larry--

It's not that he doesn't get it. It's essential to the fundamental lie that has been the foundation of this war that it is about terrorism.

That's all he's got. He has promised Americans, from the beginning, that he invaded Iraq to keep terrorists out of the United States. That was never a claim that could be supported by any evidence whatsover, but, I presume, it focus grouped well.

It's not gonna work anymore.

Most bizarre in the speech was his declaration that the Iraqi Parliament would pass legislation that he has demanded it pass. Leave aside that there is no quorum at the moment. What does that say about the sovereignity of the Maliki government?

and if he does get the Iraqi Parliament back into session it will be because Moktada al Sadr comes back. good grief!

2) Let on that he is planning to go into Iran/Syria. (When he talked about destroying camps where Iranians and Syrians are training insurgents)

The idea of opening up new fronts and false fronts at that is really scary.

true dat.

You're stuck between hopelessly clueless or utterly nefarious liar.

And stupidly shortsighted to boot. What's Bush got to bring to bear against al Sadr? Moqtada has shut down the parliament. He controls a militia that represents very serious opposition in block to block fighting, and he also controls incipient citizen guerillas.

All I can conclude is that this is the best stall he could come up with.

Once again, how many seconds did it take before he invoked 9/11 again?

And instead of winding down US involvement in the region he intends to pull an Emeril Lagasse (BAM!) by creating a new war front with Iran.

His arrogant patronizing of the sacrifices our troops are making is simply unbearable. And while he blithers on about "freedom" and "democracy" in Iraq, he's asserting some twisted Constitutional right to open our mail without a warrant.

The whole circus needs to end.

Sadr is a street thug just like Saddam Hussein. Sadr is a Shiite cleric and Saddam was a secularist Sunni, but their methods of accumulating power are very similar. Sadr's Mahdi Army must be disbanded but it's doubtful that Maliki has the power or will and we don't even know if Sadr completely controls his own army or if he is beholden to other Shia warlords.

"President Bush is like a gambler who has lost everything, but yet continues to try to salvage his fortunes by doubling down one more time. The problem is that he's gambling with other people's lives. There is no military solution to the problems in Iraq -- Bush must recognize this reality." Rep. Jose Serrano - Dem-NY

powerful poetry and scary as hell.

Leading up to the speech, I was recalling the Nixon escalation speech where he outlined the mining of Haiphong (sp?) Harbor and the bombing of Cambodia. I was quite young and pre-politically aware, but I found it all very exciting and I remember feeling I was witnessing history being made. A year or two later and I was quite aware and anti-war. The other thing I remember was the seriousness of the post speech commentary on the networks and the time devoted to analyzing the implications.

Tonight I watched a bizarre Bush, reading his teleprompter like an automaton; no emotion, no passion, no indication that he even cares what befalls the US or Iraq. I honestly think he just wants the next 2 years to be over with so he can get back to clearing brush at the ranch. I was watching NBC. They gave about 5 minutes to "analysis", then hurried back to the all-important episode of Deal or No Deal.

I agree with a few others here that the real point of all this is to prepare for attacking Iran - get more troops in theatre and get more naval and air assets into the region for a bombing campaign.

This country is doomed unless we can muster the passion necessary for a double impeachment of these craven, lying war criminals. Anything short of that is an acceptance that our country has completely lost our soul.

UA

The addition of the Carrier attack group to the Gulf is to attempt to provoke Iran into using the new armaments that they have. If they work as well as the upscaled RPG's that were used against the Israeli tanks, in Luigi Vampa's words:

We're fucked.

Not only would our Navy suffer a killer stroke on a ship- no, that would be the smallest part of the suffering.

It would give the Chimp-in-Chief the excuse to translate "The Way Forward" into what Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith, and the Zionistas wanted all along-

"The Way into Iran"

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada

William Lind, an 'old fashion' conservative type who is a recognized authority on 4th generation war, discussed a Stalingrad type scenario if Iran is attacked:

.....Unbeatable militaries are like unsinkable ships. They are unsinkable until someone or something sinks them.

If the U.S. were to lose the army it has in Iraq, to Iraqi militias, Iranian regular forces, or a combination of both (the most likely event), the world would change. It would be our Adrianople, our Rocroi, our Stalingrad. American power and prestige would never recover......

link

Bush is still in kick ass mode. He is still an idiot. He still commands a military that is still loyal to its Commander in Chief. He still has the support of powerful people who approve of and support his power grabs as President. He still has the confidence of, what now, Twenty five percent of our neighbors.

He predicted many American and Iraqi casualties in the next year. He still has the power to guarantee that. He also threatened Iran.
>

Now, now... careful.

You'll get Daalder's choir singing their "Decency" song to us all again.  Could you at least tone it down to cscs' bush is a "dumbass" level.  I could live with that.

______________________________________

“I, ..., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

With Sheriff Dick and Deputy Dubya you can take your choice of either stupidity or criminality. Either they don't know what to do and so they just can't do anything right, or they can very well do something they shouldn't and just won't tell us about it. Of course, Israel could just have duped them into stupidly doing something criminal in pursuit of Israel's interests in which case that leaves them looking both stupid AND criminal from the viewpoint of American interests. Characterize these Mayberry Machiavellis any way you like, but their ruinous reign has done nothing but harm America.

Israel seems pretty pleased, though, and would just love to see Dimwit Dubya blunder into Iran, as well. Tough shit how many Americans and Iranians die. With "friends" (or eternal dependent pets) like the Israelis, who needs enemies?

America must leave the governing of Iraq to Iraqi's.

The fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government are expert in the black arts of, slime, propaganda, and disinformaion, and have succeeded in perpetuating a few exceedngly dangerous and PATENTLY FALSE fictions, myths, and partisan parables with regard to 9/11, the socalled neverendingwaronterror, al Quaida, Iraq, and the shapeshifting slurry of "evildoers".

First, the fascist chickenhawks, imperialist corporatist, and satanic obdurate heartless brutes in the Bush, and government and every single office, agency, organization, and individual in the Bush government, - and America’s half a trillion dollar US defense industry, - and $44bn intelligence apparatus were thoroughly and soundly DEFEATED on 9/11, by 19 jihadist mass murderers (15 Saudi's) using box cutters and our airplanes.

There is quite obviously some very scary and whacky math in these equations and calculus.

Now, don't get me started with the creepy kissing and freaky interpenetration with the Bush Crime Family Cabal's and the "good friends", and America's sworn enemies in SA, - but the incontrovertible FACTBASEDREALITY, - and one the disinformation warrios , sloganeers, and profiteers in the Bush government, and the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM, CANNOT and will not ever legitimately excuse, ignore, deny, cloak, or fly away from - is that 9/11 happened on the Bush governments watch.

9/11 happened on the Bush government's watch!

9/11 happened on the Bush government's watch - and there was plenty of national intelligence estimates, dire warnings, and Able Danger reportage that the fools, or fellow conspirators in the Bush government tragically for whatever unknown unknown reason IGNORED and then cravenly cloaked.

The Bush government was either complicit, (google Indira Singh, Sibel Edmonds, Ptech, and Wolfgang Bohringer, "Vigilant Gaurdian" and "Vigilant Warrior", for starters if you dare and get back to me) - or these chickenhawks and fascists were woefully, criminally incompetent.

Either way, the fictions, myths, partisan parables, fascist homilies, and PATENTLY FALSE Bush government narratives regarding 9/11 are hollow, meaningless, and moot.

America has never had a real investigation into the horrors and mass murder of 9/11. The socalled 9/11 investigation is a pathetic partisan whitewash, that cloaked more that it unearthed, and that only holds water for fanaticus truebelievers and the ignorant, or people incapable of reading, - and it is a grotesque injustice and disservice to all Americans.

The key point I am making is that al Quaida, the socalled neverendingwaronterror, the Iraq horrorshow, and evildoers are pathetic Bush government conjured constructs.

Are American's and socalled realists expected to believe that these jihadist cavemen are truly a threat to our way of life and the unique experiment that WAS America's democracy.

The fascist in the Bush government are the real threat to our way of life and what little remains of our democracy.

Framing this conflict against jihadist mass murderers as a "WAR" or in any terms linking to "WAR" is a fundamental component of the disinformation and propaganda disinformation warfare campaigns the fascist Bush government ruthlessly and ghoulishly exploited and used as a "Pearl Harbor like event" to mesmerize and terrorize the American people into turning a blind eye to, or robopathically condoning the NAZIFICATION of America and the perpetuation of the psychotic Pax Americana neverendingwar and empire agenda pimped by the fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government.

The neverendingwaronterror, or "GOW" is a PATENT LIE, perpetuated by pathological liars, sloganeers, and disinformation warriors who singularly and exclusively, - not to mention wantonly - PROFIT from its’ prosecution and perpetuation.

The only human beings on earth that benefit in any way from these ghoulish, bloody, costly, noendinsight, and obscenely PROFITABLE machinations, policies, and horrorshows - are select klans, cabals, cartels, coteries, cronies, and oligarchs in, or beholden to the fascists in the Bush government.

The rest of America, all Iraqi's, and most of the rest of the world are either paying a terrible enormous price for these CRIMES, or working feverishly to counter the hegemony, imperialism, predation, and wanton profiteering of the fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government.

As we see in Somalia, - the best way to deal with jihadists, salafists, wahabi's and the malignant freaks that perpetuate the mass murder and psychotic mass murdering insanity of jihadist islam, - is to hunt, capture, and kill every single one of them, and all those who aid and abet them.

These efforts involve covert, intelligence-centric, POLICE actions, not massive land invasion and occupation scenariors or the missallocation of blood and treasure in rabid pursuit of the socalled neverendingwaronterror.

Like all gangs and gangbangers past and present from John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, and Al Copone, to Pablo Escobar and The Cali cand Medellin Cartels, - to the modern mafia's all over the world, - wise and intelligent leadership must conduct LEGAL and ruthless police actions, (which may or may not involve military assets and resources) involving under-cover, covert, deep cover, assets, resources, and systems and all the counter terrorist tools available in a coordinated and concerted effort to ruthlessly hunt, capture, or kill every single mass murderer on the planet, and all those who aid and abet them.

Just as local police services collaborate with, collate and utilize information from a wide variety of intelligence sources in the determined and ruthless hunt for any mass murder that would plague any city, - so we must direct our focus, energy, resources, and assets, (and every police, military, intelligence, or ninja tool in the shed ) on hunting, capturing, or killing every jihadist mass murder on the planet, and all those who aid and abet them.

This hunt, these police actions will, and must include all the jihadist mass murderer gangs including Hamas, Hesbollah, al Aqsa, Islama Jamiyaa, al Quaida, blah, blah, blah, - those shaitans and freaks called the Janjaweed in the Dafur, Chechen jihadist - all of them, everywhere on earth, and all those who aid and abet them, should and must be relentlessly and ruthlessly hunted, captured, or killed.

We can all applaud the painless, relatively inexpensive, and easy slaughtering from the air of the jihadists mass murderers in Somalia. Bravo.

Why did the Bush government wait so long?

Why are Hamas, Hesbollah, al Aqsa, Islama Jamiyaa, et al. somehow immune from the Bush government terrible swift sword. How hard can it be? These mass murderering hordes are not superpowers, with air and sea power. Most of them fight with AK-47's, RPG's, and IED's, and though the technicals in Somalia have heavier weapons, small boats, they are no match for puff the majik dragon C-131’s and the hell and fury our hypersuperior military can and should unleash upon them whenever they are discovered or rear their mass murderering heads.

These targeted strikes should not be based on political expediancy, as this Somalia espisode would appear to be, - but on tactical and strategic necessity.

That said, - invading, occupying, and marauding sovereign nations, slaughtering thousands of the victim nations innocent civilians in the process, conducting religious reformations, and forcing perverted political constructs upon the people of the victim nation, erecting puppet governments bowing to, and perpetuating the will and way of the invading, occupying, marauding, slaughtering force, - and that imperialist fascist invading, occypying, slaughter force PROFITEERING wantonly in and from the bloody, costly, and unholy process is TYRANNY, IMPERIALISM, and FASCISM, - not liberation, or promoting democracy, or minimizing threats to America.

The fascists (Vulcans/neocons) in the Bush government are pathological liars. Nothing they say or do, has any semblance of, or basis in reality, or the slightest glimmer of truth, credibility, or legitimacy.

Unless and until America garners the courage and the wisdom to recognize that our government is commandeered by FASCIST, criminals, and war profiteers, - America's future, and the future for most of the world will continue to be a bloody, costly, deceptive, pursuit of neverendingwar, and American hegemony through military force and control of oil resources.

Sorry for the long post, - but please -
"Deliver us from evil!"

It is so painful to watch this unfold.
I could envision Maliki being told by Moktada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, exactly how to lead the American troops into an ambush.
How to act surprised at the level of resistance. Shaming, embarrassing the "Greatest military in the world"
Bush then coming on the tube invoking Remember the Alamo, The Sinking of the Maine, possible response statement "We can't let this go unanswered, because the enemy will be emboldened even more." Besides we have to remember all those who have given their lives, to promote freedom (as defined by the US and it's SOLE interests)

Baghdad will represent the New Berlin, surrounded by enemies armed with surface to air missiles. probably the ones we gave Bin Laden to fight the Soviets. So a massive airlift might eventually be necessary but very risky. So again what is gained by securing Baghdad?

“Freedom’s just another word , for nothing left to lose “

Maybe the plan all along was, and still is, to keep the sectarian violence perpetuated, so that Iraq can't unite according to it's design, it's own self determination, because American interests wouldn't be served.
For that reason, why doesn't Bush just take the oil fields outright, instead of suggesting that the Iraq parliament sign the bill allowing sharing of revenues. If he’s so afraid of oil revenue supporting terrorist , take away the revenue source.

We take the oil and we sell the Iraqi's what they need, we could kill to birds at once. Control the oil and control the commerce. Norm Coleman get your I TEAM together, oil for food will be chump change. We could control all commerce in and out of Iraq, if only we could rid these outside trade routes. Of course we'd have to deflect criticism, we'll claim to be protecting Iraq’s borders her Sovereignty. ( In fact England showed the colonies how to work that economic slavery)

Maybe I'm to cynical, but this is Deja vu or **** you,

Possible thought processing before making speech
Is it possible, that thoughts like these could cross the mind of someone lacking humility. "I'm Commander and Chief, and mistakes were made. (So sue me) I didn't quash the resistance sooner. I couldn't convince the American people to turn in their neighbors, you know the ones who weren't with us, the traitors Dick and I and lackeys called them, and their co conspirators, the weak American press and those pesky minority Democrats. We should have fired Shinseki as soon as we took power. Big mistake."

"Now we have to prevent the overthrow of the Saudi Royal Family, if they have to send their sons into war, it would be unpopular and could cause unrest, maybe topple my buddies. Not to fear I'll put my subjects in harms way. At least that's what my advisors told me, AIPAC think tanks think. "

" to hell with our hemisphere, (Chavez has oil, he's next). Moderate Arab nations (Ones that like US) and Europe are depending on me to deliver our blood and treasure to the alter of fire, for the sacrificial rite."
"I'd better call it the alter of liberty" " Maybe I could convince the public of the coming Apocalypse and scare them into sacrificing their blood to God.

Just some thoughts.

PRIDE BEFORE THE FALL

Mr. President , Mr. Commander and Chief , do you think you could humble yourself and apologize to this man, do you think that when you tell us you’ll take full responsibility for the countless and unnecessary deaths you could call this man and ask for his forgiveness or ours.

I doubt you'll ever be man enough to say "I'm sorry"

Eric Ken Shinseki
He is famous for his remarks to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee before the war in Iraq in which he said "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for post-war Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly disagreed with his estimate.[1]
When the insurgency took hold in post-war Iraq, Shinseki's comments and their public rejection by the civilian leadership were often cited by those who felt the Bush administration deployed too few troops to Iraq. On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, USCENTCOM CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid said that General Shinseki's estimate had proved correct

Thanks Mr. Johnson.

Going over this again ... terrorism is a tactic ... not a person, a group, a movement, a country, a state, a region, an ethnicity nor a religion.

It is a very old tactic. cf. the New England wars between the Wampanoag and British colonists during the 1600s being one of innumerable examples.

Thanks.

How is securing Baghdad – even if it can be accomplished, which I doubt - supposed to translate into “success” in Iraq in the long term?

Isn't it clear? "Breathing space..."

I didn't have the same take on Durbin's speech. I do agree that it did not respond closely enough to what Bush actually said (but, do responses ever do that?). But what he did say was very important, and I think was the center of his remarks -- 20K troops are not enough to stop the violence, and too many to commit at this point in time.

The 911 comment, I agree was the wrong wording. It's not like they are calling us for help -- in fact, they want us out. What I think he was trying to say, was that we are not forcing their hand, that the longer we remain in Iraq without benchmarks, the longer we'll be there. We need an endpoint, and we don't have an open-ended commitment.

I do think the Dem position is more thoughtful than you characterized, but I agree that did not come through enough last night. The takeaway line, as I mentioned, was about the 20K troops, but there should have been more.  

Dissent Protects Democracy.