Dickie's Quickies

Well, well, well, it's become official. Bush has announced that he plans on withdrawing the troops from Iraq in 2006. This blog yawns at the announcement. I applaud bringing the troops home, but I suspected that the plan was to bring them home in significant numbers before the mid-term election in order to help bolster chances for Republicans to maintain their hold on Congress. In other words, like all things Rove, it was a political decision and this crap about caring about the Iraqi people or our troops is exactly that - crap.

Of course, Bush is losing allies right and righter on this war. From that article:

Columnist George Will points out that Iraq, Iran and North Korea are "more dangerous than they were" in 2002. Blogger Andrew Sullivan says "we have learned a tough lesson."

Really, Andrew? I thought we learned that lesson in Vietnam and that the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spaniards learned it much earlier.

And then there's William F. Buckley Jr., who judges that Bush "has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements."

Suggests Buckley: "The kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat."

Defeat for the misguided and deadly foreign policy initiatives by the Republicans. Defeat for the Iraqi population which has replaced a despot (a good thing) with a civil war. Defeat for the neoconservatives whose idealism led them to ignore the history of the region and the current political balance in the hopes of creating a well of democratic progress which they naively assumed would back U.S. initiatives because we brought them democracy (Hamas said "Thank you, now get the fuck out.") Defeat for generals who compromised their integrity and troop lives by towing the Bush line instead of telling the truth about the costs and the numbers needed to accomplish the task. But surely not defeat for the troops who went out against these heavy odds and attempted to carry out this incredibly stupid plan.

Hell, even the Iranian dissidents are pleading with our leaders NOT to spend money promoting democracy in their country. Will the Republicans listen? No. Guaranteed.

On a bright note for Republican leaders, porn star Mary Carey will be back at the fund raisers this year at invitation of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Hey, I'm all for porn stars being politically active. I'm sure it plays well with the family values crowd. Perhaps Pat Robertson will invite her on some time soon?