That Tingle Means it's Working

Doesn't it set a wonderful example for democracy when leaders in this country, both Democrat and Republican, call for the ouster of the elected Maliki government in Iraq?

And now for your first lesson in elected democracy -- the coup d'etat.

Oh, and number two -- installing a CIA-backed emergency government.

But let's all see this for what it is: another excuse to buy this shitty war some more time.

The whole idea of the surge was to establish some semblance of security and provide "breathing space" so that the Iraqi leaders could make political progress. And while the military has done a better job creating pockets of security, even while overall violence is up from last summer, the political side of the equation has gone backwards. The Sunnis have left the government entirely, and an emergency summit designed at bringing them back in has failed. Half of the 36 ministries have withdrawn support for the government and don't even attend meetings. Which raises another question: how do you tell who is showing up when they're all on vacation?

So what do we do now? Try to install the Allawi government back in. That way, when General Petraeus testifies before Congress that the surge has not created an environment where political reconciliation could take place -- i.e. the surge has failed -- we'll then pretend that was because we had the wrong team in charge. But now we have the right team in charge! And you can't pull the plug now that we have the right team in charge! Just you wait and see! It's all going to turn out great! Just give us a couple more months!

And by months, I mean years.

Meanwhile, this is the kind of spin you get from the right wing, who likes to think that we're actually in control of this situation. Here's a recent National Review editorial:

"The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq."

Then, of course, there's the reality: it was the Sunnis in Anbar province who decided to create an alliance against the Al Qaeda types, and that happened before the surge even started. So we didn't do that. They did. We simply armed them, funded them, and helped them. But they're not on our side. They're on their side. They were shooting at us and blowing up our convoys just months ago. We didn't stop and suddenly realize that we're in love with each other. You're thinking of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie.

Plus, Anbar is entirely Sunni. It's like Utah for Mormons. So they don't have to deal with the Sunni-Shiite dynamic like the rest of the country. This is regular crazy Sunnis organizing against the extremely crazy Sunnis. With our guns and money. Is that the best we can do for now? Probably. Is it a long-term solution? Shit no.

So don't let them fool you with all the talk of "progress." They've simply, and for the 37th time, re-defined what "progress" means. And when we get to #65 - that more Iraqis have access to NFL Network than ever before -- I'll say, "Okay, okay. That is progress. ...Can we come home now?"

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

Comments

[KaneandAbel]

Who was it that said, "If this is the kind of democracy( the Iraqi kind) they (Bush and the administration) are talking about spreading in the middle-east, then please, "No, Thank you"???

Everybody around the world, and I repeat, everybody, understands this democracy hogwash. As long as the republican politicians and the republican-lite democratic ones are still deluded by the neo-con bullsh1t EVEN today and those dumb sheep of the voters still follow them, then they deserve what they get. America deserves what democracy they get.

Its amazing that even with such a catastrophic presidency, republicans seem to have a chance to win or at least they think they can. I mean in half illiterate countries of the world where real democracy still survives (like India) they threw out Indira Gandhi by 68% to 32% when she started to become dictatorial. And here we have almost half of America's electoral collage votes can still be counted for the republicans. Amazing, just amazing!!!

[Ramus]

The electoral college is bupkus...we gotta get rid of it..direct elections (with voting machines with verifiable paper trails) and election finance reform and we might have a country which protects and helps its citizens..instead of a MIC run organization.

[Bozwellian]

LOL, dream on on many levels...Even the founding fathers never really thought the PEOPLE should REALLY have THE FINAL SAY and honestly, when tis noted that LESS than 50% of eligible voters BOTHER so in essence, we got George and his crew due to less than 25% of the vote segment9with help/assist from irregularities in vote machines/counts and selection/rulings by "courts" that had a "bent" to them..)ARepugnant is the amount of omoney that changes hands in regards to "campaigns" , which gets attributed to the cost of advertising which i turn means the media outlets are the beneficiaries evidently...ALL of that needs vast reforming but the system is so very RIGGED against the citizenry would take a major revolution to get such changed for anything even slightly better !!

[peterg76]

One dollar, one vote....

[speakswithforkedtongue]

Hey, Bill-- Looking forward to your HBO show manana. I'm sure you'll be talking about good'ol boy Sen. Lawrence "Larry" Edwin Craig (R-Idaho)and his urinal hi-jinks. You ought to have Sen. Lindsay Graham on your show so he can 'come-out' live on your show. That'd be a ratings-getter!

[SmallvilleSC]

C'mon! The majority of people in South Carolina don't even say the word 'homosexual' aloud much less elect one, closeted or otherwise, to orifice, uh, office.

[speakswithforkedtongue]

Can they say "queer?"

[Matan]

I was going to say exactly that on my blog today. This is exactly how it will be spun in a few weeks...and somehow, the Dems will champion the idea! I think we should just stay the course, yeah, that's it!

Lace up your boots, folks, this will be a generations-long event.

[Lane]

"Lace up your boots, folks, this will be a generations-long event."

Only if we let it, Matan. The people of the great country need to rise up and stop these crazies in the WH. Keep writing the Dems and let them know they had better take care of us as they promised in the campaigns. SOMEONE has to hold this administration liable and accountable. We need to clean up our own yards before we try and clean up the rest of the world!

[skindoggy]

Great post Bill all in a nutshell...

We go into a country and smash it, disband the standing army, sacrifice thousands of military and civilian lives, disrupt the lives of millions of innocent civilian Iraqis, create total instability in the region.... and then we blame the democratically elected government trying to organize and establish for the first time ever. Hello...??? There were hundreds of experts predicting what would happen not the least being Dick Cheney in 1994. "Quagmire" is a rosy picture.

So now Congress is criticizing the Al-Malaki government...even though our great and mighty system of government that we are supposedly trying to expand to the middle East, allows the neoconboobs within the Bush administration to commit this criminal act.

The icing on the cake is the fact that no one in the administration is being held accountable for the false pretenses created leading to the invasion of a sovereign nation. Information was clearly manipulated and extracted that supported the drum beat for war...and the American public was too busy watching Survivor... and Britanny with no underwear, to do anything about it.

These people should be held accountable...impeachment...or even criminal prosecution for those that knowingly conspired to take this country to war without real justification....If we do not hold them accountable..we are doomed to repeat history again and again...

Skindoggy

[thirteen13]

The USA invaded Iraq knowing it could not defend itself from our might. A cowardly
act supported by a majority of USA populace.

Look around you volunteer military country,
squandering our wealth and resources in Iraq.
Study the effects of retirement funds in the stock market. Are you getting rich from Iraq?

There is no way the military of Iraq will ever provide its own security with the USA in charge. Remember we only attack those who cannot defend themselves.

If Dickhead Chaney and Coke Nose Bush attack Iran, we will need more than a volunteer military. It will take a military draft to save our Nation.

We can't even count on elections anymore. What with the Supreme Courts track record.

[janvoght]

fat chance that what should happen with these $$$corrupt$$$ people in power will ever happen, and don't you feel so much more secure about terror in the world?

[Marlyn]

"The icing on the cake is the fact that no one in the administration is being held accountable for the false pretenses created leading to the invasion of a sovereign nation."

That is why we MUST impeach Cheney! Otherwise, it is goodbye American dream.

House Res. 333

[stlrfan]

Did the Iraqi people really vote for this guy, or did they just elect members of congress? We have no business in their political process but we keep trying to figure out which faction we can support to continue our influence and after all get that oil. Isn't Al Queda a Sunni organization? What do you think will happen when push comes to shove with the Sheiks we have armed? This cluster seems to have no logical conclusion.

[jpshotwheels]

In answer to your question "Did anyone vote for this guy." Yes they did. However, what has never been reported in our Media, is that when they had the elections in Iraq only 10% of the Sunni population showed up for the election. Only 10% - that means 90% of the Shiites showed up to elect Maliki whom is a Shiite, but not the Sunnis. Sunnis had control when Sadamm was in power now they have none and have left the Government.

You are absolutely correct we have no business interfering in there political process, but we are and will be until this Iraqi Oil Law is passed. If the Oil law is not passed to suit the Bush Administration, then all chaos will break out. Bush will do what he has to do - to get the Oil Law passed, period. Sad but true. When the Oil law passes, this allows Foreign Investors to come in and take 80 percent of the Iraqi's oil, what does that leave for the Iraqi's. Nothing, 20% of the oil reserves.

This is where the American people are so blinded, it is all about the OIL, stealing the OIL.

[Marlyn]

OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation)

[hardrain77]

Let's paint this for what it is, Bill. Al-Maliki is Shiite and doesn't want to strain relations with equally Shiite Iran. We, being the mighty U.S.A. (and by that, I mean the top tier, Council on Foreign Relations endorsed top-tier candidates whom don't want to stray from established Military Industrial Complex lead foreign policy), don't want a Shiite majority in Iraq and especially don't want an Iran that thinks it can by a first-world country (sad because next to Isreal, Iran really was the next most pro-western people over in the mideast); not when we're running the show over there and can't wait for the oil fields to open up for Exxon and BP.

Which, coincidentally enough, is the other reason why we're sick of al-Maliki. He seems to be the scapegoat for the reasons why the Parliament has stalled the Iraqi oil law from passing and opening up Iraq's fat oil reserves to equally fat corporatists. the oil law is actually one of the benchmarks for successful progress in Iraq.

Successful progress? Close to a million people dead. 2-3 more million refugees. An entire ethnicity, an entire culture and heritage gone from the face of the Earth.

All the while, people get body parts blown off and press secretaries tell us the surge really is working.

Don't it make you proud to be an American knowing we're doing so much good in the world?

[Ramus]

nice post hardrain77..exactly right

[hardrain77]

Thanks. I wish I was 100% wrong. It would be easier to live with myself.

[libdude]

"The surge is working!"--President Bush

"The Russians are coming!"--Joe McCarthy

"There is light at the end of the tunnel!"--
Henry Kissinger

"I'm a blithering idiot!"--Ann Coulter

Well, at least one of them got it right!

[anon004]

Touche!

[naschkatze]

This has the makings of a multiple choice question in one of our high school civics classes.

[thromulese]

You forgot one.

Mission Accomplished.

Because it is what god would do.

[a.e.e]

haha, now that's humour! Ann Coulter, republican pundit, should start reflecting about her legacy because that's one seriously brainwashed creature.

[RevMetheus]

They dont want a Shiite majority because of Iran. They dont want a Sunni majority because Sunnis were the people associated with Saddam. They dont want a Kurdish majority because that would make Turkey nervous and we dont want to do that. They just seem to want to arm everyone and then keep repeating "there is no civil war."

I'm not sure where we can get progress from (other than the whole stealing their oil out from under them and permanent bases thing.)

[Boyarina]

That is the classical "divide and rule" strategy which I suspect was the big idea from the gitgo.

[Bozwellian]

LOL, if our top tier did NOT want a SHIITE CONTROLLERSHIP in IRaq, WHY did they so poorly plan the take over and just how truly stupid were they? Even their main champ Chalibi , was closely allied with Iran but they allowed him to be their main intel source...LOL, Chalibi was SUPPOSE to be the PM--that was how he had it figured and it did NOT work out due to various factors and fallout..but he was aligned with Iran all along as well. JUST HOW STUPID WAS the top tier to have NOT recognized that THE MAJORITY IN IRAQ CONSISTED OF SHIITES and therefore as in MAJORITY RULE etc...and just HOW did they figure no hard feelings maintained by that SHiite majority who HAD BEEN PROMISED MUCH in the way of USA support if THEY rallied against Saddam which was NEVER DELIVERED by the USA and that had the Iraqi Shiite turn to IRAN for support/shelter/security and ALLIANCE...FROM THE START OF THE EGREGIOUS IRAQ INSTIGATION by OUR HELM, THE ONLY CLEAR CUT WINNER TO BE WAS IRAN in this mess ..They got THEIR heart felt desire of seeing one old nemesis, Saddam, ousted by another of their hated old nemesises, USA who then gets quagmired and SCORNED WORLDWIDE with the bonus, exposed for NOT being as MIGHTY, ALL POWERFUL as many thought..THE BUSH BRIGADE have EXPOSED THE USA ACTUAL VULNERABILITY...and few really want to acknowledge THAT FACT/factor for that is truly scary and frightening and unfortunately, we here in the homeland are semi delusional and prefer our illusionals and DO have a difficult time handling the TRUTHMATICALS !!!!

[Marlyn]

"just HOW did they figure no hard feelings " ???

THAT is the biggest mystery, in my mind.

[nomorebombs]

why do you let your president continue his massacre?

[Bozwellian]

uh, think is obvious, "WE THE PEOPLE" have actually very little "SAY"...Before the actualizing of the instigation of Iraq war..the MAJORITY OPPOSED but that was DOWNPLAYED and the media allowed that to play out that way..Then , similar tactics used when they stopped the vote counting in 2000, great PR'd scenes played and declarations that those that opposed were too fearful, whimps, borderline traoitors surely NON patriotical and marginalized whenever attempted to get the message across..Our elected reps TURNED OFF THEIR FAX Manchines and stopped answering phones and dumped their mail never reading as was FILLED/BRIMMED with voices saying NO TO INSTIGATING WAR IN IRAQ...and that occurred in BOTH MAJOR PARTIES...THE ELECTEDs IGNORRED THE PEOPLE and it has been perped as if REAL that the MAJORITY SUPPORTED the istigation when in fact NO..where folks declared "support" in the aftermath, it was in support/to show support for those in the military who being put in harms way and is rather diriguer when they are put into to such circumstances as a FACE to all others, to pretend a UNITED front etc so as to give an appearance that the enemy might figure if such BE, then we would difficult to circumvent/defeat/etc...the power of PERCEPTION, was a psych out , often employed but in FACT, the majority always remained UNEASY/QUEASY about the instigation..wanted to believe but rational minds have known better all along & now, best is that one clings to chards of hope that somehow or other someway , somehow things will wonk out well for US & the actual well being of Iraqi's & theirs, well,our "compassionate" selves wish them well but our charity intinctuals/etc does need to be here at home first/foremost/ etc...we are compasionate/charitible only to a "certain" point & maintain WE still want to come "first/foremost and to accomodate our whimmings,not worry too much about tomorrow as we shop til we drop to keep the economy rolling while the rest of the world is left to roil and etc..!

[ElkoJohn]

we let our volunteer, professional army fight our wars, we finance our wars by selling bonds to China, and the rest of America goes shopping... it's the American Way.

[714Day]

You meant to say "okay, okay, that's some VICTORY" because the troops can't come home until we say that.
I say we have some victory. Bring them home.

[philjames]

If by success we mean permanent U.S. occupation of Iraq to protect the fragile democracy (i.e. the oil) then we continue to see nothing but success. Besides, Bush is a one-trick pony. If we leave Iraq, what in the hell is he going to do until Jan 2009?

[wrightthewrong]

"what the hell is he going to do until Jan 2009? Try Iran...

[philjames]

Now that would be rather absurd would it not. Bush withdraws troops from Iraq, stations them in Kuwait, then preemptively attacks Iran...why? Because they forced us to withdraw from Iraq instead of being greeted as liberators? Becasue that's where the real (other than at the UN) rather than imagined WMD are?

[janvoght]

Great reason to justify the loss of more American lives and the poor foreign policies of a ultra-corrupt administration such as our current one Mr. President!

[faust2001]

"the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave"?
Unlike the Republican/Pentagon strategy In Afghanistan which was to let al Qaeda leave.
And of course there was no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Pentagon moved in. They're tough-talking boys at the National Review. Too bad they're too cowardly to go fight in their own war. But you got poor folks to do that.
Another excellent post, Bill. Give 'em hell!

[BeyondPopper]

You have to understand what the word "democracy" means to Chippy and Darth and their underlings.

Simply put, it means "everyone doing what we tell them to."

Same for "bipartisan," and "ally," and lots of other words that should mean the right thing, but it their mouths have been turned into something evil.

Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the Republican party are fascists, working to serve the interests of corporations, not people. And they are helped in this cause by the media that we all used to depend on for information.

[QueenMaedb]

Tom Lehrer said it ages ago:

Might makes right
and 'till they've seen the light
they've got to be protected,
all their rights respected
'till somebody we like can be elected.

[ElkoJohn]

We HAVE to stay the course in Iraq, and kill Muslims because of our "National Interests" -- OIL, and ISRAEL...

[DeadGarcia]

"Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!"

[manannan]

Tom Lehrer (i.e., teacher) said a lot of things right back in the '50s. Charles (Carl) Sandburg did, too, in an earlier part of the 20th century. An excerpt from his free-verse poem 'Government':
"Government dies as the men who form it die and are laid away in their graves and the new Government that comes after is human, made of heartbeats and blood, ambitions, lusts, and money running through it all, money paid and money taken, and money covered up and spoken of with hushed voices.
A Government is just as secret and mysterious and sensitive as any human sinner carrying a load of germs, traditions and corpuscles handed down from fathers and mothers away back."

[laocoon]

They serve the interests of the people who own the controlling interests in the corporations.

[thirteen13]

A lot of retirement funds are invested in these same corporations.

Don't you want to get rich too?

Better save your money to pay the mortgage payments for the Iraq War.

[JoeBlough]

Don't forget the MONEY angle. A lot of Republicans are making a fortune off this war. They want it to continue forever.

[THEANTIROVE]

Speaking of the "Dying For Dollars" game you might like to read this.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/60950/

[POSTHRUDAHART]

A lot of Democrats too, don't hold your breath waiting for 'change', at least not until the federal govenment (thats all of us taxpayers)has been sucked dry by these corporate pirates.

[scooperss]

Seems like the same can be said for the democrats.

[clvngodess]

Don't forget a lot of Democrats are part of the same money making machine.

[Hugh G. Johnson]

Really? But in such a blanted in-your-face way? Cheney's old company which he never offically cut ties with is the biggest winner in this war and that's just one zinger. Please show me the list of Dems or Indies that are getting fat off this pig.

[LITU]

Agree, agree, agree.

And...

I haven't read or listened to ANY MSM source since blogs like this came out a couple years ago, and I am certainly more edumacated than I had been previously. It's amazing what a little edumacation can do for one's outlook. Now I REALLY hate the GOP; before I just found them offensive.

[goodsnservices]

It's sad, really. I know and respect lots of thoughtful conservative people who are appalled at what has become of the GOP. They recognize that these wingnuts have destroyed their party.

[dadw5boys]

ARE YOU MISSING THE POINT HERE.
THE IRAQI PEOPLE ELECTED HIM THE USA HAS NO SAY IN IF HE STAYS OR GOES!

[MinuteMan]

Two words: Salvador Allende.

[mae692]

two more: Mohammed Mossadegh

[k1mgy]

Well, if he keeps sucking up to Syria I suspect the maladministration will find a way.

[daddysboy]

Just like we elected bush in 2000.