What does "Mission Accomplished" mean? The article "Stuck in the Iraq Loop" at
click here
describes that W's GWOT is in an endless loop of failure in the Iraqi theatre of operations.
Computer programmers know about loops. If conditions aren't met the loop goes on forever. If you are looking for a "Yes" answer, but the parameter being returned is always "No" you have made an error in the logical design. The condition for this routine is that the Iraqis will have reconciliation. Why would this ever happen? The sects in this region have been killing each other since before the Ottoman Empire, and they have long memories. Now the Shiites have the upper hand and they are going to be paying back those who oppressed them. Why wouldn't they? This means the condition can't be met and will go on endlessly.
The article states "There is a paradox in the current situation in Iraq. We are told that the surge has worked brilliantly and violence is way down. And yet the plan to reduce troop levels-which was at the heart of the original surge strategy-must be postponed or all hell will once again break loose. Making sense of this paradox is critical. Because in certain crucial ways things are not improving in Iraq, and unless they start improving soon, the United States faces the awful prospect of an unending peacekeeping operation-with continuing if limited casualties-for years to come. In a brilliant and much-circulated essay written in August 2007, 'Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,' David Kilcullen, a veteran Australian officer who advised Gen. David Petraeus during the early days of the surge, wrote, 'Our dilemma in Iraq is, and always has been, finding a way to create a sustainable security architecture that does not require 'Coalition-in-the-loop,' thereby allowing Iraq to stabilize and the Coalition to disengage in favorable circumstances." We have achieved some security in Iraq, though even this should not be overstated. (Violence is still at 2005 levels, which were pretty gruesome.)
There isn't a way for this loop to end as the article continues "It's possible that the uptick in violence, the tensions in Diyala and other such signs are just twists and turns in Iraq's troubled path. That is probably the way they will be read in the current atmosphere of self-congratulation in Washington. But they might also be signs that the architects of the surge-chiefly General Petraeus-were right all along when they said that the purpose of the military deployment was to buy time for Iraqis to make political progress. One year into the surge, five years into the war, those metrics have not improved. That's why American troops remain stuck "in the loop" in Iraq."
What does "the surge" mean? Primarily, "the surge" was meant to be a transitory increase. What big bro 43 is doing is actually an escalation. The US MSM never mentions this over-arching lie about the "stay the course". This allows more US soldiers to die in the Iraqi theatre of GWOT and we let this dolt distort reality.
The article "On War's Anniversary, Bush Cites Progress -- 'Strategic Victory' Is Near, He Asserts" shows how the US MSM is allowing the thugs to get their main points disseminated through the public with no rebuttal as "President Bush sought yesterday to convince a skeptical public that the United States is on the cusp of winning the war in Iraq, arguing in a speech at the Pentagon that the recent buildup of U.S. forces has stabilized that country and "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the war on terror."
Vice President Cheney said separately that it does not matter whether the public supports a continued U.S. presence in Iraq, and he likened Bush's leadership to that of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. After a reporter cited polls showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war, Cheney responded: "So?" "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls," he added in an interview in Oman with ABC News. "There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better." The confident remarks came on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, marking a concerted effort by the administration to highlight progress at a time when most Americans remain opposed to the venture."
Maybe the US MSM doesn't get the point of writing that every one of us had rammed down our throats. You make your main points first. If you don't get the reader's attention soon they won't continue reading. Finally after all of this Rove propaganda the above article allows the weary, weak loyal opposition to have a say as the article states "The anniversary prompted new attacks against Bush by Democrats and sparring among the three senators running to replace him. It also thrust Iraq back into the center of the Washington debate after it was overshadowed for months by the presidential campaign and economic turmoil." There are so many possible diversions such as the election and Hillary's slide and Obama's minister, but "Congressional Democrats have seized on the anniversary to launch a broad assault on the Bush administration.
They lined up yesterday to criticize Bush's claims, particularly his assertion that the war has been worth the cost and has decreased the risk of terrorism. "Even as we begin the sixth year of this war, all the president seems able to offer Americans is more of the same perpetual disregard for the costs and consequences of stubbornly staying the course in Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.)."
Let's do some unfuzzy math. The article continues "The number of troops in Iraq, currently nearly 160,000, is slated to drop to about 140,000 by July, which would be near the level of a year ago, when Bush ordered the troop buildup to tamp down spiraling violence."
Just months ago big bro 43 was promising to withdraw our troops. Still the US MSM lets him blather on as the article states "Bush took aim at Democrats such as Clinton and Obama, both of whom have vowed to quickly withdraw troops, and also disputed "exaggerated estimates" of the war's cost. One widely noted calculation by a Nobel Prize-winning economist puts the conflict's long-term price tag at $3 trillion or more. "War critics can no longer credibly argue that we're losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much," Bush said. "No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq."
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) responded by sending a letter to Bush complaining that the administration has refused to provide transparent or accurate cost information to Congress. In one disputed portion of his address, Bush resurrected assertions that Osama bin Laden and his followers have played a central role in the Iraq conflict. Bush suggested that a backlash among local Sunni Muslims to the group calling itself al-Qaeda in Iraq amounted to "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology and his terror network." Many terrorism experts say there are few operational contacts between bin Laden's group and its Iraqi namesake, and they note that the group was formed only after the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is also considered a relatively small player in the constellation of insurgent forces battling U.S. and Iraqi forces, according to military, terrorism and intelligence experts. Paul R. Pillar, a retired senior CIA analyst who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's run-up to the Iraq war, said much of Bush's speech "could have been taken out of a speech five years ago." "The rhetoric we hear in this speech is remarkably similar to the rhetoric we were hearing at the start," said Pillar, who helped prepare CIA intelligence estimates that warned of the violence that would follow the invasion. "The same case is being made for sustaining a presence in Iraq as was made to go into Iraq in the first place." All of our soldiers who have lost their lives and all of the money we've wasted in the reconstruction of the same projects over and over again and the lies don't even change as Pillar noted and as the article mentions as "Cheney, who is traveling in the Middle East, has issued bold assertions of progress in Iraq in recent days. During an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Monday, Cheney declared that the U.S. effort to install democracy and stabilize Iraq is a "successful endeavor" that has been "well worth the effort." Cheney also reiterated his contention, disputed by most experts, that al-Qaeda and then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had close ties.
In his ABC interview, Cheney compared the Bush administration's task in Iraq to Lincoln's determination during the Civil War. "He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there," he said of Lincoln. Cheney also answered "no" when asked whether he cares what Americans think of the war, suggesting that the administration cannot bow to "fluctuations" in the polls."
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