Bubba's Pissed!
Hello everyone!
I think I'm having a good day, but let's wait until the September Report to see.
For those of you who haven't been following the story, General Petraeus, the Bush administration's pick to head up the military in Iraq, was due to give a report this month about the progress of the "SURGE", a strategery that the Bush administration wizards came up with. Basically, the plan was to bring in more soldiers and really ratchet up the violence in order to supposedly bring about peace.
That's right, a SURGE in violence=peace. Hey, at least the logic is consistent with the choice of names of other Bush administration brainchilds, such as the Clear Skies Initiative, which allowed an increase in pollution, or the Healthy Forests Initiative, which allowed more clearcut logging. Of course, since the numbskulls don't read past the name, many people thought they were good ideas. If the names had been more honest, nobody would've support them, but honesty isn't exactly a strong characteristic of this administration.
Anyway, Petraeus was supposed to give a "September Report" about how the SURGE was going. So all throughout the summer whenever the Democrats tried to set a withdrawal date or cut war funding, the Republicans kept saying, "Let's wait until the Petraeus report and see if the SURGE is working or not. You wouldn't want to abandon the troops, now, would you?"
So Congress spent the summer seeing and reading about all the bodies piling up, wondering if the SURGE was working or not. And wouldn't you know it, about a month prior, it was widely reported that White House officials wrote the Petraeus report, not Petraeus.
When September came around, Petraeus testified under oath that he wrote the report himself. But this doesn't change the fact that the report that he gave is the same old crap that the Bush administration has been spewing for years, essentially: "Everything is peachy keen."
Of course, now the droolers can say, "See, he wrote the report himself. That proves that everything in it must be true." Which of course begs the question: if the White House had written it, would that prove that everything in it was a lie? Probably.
To me, this sounds like a play out of Karl Rove's book: anonymously release a piece of bogus "evidence" that actually supports the truth, then point out that that one piece of evidence is bogus so as to discredit the entire argument. Hey, it worked on Dan Rather.
Lost in the whole debate was how much fudging of facts Petraeus did in his report. This prompted website MoveOn.org to take out a full page ad in The New York Times with the headline, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Catchy, isn't it?
Among the facts that the ad lists: Petraeus has been saying we've been making progress for over three years, despite practically all evidence pointing to the contrary; that this summer has been the deadliest summer since we've been there in terms of US soldier deaths; that the Pentagon no longer counts the deaths from car bombs as casualties; that "sectarian fighting" only counts when a person gets shot in the back of the head, not in the front; and much more.
So in light of all this evidence, how did the Congress react? Did they pass a resolution to set a withdrawal date? Did they withhold funding for the war? Did they pass a resolution to change strategy in Iraq? Did they launch an investigation into the accuracy of the report? Did they condemn the Bush administration for misrepresenting the facts? Did they condemn Petraeus?
Nope. Instead, they voted to condemn MoveOn.org.
It didn't matter that everything in the ad was true. What mattered was that they called him "General Betray Us." It's a good thing that Petraeus changed his name when he was young. I wonder what they would've called General Buckhead?
Speaking of Buckheads, President Bush called the ad "disgusting", and that he "felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military." It's the same old, same old--if you criticize anything about the war, you're criticizing the troops. And if anything goes wrong, it's not because of the people who are running the war, it's because a website takes out an ad in a newspaper.
And we're still not talking about the points made by the ad (well, we are--you and I... although I'm doing all the talking... and I'm not really talking, just typing--but I mean the mainstream media is not talking).
Over the years, I disagreed with many of the policies of the Bill Clinton administration--NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the handling of the Branch Davidians in Waco, and the bombing of Kosovo to name a few. But I have to admit, he was spot on here (though he's not talking about the points made in the ad, either):
Of course, the vultures are circling. And the same bunch of knuckle-draggers are terribly outraged at Bill's comments and the fact that Hillary voted against condemning MoveOn.org. I guess with all that outrage, there's not any left to be outraged about the bodies piling up in Iraq.
Rob
I think I'm having a good day, but let's wait until the September Report to see.
For those of you who haven't been following the story, General Petraeus, the Bush administration's pick to head up the military in Iraq, was due to give a report this month about the progress of the "SURGE", a strategery that the Bush administration wizards came up with. Basically, the plan was to bring in more soldiers and really ratchet up the violence in order to supposedly bring about peace.
That's right, a SURGE in violence=peace. Hey, at least the logic is consistent with the choice of names of other Bush administration brainchilds, such as the Clear Skies Initiative, which allowed an increase in pollution, or the Healthy Forests Initiative, which allowed more clearcut logging. Of course, since the numbskulls don't read past the name, many people thought they were good ideas. If the names had been more honest, nobody would've support them, but honesty isn't exactly a strong characteristic of this administration.
Anyway, Petraeus was supposed to give a "September Report" about how the SURGE was going. So all throughout the summer whenever the Democrats tried to set a withdrawal date or cut war funding, the Republicans kept saying, "Let's wait until the Petraeus report and see if the SURGE is working or not. You wouldn't want to abandon the troops, now, would you?"
So Congress spent the summer seeing and reading about all the bodies piling up, wondering if the SURGE was working or not. And wouldn't you know it, about a month prior, it was widely reported that White House officials wrote the Petraeus report, not Petraeus.
When September came around, Petraeus testified under oath that he wrote the report himself. But this doesn't change the fact that the report that he gave is the same old crap that the Bush administration has been spewing for years, essentially: "Everything is peachy keen."
Of course, now the droolers can say, "See, he wrote the report himself. That proves that everything in it must be true." Which of course begs the question: if the White House had written it, would that prove that everything in it was a lie? Probably.
To me, this sounds like a play out of Karl Rove's book: anonymously release a piece of bogus "evidence" that actually supports the truth, then point out that that one piece of evidence is bogus so as to discredit the entire argument. Hey, it worked on Dan Rather.
Lost in the whole debate was how much fudging of facts Petraeus did in his report. This prompted website MoveOn.org to take out a full page ad in The New York Times with the headline, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Catchy, isn't it?
Among the facts that the ad lists: Petraeus has been saying we've been making progress for over three years, despite practically all evidence pointing to the contrary; that this summer has been the deadliest summer since we've been there in terms of US soldier deaths; that the Pentagon no longer counts the deaths from car bombs as casualties; that "sectarian fighting" only counts when a person gets shot in the back of the head, not in the front; and much more.
So in light of all this evidence, how did the Congress react? Did they pass a resolution to set a withdrawal date? Did they withhold funding for the war? Did they pass a resolution to change strategy in Iraq? Did they launch an investigation into the accuracy of the report? Did they condemn the Bush administration for misrepresenting the facts? Did they condemn Petraeus?
Nope. Instead, they voted to condemn MoveOn.org.
It didn't matter that everything in the ad was true. What mattered was that they called him "General Betray Us." It's a good thing that Petraeus changed his name when he was young. I wonder what they would've called General Buckhead?
Speaking of Buckheads, President Bush called the ad "disgusting", and that he "felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military." It's the same old, same old--if you criticize anything about the war, you're criticizing the troops. And if anything goes wrong, it's not because of the people who are running the war, it's because a website takes out an ad in a newspaper.
And we're still not talking about the points made by the ad (well, we are--you and I... although I'm doing all the talking... and I'm not really talking, just typing--but I mean the mainstream media is not talking).
Over the years, I disagreed with many of the policies of the Bill Clinton administration--NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the handling of the Branch Davidians in Waco, and the bombing of Kosovo to name a few. But I have to admit, he was spot on here (though he's not talking about the points made in the ad, either):
Of course, the vultures are circling. And the same bunch of knuckle-draggers are terribly outraged at Bill's comments and the fact that Hillary voted against condemning MoveOn.org. I guess with all that outrage, there's not any left to be outraged about the bodies piling up in Iraq.
Rob
Labels: Betray Us, Bill Clinton, Iraq, MoveOn.org, Petraeus
posted by Rob at 8:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home