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 Half of the 36 ministries have withdrawn support for the government and don't even attend meetings.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

[Kendo Nagasaki]

The Iraq war is going exactly as planned,

and the Pentagon is a Black Hole.

Vote for me, I am a lunatic.

[k1mgy]

When comedians began to offer commentary, and when it began to make sense, and when it made even more sense as the it wandered into not-so-subtle ballooning of the truth... well it was then I realized that the reality we are living is comedy itself. A dark, sad, sick, criminal, comedic insult against the basics of human intelligence, innate morality and dignity.

I've complained, along with everyone else, that the mainstream media should gain some balls. Wrong. The solution is clear: what we need in media are more comedians.

[LIR]

Bill, you make an excellent point about a coup to bring in CIA-sponsored Allawi regime...o­nce again, we are installing a government, as we did before, in Iraq...tha­t was Saddam Hussein's government. It seems we never learn that such a set up is doomed to utter failure.

[Macready]

You got it right Bill . . . what a sick bunch of hypocrits and cowards . .. if the chimp and the big dick don't like your democratically elected government (overseen by them and hyped in big PR terms) well then they will oust it ... and since neither the Dems nor the GOPs in Congress have any backbone and are generally complicit and they are having more fun spinning out the next election -- which may or may not happen depending if they give the chimp more money for wars . . . what a bunch of moral cowards . . .

[Stockholm]

USA has become sloppy. You used to do bad things before too (like installing the Shah in Iran etc) but at least you were competing with the Soviet Union. You knew if you made a mistake somewhere in the world there would be consequenses.

After the Berlin Wall fell there were only one super power left, and you didn't have to worry about the competition any longer. So you started a war without really thinking it through. Well now the mistakes are starting to pay and you are just beginning to realize there are other powers in the world growing it's influence.

Russia is on the rise becoming less and less democratic every day. The islam fundamentalists are fighting you in everywhere and they are prepared to die to wound you. And then there's China of course.

You can not afford to go on in this fashion for another decade. I like USA, but I worry about you. How are you gonna be able to change when your media doesn't even report the other side of the story? How are you gonna make an informed decision when there'e so much desinformation going on.

If I were religious I would pray for you, but I'm not.

[gvincent]

Isn't it frustrating when a group with opposing political views, often with differing religious views, blocks legislation that you so desperately wanted passed? Doesn't it bother you to your core when your country elects a leader with opposing political views and different religious views than you? Sure it is, whether you live here in the U.S. or in any other country in the world. So what do you do? You write letters to your congressmen and senators. You go online and try to rally as many people as you can around your cause. Well, when the afore mentioned happens in Iraq...the­y try to bomb parliament or asassinate their governors.
The Iraq report was leaked to the Washington Post this morning and confirmed everything that we have already believed to be true. Iraq is making significant progress on the defense front, thanks to the tens of thousands additional troops, while making no progress on the political side. Necessary legislation is not getting passed. Members of parliament are corrupted. No one can agree on anything. Sounds familiar? This situation is not unlike what we have here in the U.S., aside from the fact that it is in a region with different values and principles, in the most volatile region in the world.
What gets lost in translation when we watch the news from the war front here at home, is the political aspects of the middle east. Most of the countries in the region are ruled by dictators, which, despite countless flaws, has shown to be the only way to bring the amount of violence down. In the pseudo-democracy that we have installed in Iraq, members of parliament and the top cabinet officials are, more or less, chosen by the people. And just like here at home, each member of each party has a particular "base" that he has to appeal to in order to get elected, as well as hold to on to that position. And just like here in the United States, Iraq has it's own "religious right...RE­AD MORE at http://www.crookedinc.com

[zull]

It's incredible. Is the surge working, or isn't it? I think every other day, someone reports that it is working, and on all alternative days, they report that it isn't. So what is it, cronyism, fascism, or complete ineptitude? Did someone say something wrong, then backtrack, then say something wrong again, then backtrack again?

I think someone should just break down and hire someone from a neutral nation to go over there and assess the situation. If we're going to get our troops out of there, apparently we need to get around the major roadblock, being the White House, and get a real, unbiased, untampered with assessment of the situation.

[priorzola]

This administration has always looked at Iraq as a military operation. Any and all political and diplomatic operations have been a second thought or non-existent.

From day, there was no attempt to meet the Iraqis at the diplomacy table when the battlefield would suffice. During the first Iraq War, the name Tariq Aziz was banded about non-stop. Why? Because he was the Foreign Minister of Iraq. A position he still held in 2003. Yet, conspicously his name was never mentioned by the administration or, even, the media.

Fast forward four years later, the administration continues to rely too heavily on military solutions (from Guatanemo to surges) that take for granted that peace and stability can never happen by merely dumping a bunch of weapons into the hands of future terrorist (ie people who have waited decades, if not centuries to assert their identity and now we've just given them very powerful means to do so).

With Clinton, he realized in both Northern Ireland and in Israel that diplomacy does not work when you take sides. He sent Mitchell and Holbrook in with these instructions, to say "neither of you or right and neither of you are wrong, but you have a future either together or next to one another and that's what we're here to talk about."

The Bush administration can a little something from that tactic. By condemning the influence of Iran and Syria and overlooking the aiding and abetting going on with Saudi Arabia, it's as if the administration is telling the Shiite majority that your backers are in the wrong but for the Sunnis to have military and economic backing it's alright. What weare doing in Iraq is creating a Shiite and Sunni in the entire region that can rival the chasm in Europe prior to WWI. And we all know what one little stick of dynamite (ie. the assasination of a Serbian archduke) then led to a whole powder keg being blown. Do we want the same for the Middle East?

[FloaterBall]

Now we want to get rid of the Maliki government? Let's get rid of our own first!

[mach]

Bill:

As usual there is so much truth in your predictions.

As follow up to your earlier wisdom, can I ask: How's that impeachment coming??

[mach]

Its all about the oil. They invaded this country for the oil and they will continue to do so, just look at where we import from:

Crude Oil Imports (Top 5 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country Jun-07

CANADA 1,852
SAUDI ARABIA 1,501
MEXICO 1,392
VENEZUELA 1,098
NIGERIA 893

Oh. Never mind.

[tiggersthotfulspot]

Democracy means "we own the world".

[starwheel]

Geez, Bill. If you keep making sense, they'll NEVER invite you back onto the networks.

Maybe we can get Timmy or Stephanapolous to ask some relevant questions around those lines to their Washington buds on the Sunday morning shows.

P.S. Is your mic going to work this week?

[JasonFromAtlanta]

Arming the Sunnis in Anbar is one of our dumbest moves yet. Why doesn't the U.S. ever learn that the ridiculous flawed mentality of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" never works in the long run? And why are ostensibly smart people always flummoxed by this idiotic policy?

Saddam used to be our "friend".

Osama Bin Laden used to be our "friend".

Manuel Noriega used to be our "friend".

The Taliban used to be our "friend".

Anyone seeing a pattern here?

[strangelet]

Yeah. I'm not sure it's one of our dumbest moves *ever*, but I'm equally sure that it's going to have unintended side-effects downstream. The key question is, just how well are we arming them? When we armed the Afghan resistance against the USSR, we pretty much gave them the kitchen sink, which they really appreciated when they turned into the Taliban and took over the country. Hopefully, in Anbar we are restricting our support to small arms and machine guns, since the insurgents don't have aircraft or tanks. If so, it may not matter much, considering what a vast quantitiy of amall arms seems to be squirrelled away all over Iraq. On the other hand, if we have decided to give them a little firepower superiority (RRs, wire-guided missiles, etc), this could have a significant impact on the probable future civil war. I can't imagine that we would be giving them surface-to-air missiles, but hey, who knows?

[jackbauer0396]

Bill, I love your insight. It really is fantastic, it resonates, it is relevant, well-articulated and cuts to the core of every issue. But every time I read one of your posts all I get is angry, angry at the way this nation is run, angry at what the people we "elected" can do to the values of freedom. If you will indulge me, Bill, please. What can we do, as Americans, to change? In a world where votes probably count for as much as W's degree at Yale, what can we do to make a change? Please, if you actually read these posts, which I'm sure you do because you are, after all, a man of the people, give your readers something to cheer about---a solution to the problem, rather than griping about it.

[LizM]

The solution to the problem will be coming in his next post...sta­y tuned!

[jackbauer0396]

I certainly hope you're right.