Published on Thursday, December 14, 2006 by the McClatchy <http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington> Newspapers
Bush's 'New Way Forward' Is into Quicksand by Joseph L. Galloway The power brokers in Washington spent the week carefully arranging fig leaves and tasteful screens to cover the emperor's nakedness while he was busy pretending to listen hard to everyone with an opinion about Iraq while hearing nothing. Sometime early in the New Year, President Bush will go on national television to tell a disgruntled American public what he's decided should be done to salvage "victory" from the jaws of certain defeat in the war he started. The word on the street, or in the Pentagon rings, is that he'll choose to beef up American forces on the ground in Iraq by 20,000 to 30,000 troops by various sleight-of-hand maneuvers - extending the combat tours of soldiers and Marines who are nearing an end to their second or third year in Hell and accelerating the shipment of others into that Hell - and send them into the bloody streets of Baghdad. These additional troops are expected to restore order and calm the bombers and murderers when 9,000 Americans already in the sprawling capital couldn't. They're expected to do this even when Bush's favorite (for now) Iraqi politician, Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al Maliki, refuses to allow them to act against his primary benefactor, the anti-American cleric Moqtada al Sadr and his Shiite Muslim Mahdi Army militiamen who kill both Americans and Sunni Arabs. This hardly amounts to a "new way forward" unless that definition includes a new path deeper into the quicksand of a tribal and religious civil war where whatever President Bush eventually decides is already inadequate and immaterial. The military commanders on the ground, from Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, to his generals in Iraq, have said flatly that more American troops aren't the answer and aren't wanted. For them, it's obvious that only a political decision - an Iraqi political decision - has even the possibility of producing an acceptable outcome. The White House hopes that its much-trumpeted reshuffling of a failed strategy and flawed tactics will buy time for their bad luck to change miraculously. That this time will be bought and paid for with the lives and futures of our soldiers and Marines - and their families - apparently means little to these wise men who've never heard a shot fired in anger. This president has made it painfully obvious that he has no intention of listening to anyone who doesn't believe that he's going to win in Iraq. He'll march stubbornly onward without any real change of course until high noon on January 20, 2009, when his successor will inherit both the hard decision to pull out of Iraq and the back bills for his reckless, feckless misadventure. The midterm election that handed control of Congress to the Democrats can be ignored. His own approval rating in the polls, now at an all-time low of 27 percent - likewise means little or nothing. Only President Bush's definition of reality carries any weight with him and therein lies the tragedy - both his and ours. Read the Full Article Here: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1214-29.htm News on the Real World Issues On 90.7 FM KPFK Or 98.7 FM Santa Barbara <blocked::blocked::http://www.kpfk.org/> http://www.kpfk.org/ <blocked::blocked::http://www.commondreams.org/> http://www.commondreams.org/ Ara [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
