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What is there to trust?

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Cheney and his ward W, always said that they knew better than our intelligence agencies where the WMD were and how Hussein's nuclear bombs were an imminent threat to the US. We were asked to trust them. They were all lying to us from the beginning. Since the foundation of the Iraq occupation was based on misinformation everything linked to it is also, including the surge, which is actually an escalation.

Why did big bro 43 use the misleading term "surge" to describe his latest failed Iraq policy? The January 10, 2007 article "Media Misleading Americans By Using 'Surge' To Describe Bush Policy" explains "Research compiled by ThinkProgress shows that when "surge" was first adopted by the mainstream media in November 2006, the term was specifically defined as a "temporary, short-term" increase in U.S. forces. In fact, we now know that the Bush administration and the most prominent advocates of escalation all reject a short-term increase in U.S. forces. Rather, they advocate a long-term increase of forces lasting at least 18 months. The choice of words is not an academic point. A CBS poll released Monday found that only 18 percent of Americans support an escalation of forces in Iraq.  However, when asked whether they support a "short-term troop increase," the number jumps to 45 percent approval (48 percent disapproval)."

You don't think that W is planning on keeping the US troops fighting in an urban guerrilla warfare nightmare for at least 18 months? The article "Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08" at  has this from Gen. Raymond T. Odierno the day-to-day commander for U.S.  military operations in Iraq: "The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring."

Maybe someone should have told Odierno that W was trying to string this out without letting the US populace in on his hidden agenda.

Other parts of the US military are doing a good job at keeping us in the dark as "The U.S. military commands that oversee Baghdad and Iraq as a whole have so far failed to meet requests to release current statistics on attack trends, with some U.S. officers voicing concern that the information would be skewed by critics to argue that the strategy is not working."

The GOP hates this Iraq policy. House members met with W and said they would continue to support him with the new bill but made it very clear their support can't last much longer. The fool who swore he never looked at polls numbers was shown his own by the GOP which expressed its disgust with him as well as any curse possibly could. The House members have elections to think of and they will have to jettison W to keep their posts.

Tony Snow emphasized that the meeting should not be seen as a "marching up to Nixon" moment, referring to the time during Watergate when Republican lawmakers pushed the president to resign; but what else could it be?

We all want W to start the phased redeployment now. The Democrats are trying to pass legislation that reflects the desires of our citizens, but W doesn't want to cooperate. W had said previously he wanted to receive a bill that didn't include conditions but recently signaled he would be open to the idea of benchmarks and said his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, will work with lawmakers to find "common ground."

As long as Rove is in charge, this vague "common ground" will mean anything W wants it to mean. Remember who introduced the now hotly debated issue of benchmarks just four months ago? It was W in a prime-time speech to the nation in January. W laid out the same benchmarks that the Democrats have been
including in their war funding measures. Now he is proclaiming that he's open to the idea. Why wouldn't he be-he first mentioned them! If there are benchmarks they have to be tied to something or why have them at all? The recent regional Iraq summit produced an International Compact with Iraqi set benchmarks which require tough commitments by the Baghdad government.  If the Baghdad government fails, they won’t receive international help.

During the "marching up to W" moment, one of the lawmakers asked Bush to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood".  During his May 9, 2007 visit to Baghdad, Cheney also stressed this point when he ssaid, "I did make it clear that we believe it's very important to move on the issues before us in a timely fashion and that any undue delay would be difficult to explain."

During Cheney's meetings in the heavily fortified Green Zone, a distant bomb blast rattled windows which led the president of vice to remark that the terrorists’ increased violence marked their desperation and that the insurgency was in its death throes. It doesn't matter what hypocrisy W and his boys try to use, facts are facts and his Iraq policy has been an atrocity from its inception.

Even when the Iraqi parliament is in session nothing much gets done because of electricity shortages and roadblocks that prevent enough lawmakers from getting there to form a quorum. Besides, Maliki's Shiite dominated government harbors ages-long hatred toward the Sunnis and they aren't going to pass any legislation that benefits them, which precludes any political reconciliation from happening.

The political process has failed and now Iraq's parliament want us out! The article "Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal" explains that "A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress."

The Iraqi law makers can't pass legislation to bring together their country but they can pass legislation demanding that the US infidel occupiers must go. To come to a solution in Iraq W is going to have to spend his dwindling political capital. The article "A Dayton Process For Iraq" lists the steps that must be accomplished for Iraq to achieve peace. Among other steps, it will require "the discussions and negotiations should be sustained until the necessary compromises have been made and agreements reached... mechanisms for implementing the agreement have to be spelled out-with a timetable."

W has no intention to stop the surge. He is only interested in using his military to solve a problem which he and his own people insist will require diplomatic and economic aid also. W knows that he broke it so he bought an Iraq that might never achieve political reconciliation. He doesn't want his name attached to the diplomatic negotiations that are necessary. He'll blame his generals when the military surge doesn't work. You can see him in front of a placard promoting his ability to protect us against our enemies in GWOT and saying that he only followed what the Generals told him to do in Iraq.  This is also hypocritical as the article "Ret. Generals' Ads Protest Bush Iraq Plan" explains.

It details how three generals, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Paul Eaton and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, refute W's claim that he listens to his military by stating "Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign Wednesday, saying the politicians can't expect to win re-election if they support President Bush's policies in Iraq." 

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Winston Smith is an ex-Social Worker. I worked in child welfare, and in medical settings and in homeless settings. In the later our facility was geared as a permanent address for people to apply for welfare. Once they received that we could send (more...)
 
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