Making Allies Out of Thugs (the neocons who believe WWIII is the answer)

[ProSense]

Making Allies Out of Thugs --update--

www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=24303#209

It's not exactly what President Bush and his administration do best. In fact, they ostracize our enemies as if we are in this world alone. Evidently, the conservatives haven't been paying much attention to Iraq, or what happens when you leave potential allies, no matter how smarmy, on the outside dodging bombs, U.S. made bombs, that is, while their country is being destroyed.

When Bush and Franks, et al let Osama go at Tora Bora, they created a mythic folk hero out of him, even though he was on the rise after 9/11. But now we still haven't caught him. The fact is that even if and when we do it will only be a postscript, especially considering the chapters that have come after Osama.

When I read http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTgyMTUzNmY3OGZhNTg5MDVlMGZkNzFjMTc5MTRhZTM=">David Frum yesterday, I wasn't exactly surprised, but wondered if Fukuyama would be happy to have a new friend. Glenn and Billmon are talking about it today too. Frum is looking for a "second best" option in Iraq these days because he's given up on the first. We talked about it yesterday, new troops amassing on the streets when 30,000 haven't done the job yet.

David Frum has joined with Tom Ricks, whose education from 2003 to now has been a fantastic, yet fatal, journey to watch, though he's still saying we have to stay in Iraq for another 10-15 years. Ricks knows more about Iraq than most people because he's chronicled the insanity and been caught up in every wrong turn we made, to come out with his new book FIASCO. I give him credit for finally making the journey to this book, but that said, he still has to answer the questions and take the heat, which he brought on himself by not questioning what he was being told. However, Ricks is certainly not alone and to make him out the only one in the pitiful press pack who got it wrong misses the point. The reality is, the entire U.S. press corps did the same thing, so Ricks has a lot of company. I don't think any of the corporate press did their jobs on Iraq, which I've said time and time again, as have others.

But David "axis of evil" Frum is a different case. He's Richard Perle's sidekick, the man who wrote many of the words that had Bush believing the stuff Rummy and Cheney were telling him. Now Mr. Frum has had a change of heart. As far as Iraq goes, we're screwed, unfortunately, we're not in this position because the neocons blew the planning, or shouldn't have concocted preemption, let alone the "war on terror" deadliness, in the first place. We're screwed because the war we waged wasn't large enough.

This is not, as some American commentators argue, because the Iraqis refuse to fight for their country. Thousands of brave Iraqis, civil and military, have laid down their lives fighting or working for a secure and democratic Iraq. But Iraq has powerful enemies, inside and out. To date, the US has fought only a limited war against those enemies. Iran understands that the war in Iraq is a regional war. Syria understands it too. Only the US has tried to pretend that the war zone stops at the international border. In some horrible rerun of Vietnam, the US has let the enemy establish safe havens just on the other side of the line, from which it draws supplies and reinforcements with impunity. It's like some baby boomer nightmare: after decades of swearing that we would never repeat the mistakes of our parents, we are re-enacting the errors committed in Indochina in the 1960s and 1970s, every single one.
Iraq: New Plan Wanted

Somebody slap this man.

WWIII is their answer. If we'd just bomb Iran, take on Syria, and encourage Israel to push on through Lebanon, death be damned, we'd be set. But Bush just won't commit to more muscle. I mean, really, to use Madeleine Albright's line, what's all this military power for if we're not going to use it?

Snip...

UPDATE (10:20 a.m.): The press conference with Blair and Bush was incredible to watch. David Gregory asked Bush a question about the violence and how Bush promised 3 years ago that Iraq would bring about a new reality in the region, but instead American's influence has collapse. Bush could not answer the question. He was paralyzed. It was frightening to watch. Blair finally tried to tackle it, but by then it was too late. Remarkable. Also, Bush seems to be backing down and moving towards a ceasefire, which will give Hezbollah more power, even make it look like they won the war. Why would Israel agree? Bush's policies get more incomprehensible by the minute. This just came in from Billmon. Amen.

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=24303

[ProSense]

1. Bush's explains his foreign policy

Transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. President, both of you, I’d like to ask you about the big picture that you’re discussing. Mr. President, three years ago, you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. And yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who has been sharply critical of Israel.

Arab governments, despite your arguments, who first criticized Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel. And despite from both of you warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your words are being ignored.

So what has happened to America’s clout in this region that you’ve committed yourself to transform?

BUSH: It’s an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability.

For a while, American foreign policy was just, Let’s hope everything is calm — manage calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th.

And so we’ve taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice.

And make no mistake: They’re still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for. In the long term, to defeat this ideology — and they’re bound by an ideology — you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/28/manage-calm

Bush: War is the answer!