WASHINGTON, June 10 — President Bush's two-day strategy session starting Monday at Camp David is intended to revive highly tangible efforts to shore up Iraq's new government, from getting the electricity back on in Baghdad to purging the security forces of revenge-seeking militias, White House officials said.
Three years of efforts to accomplish those goals have largely failed. Billions of dollars have been spent on both electricity and security, yet residents of Baghdad get only five to eight hours of power a day, and the American ambassador acknowledged on Friday that the city is "more insecure now than it was a few months ago."
One of the senior officials involved in the strategy session characterized it as a "last, best chance to get this right," an implicit acknowledgment that previous American-led efforts had gone astray.
Sigh.
If I could even bring myself to care anymore, I think both my eyes would be giant bloody pools of subconjunctival hemorrhages from the righteous--and not irrational--anger at all the horseshit that has come from our gubment since the "Straightshooter" came to Wershington.
For three fucking years this guy has been telling us we've been making great progress. For three fucking years an insane right wing army of bloggers and "pundits" have been slandering and maligning anyone who even dared to question whether we've been making "progress" in Iraq. For three fucking years the entire Republican propaganda machine has done nothing but ensure that any possible debate over Iraq was so muddied with accusations of treason and Saddam loving and terrorist sympathizing that, well, for three fucking years hardly anyone has had any kind of intelligent debate over Iraq.
And, after all this time, after all this money, after all these dead and mangled Americans, some sumbitch in the White House admits that all it's previous efforts have "gone astray" and that now is its "last best chance"???
Good God.
You get this, don't you? This is an administration that would straight faced swear that the moon is made out of cheese even while astronauts are standing on that great cold hunk of rock, collecting samples of everything but cheese.
This is an administration which told us this war would be quick, cheap, and it would pay for itself. This administration told us again, and again, and again, that great progress was being made.
And now? Time's running out for this administration.
There's only so much longer that the truth can be kept hidden from the American people.
We've gone from "no mistakes" and "great progress" to thousands of mistakes and new plans to make progress from our bazillion mistakes which were all, really, just a learning experience.
Suddenly, the most arrogant, most self-righteous, most self-certain administration in American history can't stop admitting how many mistakes its made!
Jesus Christ. This thing is so much worse than you can even imagine.
If these lying, reality creating, bullshitting, true believers are starting to say, "Well, a lot of mistakes were made", you can take your worst, most partisan, paranoid imaginations and multiply them by ten.
No matter how that debate turns out, Congress has made clear that its willingness to pay for more Iraqi reconstruction is just about exhausted. Both American and Iraqi officials now acknowledge that they will have to seek billions in investment and aid from Persian Gulf nations that have been unwilling to contribute many dollars or any soldiers.
That's the Republican controlled Congress, the Congress which refuses to have any hearings on Iraq at all. And they've let the White House know that there's no more money for "reconstruction".
And they're well appraised of what that money has been spent on and how well it's been spent.
And they're telling the White House: no more.
How amazingly fucked up do you even begin to think the Iraqi "reconstruction" is? How out of control is this horrendous fiasco?
Well, here's a hint:
Mr. Bush on Friday made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts.
Oh, no, no, no, no!
The administration has not "begun" to look into the costs of a permanent American presence in Iraq! That's a done deal.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an
Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.
And how could Congressional Republicans not kill such a provision since the Bush White House has been building permanent military bases in Iraq since 2004?
And how could we not need permanent bases in Iraq? With these utterly idiotic simpletons running the government of the greatest country in the world?
"None of these problems — or even the solutions that are being proposed — are new," said one former senior official who worked extensively on reconstruction, but did not want his name published because he still deals with the administration regularly. "What's been lacking is the political will."
Administration officials say they are not trying to reinvent the reconstruction, but rather relaunch it. "Everybody views the completion of a truly unity government as a moment of opportunity," Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush's senior counselor, said Friday in his office at the White House. "That is exactly why this meeting is taking place now."
Oh, my God.
There are no new solutions. Then we are out of ideas, and we are fucked. Iraq is over. It is an endless empty hole to pour idealistic Americans and freshly minted dollar bills into. For no good reason at all.
I'll pass on the obvious Hitler analogy with the whole "what's been lacking is political will" thing. Though, really, it's Hitleresque. Actually, it's not even Hitleresque. It's totally Hitler. It's so Hitler that the former administration official should have his mustache shaved totally Hitler queer and one of his little Hitler balls removed.
And then he should have to goose step around, with only one nut and
a totally stupid looking mustache, all the while shouting in gutteral
German that he's a former senior administration official who doesn't
want his name being used because the ghost of Simon Wiesenthal is hot
on his trail.
But forget the whole creepy Dr. Strangelove thing
that's been going on at the highest levels of the greatest country in
the world. Just forget it.
Just try to deal with the insanely,
depressing idea that the White House, panicking and spinning furiously,
is just now, because the end is near, starting to leak to the American
people that we, the United States are not "reinventing" the
reconstruction, but, after three years of admitted failure,
"relaunching" it.
Actually, don't try to deal with it.
Go to the beach. Get a new hobby. Buy a pet.
Whatever.
The modern Gee Oh Pee has fucked your gubment for the rest of your lives. And it's too late to unfuck it now.
And the next Democratic President will get all of the blame.
Posted by: merlallen | June 12, 2006 at 11:09 AM
All the blame is what always happens, republicans screw it up, democrats come in, clean up the mess and then get booted out for being the always right but pain in the butt parent. Tehn the cycle repeats, only this time the looting has guaranteed that social security, medicare, etc is gone, gone, gone for anyone currently alive in the US. Of course that was always the plan.
You know what political ads I want to see this election cycle? Ones that print out on the screen (for all the mute button folks) how much each 500 lb bomb costs, and then the equivalent of what that money would buy of such things as schools; you know, useless social investments like that. I'd really like something that links the cost of the war to how much everyone's social security check is going to be reduced (or eliminated), but I suppose that would be just too damned scary. The national networks would refuse to run it anyway since it would be too inflamatory and uncomfortable for the corporate overlords who have taken over every aspect of the country and social discourse.
I agree with Ricky, thay have fucked the country so well that unfucking it is no longer possible, we've already fallen over the tipping point. And it makes me want to scream but instead I am looking at immigrating to someplace less insane. I can't believe it has come down to this, but it has.
Posted by: Kit E | June 12, 2006 at 11:22 AM
After the Dems win and fix this mess by being the "pain in the butt good parent" the Rethugs will pull the Born Again Virgin card and retake the government, hoping everyone will forget what it was like being screwed over and over again.
Posted by: Bruce | June 12, 2006 at 01:28 PM