Further Proof that Nothing Is Getting Done In Iraq

Loney, it's almost like you think "accomplished" and "completed" are synonyms.

Yeah, MS Word says they are, but what does that prove?

 

Well by that reasoning what has been accomplished. Outing Saddam? Creating anarchistic hell hole? Siphoning off our children's futures by providing no bid contracts to Halliburton and Bechtel. I guess he was right. Mission Accomplished.

 

You think a lot of things that are not true.

 

mannyfreshstunna, the problem is with what both sides consider "nothing getting done". For example, suppose that Bush the Younger said that he was going to build a house on some land. But it turns out there there are a bunch of weeds there. You just posted a link to an article about pulling weeds, which is fine and all. But it doesn't have anything to do with building the house. You could pull weeds from now until doomsday, but the weed pulling won't accompish anything by itself.

 

No, that's not what they meant.

That's what they say they meant now, but it isn't. The White House tried to go back and change their web page, forgetting about Google caches. (If you want, I can link to it - I'm being lazy about it now, but I think it was on the Atrios blog, and a couple of other places.) This "major" combat operations crap is straight out of Winston Smith's Ministry of Truth.

 

Hence, the need to rewrite history: http://www.nydailynews.com/08-21-2003/news/story/110888p-100188c.html

WASHINGTON - White House minions are editing history. After President Bush said last week that combat continues in Iraq, someone changed all the headlines and captions on the White House Web site from May 1 that had read, "President Bush announces combat operations in Iraq have ended."
All the references to Bush's globally televised aircraft carrier address now read, "President Bush announces major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

The addition of the word major is actually correct: That is what Bush said in his speech. But the old headlines were not changed until Monday - just before a Washington Post story comparing Bush's statements. A White House spokesman said: "There was a mistake made and it was caught. It was noticed that the headline was incorrect. The change was not made for any other reason."

So when's the 3ID coming home?

Oh, in case you were wondering? They shouldn't have stopped there with the edits. Here's what the miserable SOB said on the aircraft carrier he delayed so he could preen like a Roman dictator:

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on.

That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock troops of a hateful ideology, gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the beginning of the end of America.

By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve and force our retreat from the world.

They have failed.

In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their children. ....From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down Al Qaeda killers.

Nineteen months ago I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight nearly one half of Al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed.

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding.

And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th, the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got. ....Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed.

Fast-forward to September:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030919/pl_usatoday/11857429

Most Americans suspect that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, polls show. The Bush administration has said since before the war with Iraq that Iraq has ties to al-Qaeda, which carried out the plot.

Wednesday, however, President Bush said there was no solid evidence that Saddam was directly connected to the attacks on New York and Washington.

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th" attacks," Bush said in a brief encounter with reporters after a meeting with members of Congress. Bush added, "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties."

The president's remark followed a comment Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said he saw no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks. "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that," Rumsfeld said.

Funny that Bush didn't see fit to mention any of this on the deck of the Lincoln.

 

One major problem is that Bush shot our collective wad at the wrong target, and in the wrong way. He spent $140B, lost the lives and trust of many Americans, damaged our alliances in the international community, and now what? There are still real problems with Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan, with only the Brits and the Poles providing any significant support.

This was a war of choice that divided American opinion. Bush lied to us to get us to support the war. It was a huge mistake to go in there with guns blazing.

 

At least now we don't need to have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia waiting for the landlord to kick us out.

Syria now knows, without a doubt, what our military is capable of.

And Pakistan is helping. If you think we'll change the minds of extremists in this country I think you're wrong. No matter what we'll do they'll find an excuse to hate the US. They'd like to see us leave the region altogether, but let's face it, we need oil, you and I and the entire country.

What alternatives do you have?

 

Is this supposed to be irony? What they "know" is that our military is overextended, and we probably can't invade them, at least not without taking troops out of Iraq, which won't be good for security there.

 

HOw long do you think we'll be overextended for? Don't you think Syria will consider our capabilities past the present and immediate future?

 

I've been surprised by the level of cooperation extended by Musharif considering the displeasure of his populace with cooperating with us. Too bad the Saud clan won't do the same.