Republican War Rhetoric Devoid of Reality
Defending his stay-the-course policy in Iraq, President Bush declared: “I believe the American people understand that success is necessary for the long-term security of the American people.”
The American people, whose mentality he claims to understand as well as he once understood Vladimir Putin’s soul, will next November elect a Republican who will “keep up the fight,” he predicted.
The GOP nominee-in-waiting, John McCain, agrees. The American armed forces must remain in Iraq as long as it takes to achieve victory, he insists. How long? Maybe not 100 years, as he once said. Maybe 50? Anyway, as long as it takes. To achieve victory. Whatever that is.
Otherwise, McCain emphasizes, al-Qaeda will take over Iraq (despite the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds, who may have other ideas) and follow us here.
Let us now return to reality. How long can we sustain our armed forces in Iraq?
“The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight, and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr., testifying last fall before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security recently conducted a survey of more than 3,400 current and former Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine officers, ranking from major and lieutenant commander to generals and admirals, more than two-thirds of whom have combat experience.
The survey found 60 percent saying that the U.S. military is weaker than it was five years ago and nearly 90 percent believing that the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan have “stretched the United States military dangerously thin.”
Suppose another crisis should erupt in one of the world’s simmering hot spots?
More than 80 percent of the officers say it would be unreasonable to ask the military to wage another major war today, the survey reports.
So much for the military side. How long can we sustain the civilian side?
In the eighth year of the Bush administration, the national debt has soared to more than $9 trillion. Thanks to the Chinese and the Japanese, we continue going into debt with them so that we can buy their products and they can continue to buy our government securities.
The Iraq war has so far cost around two-thirds of a trillion dollars, and we continue to spend at the rate of $10 billion a month. It’s been estimated that the Iraq war could end up costing $2 trillion and quite possibly much more than that. Whenever it ends.
Meanwhile, the American housing market is going into the toilet, with foreclosures at an all-time high. The national infrastructure - roads, bridges, transportation, public works - is falling apart. Jobs are tougher to keep and get. The costs of food and fuel are going up. The stock market is going down. A college education is more and more out of reach for more and more of our young people. About 47 million citizens are without health insurance. The mood of many Americans ranges from nervousness to despair to panic.
As in Iraq, so in the United States: Bush would stay his course. He turns down a bipartisan appeal by governors to bolster the sagging economy by helping the states rebuild their infrastructure. He rejects extending unemployment benefits for six months, which would put money in Americans’ pockets immediately. He twice vetoes bills that would extend the children’s health insurance program to 5.8 million children. Too expensive.
He would save money by holding the line or cutting back on Medicaid, Medicare, education and the environment. His solution to the housing crisis: “Make the tax cuts we passed permanent.” That is, the tax cuts that bestow their greatest largesse on those whose income ranks in the upper-2-percent bracket.
Bush does not think it too expensive, though, to spend billions on gold-plated weapons systems - the Star Wars missile-defense system, for example - that have nothing to do with fighting terror. The 2009 fiscal budget would allocate $515 billion in military spending, and that doesn’t include spending on two wars and nuclear weapons.
Always upbeat, Bush sees the bright side for our economy.
As he observed the other day, “I think actually the spending on the war might help with jobs ’cause we’re buying equipment and people are working.”
Leonard Boasberg is a former Inquirer staff writer.
© Copyright 2008 Philly Online, LLC.
I have never felt such sorrow as I now feel for my country. We have lost whatever collective soul we once possessed - albeit it imperfect and incomplete.
Sadly, the combined daggers of apathy and ignorance will be the tools of destruction - not the rapier thrust from above. Power only accomplishes what we, the people, allow it to accomplish - nothing more - nothing less.
Is anybody really listening to what Republicans are saying? Haven’t the proven to be totally out of touch with reality, short on facts and low on intellectual ability to process the information available?
Sure we hear them yap. But is anyone taking them seriously?
Perhaps someday in the far distant future we’ll thank Dubya for the lessons he’s taught us: using lies to whip up support for an illegal war is fraught with pitfalls; allowing the free market to have their way with us leads to a nasty buggering; ignoring science… changed my mind, I’ll never thank the bastard.
Republicans learned that war rhetoric doesn’t need to have anything to do with reality.
They took the country to war against a dictator we once supported to find the weapons we once sold him in order to defeat the terrorists who weren’t there.
With an example like that working, why would they use any other strategy? Why would they try to tell the truth?
How ridiculous is this essay? Bitchin about the “war rhetoric” while referring to our illegal invasion and illegal occupation as, er, “the Iraq war.”
Hello? That’s the point - stop calling it a “war.” The United States of America never has declared “war” on Iraq, and we are not presently at “war” with Iraq.
Repeat after me: ILLEGAL INVASION of Iraq based on thousands of lies told tens of thousands of times. ILLEGAL OCCUPATION of Iraq.
See? No f**king war rhetoric. Instead, truth rhetoric.
Or, keep telling “the people” we’re at war and then keep wondering why so many are so afraid to stand up and fight.
If the Republican war rhetoric was so detached from reality, you might suppose either the media or the Democrats would roundly denounce it. But they don’t. The media docilely accepts, for instance, that the “surge” has been “successful and effective.”
And, has anyone heard any leading Democrats denouncing the Bush administration for 1) a policy of endless war (not just ‘endless,’ but a war against shadowy ill-defined phantoms); or 2) taking the US to war over alleged WMD which proved non-existant?
In 2004, when the WMD farce was already exposed, and the world saw the Abu Ghraib photos, the Democrats ran John Kerry — who, in his entire campaign, didn’t even bring up either the non-existent WMD or the Abu Ghraib torture, as charges against Bush. Kerry’s position was simply that he could run the “War on Terror” better than Bush could.
This year, neither Clinton nor Obama has dared to even question the “War on Terror.” They prefer to play word games about “starting to withdraw COMBAT troops,” a formulation that leaves plenty of loopholes. Neither of these “courageous” Democrats has publicly acknowledged any of the criminality of the invasion — the number of civilian deaths; the fact that the Iraqis don’t want us there; and the fact that the whole thing is largely a matter of getting our paws on the oil.
If you are running for president and the electorate is fond of war, how can you be expected to run on an anti-war platform? The people are not against the occupation of Iraq or controlling it. The people WERE unhappy that it wasn’t coming out right. They feel better now. The only way to become president of the US is to promise you are ready to knick ass and give the people money. That is all Americans want to hear. Kick ass, cut taxes.
Right lizard. Learning things the hard way is for people who don’t read Common Dreams or watch Link TV, but read TIME mag and the WSJ, watch FOX News and listen to Rush. We won’t have to say “we told you so” even if we would. War, famine, disease, global warming and the rest will speak volumes.
Is there such a thing as a truly ‘free market’? Do any members of our democratic or republican military industrial congressional congress ever not wince if someone threatens a base closure or military contract cancellation.
Perhaps war and weapon making are America’s leading industries. Our grandchildren will still be paying for this corporate lead bottom fed sting on any sensible public policy.
Why is it that it is the public purse that bails out these struggling over leveraged giants?
The premise that all greed is good and deregulation is better is the mantra of these same cheerleaders who precipitated our current tangled debt mess.
The easy credit Fed policies that brought on the current housing bubble knowingly are the bear bankie benefactors who use the ensuing equilibrium response to play the down side of the market while the public gets played once again.
Lizard is absolutely right.
Obama’s fiscal woes are about to start.
Edwards does not have chance in hell of raising money.
Clinton is in the system, she is more likely to raise money.
McCain? He is in a learning curve. Unless he picks Condi as his running mate, he too is going to hit a road block.
The only reason McCain WONT win the election, is if he
1. Does NOT toe the Bush line.
2. Pick’s Huckabee as his running mate.
McCain needs the money. He needs full support from the Bush in gathering the nut job right wing.
Once he is on the Bush bandwagon, and Bush endorses him, it will be a fight of the nut jobs vs. Thinkers. He will have to lose the maverick tag, and become a full time brown noser. Once he master’s this within his persona, and still keeps his base, it will be impossible to stop him.
It increasingly looks like his election to loose.
Obama has to change his tune. If he does not change his stump, and come across with someone who says things extempo without tap dancing, he is going down.
White folk will not be on his side in larger numbers in the general. Racism runs too deep in this nation.
If you want to throw up. Read the OP-ED contributors in Sunday’s New York Times. The NYT claims they are ‘experts’ consulted to see if they have changed their minds.
The experts are the like of Kagan, Bremer, Perle amongst others. Only 1 , Pollack, talks about the illegal invasion itself as wrong. Slaughter almost says it.
Only for those with strong stomachs: (Start with #3)
Kick ass, cut taxes.
That really does some it up!
stay-the-course?
.
.
In Iraq
In Afghanistan
In Pakistan
In Panama
In Korea
In Japan
In Europe
.
.
.
In Solvent!
If you think the portion of the deficit attributable to the armed robbery in Iraq is bad now, just wait until the US arms industry starts demanding its payments from the US taxpayers in Euros, as they will stop accepting dollars. Our congressvermin will have to set up a special fund to guarantee enough dollars to purchase the necessary Euros to pay their masters. I suspect they will run through the Social Security and Medicare money in a heartbeat.
Kivals, I am surprised they have not done so already - as if we would know if and when the practice started.
Congress has the authority, the respnsibility, the DUTY to declare war. They didn’t. So let’s start again. Ask Congress for a Declaration of War, worded so as to automatically nullify whatever powers they gave the President under which HE has taken us to war. If Congress votes FOR war, the President can continue with his jihad. If Congress votes NO for war, and removes the latitude it gave Bush to “defend” us, the war is over. No Congressional approval for a Declaration of War, NO WAR.
Let’s see which members of Congress will go on record as calling for a ratification of this war, and then let’s vote according to who wants more deaths of our kids, more profits to the Bush cabal, more jobs lost. Let Congress go on record - and be judged by America!
“Republican War Rhetoric Devoid of Reality”
REPUBLICAN RHETORIC IN GENERAL IS DEVOID OF:
Acceptance
Appreciation
Awareness
Balance
Brilliance
Charity
Concern (for others)
Civility
Consciousness
Consideration
Diplomacy
Empathy
Equality
Ethics
Fairness
Forgiving
Generosity
Gentleness
Graciousness
Harmony
Honesty
Humility
Inspriration
Joy
Justice (constitutional)
Loyalty
Modesty
Patriotism (the real one)
Peace
Principle
Respect
Sharing
Significance
Thougtfulness
Tolerance
Truth
Warmth
This indifference is the very reason why Republicans are devoid of compassion!
The Republican agenda of power and opposition at any cost is destroying this country.
LIZARD: I was watching McCain the other day on C-Span and he looked like an empty mannequin when he said to a small group of potential supporters how important it was to preserve the tax cuts. The thing is, these idiots think that means THEIR taxes. Thanks to the MSM there is no real discussion of the true nature of these payoffs to the rich. Nor does the average idiot hearing those words make a link between the $ blown on Iraq and the lack of it left here for basic infrastructure.
Let’s take the issue of national security… for all the $ blown on this elected immoral adventure, our military is in worse shape. If Bush and the Repubs want to push the button that they are the military strongmen, the very FACT that our military is tattered and worn out should tell us where the investment of now inordinate funds has gotten us.
It’s so clear that those who profited from the increase in oil prices and/or weapons should be picking up the tab. I finally ordered Perkin’s book, Confessions of a Hit Man” to really get the inside scoop; when I have the stomach I will read Naomi’s Shock Doctrine.
Remember the Biblical saying, “Judge the tree by its fruit.” I wonder where all the Christian supporters of Bush are on the PROOF in the pudding that we are NOT safer, there is a greater likelihood of a terrorist attack in the US on account of its policies, that our military is worn out, that we are bankrupt, that our infrastructure is in ill condition, that our treasury will not be small enough to be sunk in Grover NOrquist’s bath tub, and that karma will boomerang for this and more. TRAGIC!!!!
Oops… treasury will NOW be small enough…
Always upbeat, Bush sees the bright side for our economy. As he observed the other day, “I think actually the spending on the war might help with jobs ’cause we’re buying equipment and people are working.”
This is either extraordinarily naive or extraordinarily disengenuous.
Arms manufacturing does not create wealth. It is only a mechanism for redistribution of wealth. Creating jobs by building weapons is completely inflationary.
Lizard,
As usual, you can kiss my ass. And as usual you are full of it and spouting fact-free nonsense.
America is a large country of 300 million people. The reality is that support for the Iraq War has varied and in general, the majority of Americans have opposed this war and think that it is wrong and counter productive.
The only thing you’ve got on us in that not enough of us have gotten off our asses and done something to stop it.
The ONLY way McCain can sustain a presence in Iraq is by re-instituting a draft. Though a bottoming out economy may force young people into the military, it won’t be enough. Why don’t the Dim candidates corner him on this? Well, you don’t expect them to behave like a true opposition do you? They may not be on the same page but they are in the same chapter . . .
hey George… i kinda went crazy and spent way too much of my money on some shaky, even illegal stuff in my company, i run a small computer repair business… can i get a piece of that billion you are giving those huge corporate welfare bums?..
We do not spend $515 billon per year on our military. We spend about $950 billion. There is much military spending that is not in the Pentagon budget—such as VA, CIA, NASA, retirement, and interest on the debt. If we only spent $515 billion, that would equal the entire rest of the world combined.