If you have been planning to vacation in Afghanistan this year, you may want to rethink those travel plans. The U.S. Embassy advises Americans to restrict their travel in Afghanistan to essential business; but if you already bought non-refundable tickets for that romantic Afghan Getaway, they offer this advice:
· “…[B]e aware of surroundings, vary times and routes of travel, avoid traveling after dark, do not travel alone, avoid crowded areas and demonstrations, avoid Afghan and international government buildings and compounds and do not approach any international or local military or government convoys.”--International Herald Tribune
If that sounds too dangerous, you may prefer to visit Iraq on one of the Bush Administration’s Dog and Pony Show tours that are so popular with the Congressional crowd. You may stroll the streets of Fallujah or go bargain hunting in the markets of Baghdad. All you need is a platoon of Marines and a little air cover (body armor is provided).
There is one little catch, though. After going on a Dog and Pony Show tour, you must rave about the tremendous progress that President Bush’s troop surge has made toward ending the violence in Iraq. After one recent Dog and Pony Show, the plane carrying members of Congress had to take evasive maneuvers and drop flares to avoid rocket-propelled grenades fired at it by grateful Iraqis as it took off from Baghdad.
In spite of their harrowing escape, the Senators still managed to come up with such praises as: “Incredibly significant progress”; and “made a lot of progress with the surge”; but Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said it best: He told Tulsa World (8/31/07) that “his visit allowed him to witness firsthand the progress resulting from the ongoing troop surge in Iraq.”
Inhofe was right. Nothing illustrates the progress of Mr. Bush’s troop surge better than a rocket-propelled grenade attack
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The Bush Administration has struggled to convince Americans that we must continue to sacrifice lives and money on Mr. Bush’s War on Iraq. They have warned: al Qaida will follow us home, mushroom clouds, nuclear holocaust, and genocide--all the things that will surely happen if we leave Iraq before we finish the mission (whatever that is this week).
So far, these threats have failed to excite the American public, but the ChickenHawks now believe they have found something that will stir the fires of patriotism in the heart of even the most ardent anti-war American--$9 per gallon gasoline!
Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), recently returned from a visit to Iraq, where he met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and some high-ranking Iraqi officials.
· “To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave.”--Porter said in a phone interview, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 09/01/07
Yeah, yeah, we already knew all that other stuff, but did he say $9 a gallon gasoline? Now that is what I call a good reason to sacrifice American lives and wage an endless war in the Mideast.
Rep. Porter did not explain exactly how our withdrawal would cause gas prices to triple, but his spokesman, Matt Leffingwell assured us that it all “makes sense if Iran moves into Iraq.” The most recent figures I found say that the U.S. gets only 5.2% of its oil imports from Iraq and none from Iran. I don’t see how that adds up to $9 a gallon gas, but it must be true. Surely, they wouldn’t lie to us--just to prolong Mr. Bush’s war….. Would they?
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For months, the Bush Administration has answered every question about its disastrous occupation of Iraq with the same answer: “Let’s wait and see what General Petraeus has to say in September.” The wait is over.
General Petraeus appeared before House and the Senate committees this week and said nothing that surprised anyone. What could he say? After the dire predictions in this summer’s National Intelligence Estimate and the General Accounting Office’s devastating assessment of the political situation in Iraq, he couldn’t just say things were going great in Iraq--so he said what he had to say to keep his job. He parsed his words and twisted his facts to make the case that we are making progress in Iraq. If we will just give him a little more time, things might get better and we could draw the troops down to pre-surge levels by next July--ten months from now.
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