No Comments on Bush's Speech

[kurto]

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Playing politics with our troops like this and trying to force the politics and the American Public (who isn't behind Bush anymore) into this is just the typical tyrannical Bush that America has learned to hate and disrespect.

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Now, now, this is typical of all of Washington D.C. Don't pretend like it's just him.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he's the only one who does it. But I feel the need to point out it sucks when it happens. I also get the impression this is what Copernicus thinks was a GOOD part about what Bush is doing and that's pretty gross of him.

[MoreWineII]

I have a couple of questions:

1. Bush says 'The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time.'

So his solution to this ideological conflict of our time is...refuse any dialogue with Iran and Syria - two of the most important players in this drama - and stuff a bunch more troops into Baghdad?

Doesn't it seem logical to approach an ideological conflict with ideas and discussions and negotiations with major players? I'm not saying force doesn't play a part somewhere, but gee it would be nice to see some more ideas applied to this ideological struggle.

2. We are giving incentive to al-Maliki to get his [censored] in order behind the threat of a troop occupation that isn't "open-ended", correct? How exactly is threatening him with something he wants supposed to motivate him to do these things? If my wife said, "If you refuse to take the trash out, I will suck your [censored]" I would refuse to take the trash out. Or is there some other reason I'm not aware of that a Shi'a leader who doesn't want to be a leader wants tens of thousands of foreign soldiers in his capital?

Interesting recent quotes from the man we're depending on to make this new strategy work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6226953.stm

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In an extensive interview with a US newspaper, Mr Maliki said he would certainly not be seeking a second term.

A compromise choice, his tenure has been plagued by factional strife within both the country and government, and rumours the US has no faith in him.

"I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term," he said.

"I didn't want to take this position," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again."

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Yes, sounds like a man who's ready to take the tough steps necessary to help prop up this new strategy.

[evil twin]

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Politically the only positive outcome is that Bush's democratic successor will be the one who has to make the difficult decisions, who will have to pull the troops out to republican criticism of weakness, indecision, and softness.

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Absolutely. Is Bush really sending 20,000 of Americas finest into the warzone so that he can delay the decision to come out of the Iraq and thus limit the damage to himself and the party? Crazy stuff.

[troymclur]

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It merely means whether it works or not I was encouraged to see a gameplan. I was encouraged that he is changing his approach.

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I understand that you're no Bush groupie, but I don't see why this would be encouraging. This was politically forced on Bush, he basically had no choice other than to change his approach. And of all the choices for change he's chosen the absolute worst one.

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the worst choice would be a complete withdrawl of US presence. The Administration flat out ignored the recommendations of it's Military leaders and went into Iraq with a smaller force that now is fighting a two front war. Bush kicked out two important legs of military sucess in Iraq. Now, 5 [censored] years later, he's admitting to one of those mistakes.

Adding more troops isn't the definitive key to success, but a properly proportioned force is a necessary foundation. We broke it, we bought it. Its incredibly frustrating to hear people talk about pulling out. prove to me that doing so would be better for Iraq's stability than staying and participating, and then i'll listen to ideas of withdrawl.

[boracay]

"I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out," Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, a potential 2008 presidential contender, told Rice. While he is a Republican, administration officials were defending the plan for the first time to the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record), D-Fla., noted his own past support for the administration on the war but said he could not continue. He declared, "I have not been told the truth over and over again by administration witnesses, and the American people have not been told the truth."

A new AP-Ipsos poll found approval for Bush's handling of Iraq hovering near a record low — 29 percent of Americans approve and 68 percent disapprove.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070112/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq

[Copernicus]

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He made it very clear why the extra troops will help. Instead of clearing an area and moving on, the extra troops will allow a core of peronnel (combination Iraqi and US) behind to keep it clean. The number of troops was chosen to result in a 50:1 ratio of population to troops. Currently once an area is cleared troops move on leaving a vacuum for the insurgents to stream back into.

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The population of Iraq is 26 million. We need over 500,000 troops to achieve the 50:1 ratio.

We have two options here.
1. Withdraw
2. Man up and admit that General Shinseki was right, that we should have used several hundred thousand troops. Institute a draft to achieve the necessary manpower, and raise taxes to pay for it.

Since 2 is politically impossible, 1 is inevitable.

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the areas they are targeting will have a 5:1 ratio, not all of Iraq.

[sam h]

A few scattered thoughts:

(1) The whole idea that this strategy is new is transparently ridiculous. They were talking about "Take, hold, build" as the three step process at least 18 months ago.

(2) 20,000 is so few troops in the grand scheme of things. And even Bush admits that many of those troops will just be training Iraqi forces or embedded in Iraqi units. So its not like there are a whole set of American divisions that will now be able to sit in these seized areas. This means that the same old problem is still staring us in the face...the Iraqi units are poorly trained and infiltrated by the militias. Good luck getting them to "hold" a Sunni area in a way that is conducive to improving relations.

(3) Bush still seems pretty delusional. The whole bit when he started yammering on again about the importance of establishing a democracy in Iraq that could set a regional example shows that he has basically learned nothing from the last few years.

(4) The speech completely underplayed one of the most important aspects of the situation - that the administration and Maliki don't necessarily have similar interests here. Let's see how much support the US gets if they decide to station a bunch of troops to "hold" Sadr city. Not only did the Sadrists vote Maliki into power, they are also the ones that he will be relying upon to preserve that power if the US leaves and the country really descends into civil war. So why again will the Iraqi government back the crackdown? The whole thing makes no sense.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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I find it predictable that once again he's going against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.

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FYP

[tolbiny]

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The idea that sending 15% more troops is going to put us in a position to win is [censored] retarded.

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Not if you understand the objective and strategy.

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Explain it then.

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Most likely the real goal is some form of short term success to bolster republican polls and to try to carry them into the 08 elections without everything going completely to hell. Then when a dem wins in 08 they unload the still unworkable mess and aim at taking back the house in '10 and the presidency in '12. Basically it looks like a stalling tactic.

[Mickey Brausch]

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I missed his speech. I only quickly read through a transcript of the first half this morning.

[/ QUOTE ] The most interesting aspect of the whole Bush speech exercise, for me, was learning the term that Washington would use for the increase in the number of troops in Iraq. I was betting on boost, which I found optimistic, dynamic, and soothing. There was always the bland candidacy of strengthening, but it has too many syllables. (Then, again that's not a problem for a sign ribboned across the bridge of a aircraft carrier.) Yes, surge was a reasonable candidate, though it carries a drug-related connotation which should irritate Dubya.

I heard that max out and power up were suggested by Jenna and Barbara, but nixed by Cheney.