from a Washington Post Editorial:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.
Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible.
If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html?wpisrc=newsletter
So, what's it really all about?
Why are we still in Iraq?
Here's half of the equation, the other half is still buried underground as fossil fuel.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A WEAPONS DEALER OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, IT IS THE TRUE LEGACY OF THIS PROFANE ERA, AND HAS BEEN SINCE ITS INCEPTION!
THEY ARE THE CONGRESSIONAL/MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com
When it comes to dealing with countries in the Middle East, the Bush administration knows only two approaches. It either tries to blow them up or bribe them. God forbid that Washington should try to find out what the people in the region actually want -- or what might actually work.
Bush tried the blowing-up approach in Iraq. With the results now in, he has returned to the more traditional approach of bribery. After the bizarre neocon aberration of Iraq, with its highfalutin talk of democratization and its ostentatious hand-wringing over Washington's past support for autocratic regimes, Team Bush has returned to the tried-and-true path: propping up dubious allies with vast arms deals and using them as proxies to fight an evil empire. Belatedly, the Bush administration has embraced a Cold War paradigm in the Middle East, with the good guys -- Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia -- being paid off to contain the bad guys -- al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's proposed $60 million to $70 billion Mideast arms deal takes us back to the cynical realpolitik of traditional great power politics, with puppet-master America jerking around half-willing strongmen with billion-dollar strings. Washington (N0, ITS REALLY CHENEY) is offering to sell $20 billion of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and also sell arms to the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. To ensure that Israel maintains its military superiority over its neighbors, the U.S. will increase the already vast amount of annual military aid it gives the Jewish state by 30 percent, offering $30 billion over 10 years. And Egypt will also wet its beak, with a $14 billion 10-year arms deal. (...these 10-year arms deals certainly do suggest that our neocons and theirs expect to be killing their neighbors for a long time to come. Sure gives creedence to Kucinich'c call for a Secretary of Peace...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/08/14/bush_arms_deal/
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