Still No Plan... Anyone?
Bill Clinton gets it at least. This morning, while discussing Iraq with NBC's Matt Lauer, he recalled the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. "They did it very rapidly", he said. "And hundreds of Russian troops were killed on the way out of the country, because they presented themselves as targets. And the reason [Hillary]'s been pushing so hard for the Pentagon to have a plan for withdrawal -- she says, rightly so, 'the president can disagree with me about when we should withdraw; I think we should begin to withdraw right now -- but whenever we withdraw, we've gotta have a plan, because otherwise a lot of our people will be killed and wounded who shouldn't be.'"
Four years ago, The Iraq war was already looking like a scene out of Star Wars (Episode IV). Cut off from escape in a Death Star cellblock, an exasperated Princess Leia snaps, "This is some rescue. When you got in here, didn't you have a plan for getting back out?"
Han Solo passes the buck and gestures to Luke. "He's the brains, sweetheart!"
Here and now, in a land not far, far away, there is still no plan for getting out of Iraq, and the Bush administration still gives us a cloudy picture of who the brains are. Sure, there's plenty of talk about listening to the commanders on the ground, but as we've seen this week, the commanders are forbidden to tell the president anything he doesn't want to hear. That's why there wasn't a plan for how to stay in Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld refused to draw up a concrete plan for a post-war occupation and once threatened to fire anyone who mentioned it, because -- wait for it -- he didn't want America to be seen as an occupying nation! An "unforeseen" insurgency made it necessary to throw one together at the last minute. Today, apparently, the same tactic is being applied to creating an orderly exit strategy. No plan.
"The Pentagon has acknowledged as much", says Clinton. "If they have, they certainly haven't discussed it with the country."
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There IS just such a plan.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/08/redeploy_report.html
How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq
By Lawrence J. Korb, Max Bergmann, Sean Duggan, Peter Juul
August 27, 2007 - Center for American Progress
Actually, this isn't really a plan...well, it is definitely NOT a plan that would prevent chaos or the need for US forces to return to their combat posture...in the very near future.
The reason for my doom and gloom about this report is that it completely neglects the need for a political solution. Without a plan to achieve a sustainable political settlement in Iraq, there will definitely be a need (and plan) for a serious redeployment but there will also most assuredly be the need for US forces to return at a later date. Who wants that?
Liz-
Your assumption of chaos is based on what the neocons preach? The pundits?
The need for US forces to return is based on what, oil? Some vague notion of stability?
I give you a hard time, but questioning the assumptions clearly being forced on us by the corporate media is necessary. The ones they've made in the past were wrong, and we can't assume they're right now.
Just to be clear, the "there will be chaos if we leave" argument was first espoused by AEI pundits, then adopted by the GOP politicians.
It pains me to see you adopt their spin Liz.
Nothing can happen in Iraq that we couldn't end from 35,000 feet if need be... boots on the ground wasn't, isn't and won't be required. It's only necessary if you accept the notion that US interests include who profits from the oil.
I know I'm no history scholar, but I have wracked my brain and with the exception of Viet Nam and oh yeah, Grenada, I can't think of a country with which the U.S. has had military involvement and then went home. World War II was over long before I was born, and yet we still have bases in Japan and Germany. Same with Korea. And Cuba has been run by a Communist regime since 1959, and yet we have a base at Guantanamo on that very island. I don't like the word "imperialist" and I hate it when it's mentioned in the same sentence as my country. Yet. . . there remains this "cognitive disconnect" between the Democracy for which we say we stand and how we actually practice it. Will our troops ever be completely out of the Middle East?
Gosh, I hope so.
You don't like the word imperialism? I don't like reality either but what about the Mexican-American war. Lincoln and Adams didn't like it either but they had to save their political careers. $0% of Mexico - a great deal for us.
Until we stop waiving flags and understanding the waves of imperialism are not "just" wars or humanitarian endeavors where we are spreading democracy, we will have bases all over the world with a world order controlled by a wealthy international elite.
The deregulation started by Margret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan started the upward shift in wealth and undermined labor. Capital flows, labor doesn't.
Should read 40% of Mexico. James Polk claimed that some guy was killed in New Mexico. Later, it was all BS. To save your political career you must vote for war for oil. We are an closet empire unmatched by any other in history.
You can't possibly be serious!
You know what...I think you should put all of your faith in Senator Clinton because she will give you exactly what you deserve...I guarantee it.
"The Plan" part 1
The plan, as the unseen rulers of the world see it, is working beautifully. They orchestrated the attacks of 9/11 which put most of America on board with their phony "war on terror" -- a terror whom they have authored. The media, including the Left "blogosphere," terrified of their being lumped with the "terrorists," slavishly kowtow to the fake reality the rulers create for them, by turns ridiculing and demonizing 9/11 researchers and activists. The sponsors/advertizers do their slavish part by rewarding media which whore themselves to the false picture. The public does its part, as it has for millennia, getting a living and going along. The great promise of decentralization and interactive media of the Internet and blogging has thus far barely dented that particular trait of the masses. The question is: are the opposition (to the rulers' agenda) blogosphere content? Does they recognize the seeds of their own collapse, as more and more millions awaken to the truth that the blogosphere has become complicit, if it were ever otherwise?
Now the rulers have shifted gears, and the clever media, including the incredibly hip Huffington Post, having in its wisdom decreed opposition to the government's version of 9/11 "nutty," must continue to grope through the dark while trying to look cool as they make one moral misstep after another. "I can't criticize William Jefferson Clinton for his part in the Iraq genocide," say they, "or I might appear to be with the Islamists. I can't turn an honest eye to 9/11 investigation, or I might endanger our 2008 given. Therefore, I'm sorry to admit, I can't respond to the latest shift in the rulers' tactics (their suggestion further 9/11s are necessary), because I have no authority or credibility to do so."
Asanismasa got it right. Plan has always been to stay as long as possible. Spend as much as possible for the military contractors, claim as much star chamber powers as possible, support oil prices as long as possible. There is a general maxim in the law that is ignored when it comes to Bush. We presume that someone intended the consequence of their actions when they profit from the consequences. Just look at the consequences and tell me they had no plan. the plan has always been to stay and stay and stay.
I know that a large part of America believes that Russia fell because Reagan undid their evil empire, but I think that a big reason was that they were on the brink of financial collapse from their worldwide ventures, especially Afghanistan..... somewhat like the half a trillion (conservatively) that our country has wasted in Irag.
And with the government borrowing in the private sector competing with the average consumer, of course interest rates have risen, making it harder to get a home loan or refinance an old loan. Thus, the huge bumps in foreclosures. So, this war is costing, lives, money, and the future of our economy. Oh, well, easy come, easy go.
With all the billions of dollars we've poured into Iraq we might as well make it into a US state! I don't think, ever in our history, we've given away that much to a nation that doesn't even want to do our bidding.
Half a trillion vs. 12 trillion in oil in Iraq. You do the math. We're staying until the bitter end of their oil.
Capitalism as a mantra is greedy and immoral because it causes people to lie and steal. It was a means of exchange, not a justification to kill.
Democracy cannot co-exist for long with an unregulated capitalistic system because the capitalists figure out how to buy the votes.
Maybe the plan all along has been to HAVE NO PLAN. If we have no plan to withdraw, then we cannot withdraw. Bush has said it and it's in writing, he wants to trap the next president, Dem or Repub, in Iraq forever. Anything else he says about it is a lie. Damn, if only the Democrats weren't such cowards. Ah, well...
Won't the decider decide? You know - the commander guy.
Would you jeopardise your cradle to grave benefits to tell this idiot the truth? Don't look for any Doug MacArthur in today's military.
Darin, you're missing the obvious.
There is no plan to get out Iraq because they don't plan on leaving Iraq. Bush and the neocons want permanent U.S. bases in the middle east. They're building an embassy the size of a palace. This isn't just a temporary occupation, it is an imperial land grab.
And do you really want these war mongers making withdrawal plans, after all of their other "brilliant" plans went so smashingly well?
They're answer will be to leave Iraq through Iran, and then swim home to the U.S. you know, taking the same path that the terrorists would take when they follow us home.
True, all true but... It amazes me that a lot of people miss the obvious connection to six years ago.
Precisely correct.
And a grotesque, "high crime," abuse of Presidential power it is.
The armed forces of the United States do not exist to make a wealthy oil-baron cum weapons-salesman richer than he already is.
We must(!) recognize this crime and deal with it as the Constitution proscribes: impeachment. We do not HAVE a choice.
Did Hillary ever get a response from Gates on the withdrawal plan question? Substance, not the stupid name-calling from the Dep. Secy.
The Emperor's Plan: "Do what I want when I want -- voters, congress, international law be damned."
Objectively, it's a stretch to apply quotes from the famous rebels to anyone who rubber stamped the Emporer's imperial adventure.
It's a bit late for an enabler or her likeminded husband to gain respectability by pointing out their orders would result in "safer" conditions for the stormtroopers.
beavis: "he said plan"
butthead: "heh...hehheh...heh
Cheney : "He said plan"
Rumsfeld : "heh...hehhehe...heh"
They had no plan going in and plan to stay forever.
Why do you even expect them to invent a withdrawal plan?
They'll get out when the oil runs out.
Why don't Americans want to understand this simple truth - we went in for the oil and we will stay until every drop is gone.
Did we leave North America without Indian land? Americans want to believe their own myths about being superior to everyone else. That's why religion has grown here - to cover up the guilt of greed of a system that values money above everything else.
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