experts think about these goals?

"Based on where we are now," says former Army chief of staff Jack Keane, "we can't get there from here." In other words the rationale for keeping troops in for another year is phony, according to the Study Group's own expert. Then why is it there? For one simple reason: to delay any discussions that threaten the "centrist" consensus.

Snip...

This sham of a report, as General Keane so aptly says, demonstrates more about "the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq."

Soldiers will keep dying throughout 2007. So will Iraqi civilians. Why? To protect James Baker's party, while advancing the career of Democratic insiders like Lee Hamilton. That's the same unholy (but bipartisan) alliance that gave birth to this war in the first place.

John Kerry once asked how you can ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake. This is worse. Baker, Hamilton, and their collaborators are asking thousands of Americans - and many more Iraqis - to be maimed and killed just to protect the careers of all these "bipartisan" politicians. Our heroes are being maimed and killed to preserve the political hegemony of the Republican/Democratic "center."

Come to thnk of it, this kind of bipartisanship isn't like a beach ball at all. It's more like a hollowpoint bullet - empty on the inside and deadly.

[Demeter]

1. Bush Ain't Gonna Change Anything

except maybe at the point of a gun (literal or metaphorical). So ready the Impeachment cannon; we're gonna need it. Otherwise, Poopy may decide the BFEE is better off with a martyred First Son.