Military Escalation: Bush Can't Kick the Habit

[Great Spirit]

I think you guys know what I will say...so use your imaginations!
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http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45764/

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted December 21, 2006.

The Bush Administration is hooked on the drug of military might, with Gates calling for sending more troops to a war we can't win.

Here we go again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House?

Even as government statistics now show marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop, it is important to remember that militarism is the most dangerous drug threatening our sanity. Yet even formerly sober folks -- first Colin Powell and now new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- get a contact high from cozying up to the walking hallucinogen that is our president.

Succumbing to the Bush fantasy that freedom is fertilized by firepower, a vision that has mucked up Iraq beyond recognition, Gates told CBS that "as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for generations to come."

This from a man who recently made sense, during his confirmation hearings, when he told members of Congress that we are not winning this war, despite having committed, proportionally, as many troops as we did in Vietnam. But now, as a rising chorus of obsessed hawks calls for a "surge" in U.S. troop deployment in Iraq -- a call echoed even by some prominent Democrats -- Gates endorses the staying-the-course strategy for compounding the Iraq failure rejected by the voters. A member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) who had apparently supported its unanimous findings that the military strategy was bankrupt is suddenly blinded by Bush's Iraq victory myopia.

In a sign of just how out there Bush is on Iraq, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff are in "unanimous disagreement" with "White House officials aggressively promoting the concept ... . [T]he Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission [in Iraq]."

All this despite the fact that the ISG report correctly underscored that the real failures in the Mideast have clearly been political, not military. The accurate subtext of the report is that the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is the key source of chaos in the region -- inflaming religious fanaticism from Beirut to Baghdad and leaving the United States dependent on the tyrants in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to now bail us out.

So with Bush rejecting the sage advice of a commission headed by his father's secretary of state to cut our losses is there any hope the Democrats who now control Congress will stop playing the role of enabler to these war junkies? After all, it was the Democratic congressional leadership that provided Bush with bipartisan cover for his irrational "anti-terrorism" invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Some, like John Kerry, now recognize that folly, and even Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, in her appearance on NBC's "Today" show Monday, finally expressed her regrets for supporting the war and opposed a "surge" in U.S. troops for Iraq.

But other Democrats continue to play the dangerous game of supporting Bush's escalation. Particularly alarming were the remarks on Sunday of incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsing a buildup as long as it aims at getting the troops home by 2008: "If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that."

Reid's strategy is as obvious as it is opportunistic: This is a Republican war, goes the thinking, and the Dems will give the Republicans all the rope they need to hang themselves in '08. This seems a deeply cynical position, when you consider that the Pentagon just announced that attacks on American and Iraqi targets are at their highest levels, with a 22 percent leap from just this summer. The difference between taking a position and positioning oneself is what determines leadership; if the Dems fail to provide real leadership on ending this war, they will deservedly lose the next election.

The convenient lie behind all of this is that U.S. military occupation is the indispensable agent of Mideast enlightenment. No, we have become the enablers of Iraqi madness, be it in the form of torture or the ascendancy of religious tyranny in Iraq, where daily life has been reduced to an unmitigated horror.

Yet, like a junkie who needs one more hit to get his life in order, Bush is hooked on the drug of military might. If the Democrats continue to feed his dangerous habit they will only help Bush visit greater mayhem upon Iraq while undermining the core values of our own country.

[the yeag]

...

[MastaChronic]

.. if its gonna be that kind of party.....I'm gonna stick my dick in the mash potatoes

word, ima go do that right now

[Zimzum]

GS you know that pic of Bush on your attachment is not the real George Bush... Its a man named Brent Mendenhall, an impersonator... Keep posting fakes as scare tactics.

[Great Spirit]

GS you know that pic of Bush on your attachment is not the real George Bush... Its a man named Brent Mendenhall, an impersonator... Keep posting fakes as scare tactics.Ha! You see these pics as scare tactics? Bush's speeches are scare tactics!

[Zimzum]

Its the same tactic you claim media and government use on us. You put a pitcher of a man who looks like Bush giving a satanic sign and making a funny face. You would like us to believe it is the real one as some sort of proof of something. You also live by a double standard when you post stuff from prisonplanet. They are no different then reading Bill O Riley stuff, both are severely slanted sides and covered with so much added fluff it limits the real truth.

[daima]

I think you guys know what I will say...so use your imaginations!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45764/

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted December 21, 2006.

The Bush Administration is hooked on the drug of military might, with Gates calling for sending more troops to a war we can't win.

Here we go again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House?

Even as government statistics now show marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop, it is important to remember that militarism is the most dangerous drug threatening our sanity. Yet even formerly sober folks -- first Colin Powell and now new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- get a contact high from cozying up to the walking hallucinogen that is our president.

Succumbing to the Bush fantasy that freedom is fertilized by firepower, a vision that has mucked up Iraq beyond recognition, Gates told CBS that "as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for generations to come."

This from a man who recently made sense, during his confirmation hearings, when he told members of Congress that we are not winning this war, despite having committed, proportionally, as many troops as we did in Vietnam. But now, as a rising chorus of obsessed hawks calls for a "surge" in U.S. troop deployment in Iraq -- a call echoed even by some prominent Democrats -- Gates endorses the staying-the-course strategy for compounding the Iraq failure rejected by the voters. A member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) who had apparently supported its unanimous findings that the military strategy was bankrupt is suddenly blinded by Bush's Iraq victory myopia.

In a sign of just how out there Bush is on Iraq, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff are in "unanimous disagreement" with "White House officials aggressively promoting the concept ... . [T]he Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission [in Iraq]."

All this despite the fact that the ISG report correctly underscored that the real failures in the Mideast have clearly been political, not military. The accurate subtext of the report is that the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is the key source of chaos in the region -- inflaming religious fanaticism from Beirut to Baghdad and leaving the United States dependent on the tyrants in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to now bail us out.

So with Bush rejecting the sage advice of a commission headed by his father's secretary of state to cut our losses is there any hope the Democrats who now control Congress will stop playing the role of enabler to these war junkies? After all, it was the Democratic congressional leadership that provided Bush with bipartisan cover for his irrational "anti-terrorism" invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Some, like John Kerry, now recognize that folly, and even Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, in her appearance on NBC's "Today" show Monday, finally expressed her regrets for supporting the war and opposed a "surge" in U.S. troops for Iraq.

But other Democrats continue to play the dangerous game of supporting Bush's escalation. Particularly alarming were the remarks on Sunday of incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsing a buildup as long as it aims at getting the troops home by 2008: "If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that."

Reid's strategy is as obvious as it is opportunistic: This is a Republican war, goes the thinking, and the Dems will give the Republicans all the rope they need to hang themselves in '08. This seems a deeply cynical position, when you consider that the Pentagon just announced that attacks on American and Iraqi targets are at their highest levels, with a 22 percent leap from just this summer. The difference between taking a position and positioning oneself is what determines leadership; if the Dems fail to provide real leadership on ending this war, they will deservedly lose the next election.

The convenient lie behind all of this is that U.S. military occupation is the indispensable agent of Mideast enlightenment. No, we have become the enablers of Iraqi madness, be it in the form of torture or the ascendancy of religious tyranny in Iraq, where daily life has been reduced to an unmitigated horror.

Yet, like a junkie who needs one more hit to get his life in order, Bush is hooked on the drug of military might. If the Democrats continue to feed his dangerous habit they will only help Bush visit greater mayhem upon Iraq while undermining the core values of our own country.


the bush crime family sells weapons. the "family' and friends of the "family" makes money off war and death. They have since Hitler.
Bush' grand dad made money selling equipment to the nazis that helped them keep count on how many jews, homosexuals, italians, handicapped, they killed.

dai*ma:stoned:

[mushypeas]

I think you guys know what I will say...so use your imaginations!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45764/

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted December 21, 2006.

The Bush Administration is hooked on the drug of military might, with Gates calling for sending more troops to a war we can't win.

Here we go again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House?

Even as government statistics now show marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop, it is important to remember that militarism is the most dangerous drug threatening our sanity. Yet even formerly sober folks -- first Colin Powell and now new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- get a contact high from cozying up to the walking hallucinogen that is our president.

Succumbing to the Bush fantasy that freedom is fertilized by firepower, a vision that has mucked up Iraq beyond recognition, Gates told CBS that "as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for generations to come."

This from a man who recently made sense, during his confirmation hearings, when he told members of Congress that we are not winning this war, despite having committed, proportionally, as many troops as we did in Vietnam. But now, as a rising chorus of obsessed hawks calls for a "surge" in U.S. troop deployment in Iraq -- a call echoed even by some prominent Democrats -- Gates endorses the staying-the-course strategy for compounding the Iraq failure rejected by the voters. A member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) who had apparently supported its unanimous findings that the military strategy was bankrupt is suddenly blinded by Bush's Iraq victory myopia.

In a sign of just how out there Bush is on Iraq, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff are in "unanimous disagreement" with "White House officials aggressively promoting the concept ... . [T]he Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission [in Iraq]."

All this despite the fact that the ISG report correctly underscored that the real failures in the Mideast have clearly been political, not military. The accurate subtext of the report is that the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is the key source of chaos in the region -- inflaming religious fanaticism from Beirut to Baghdad and leaving the United States dependent on the tyrants in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to now bail us out.

So with Bush rejecting the sage advice of a commission headed by his father's secretary of state to cut our losses is there any hope the Democrats who now control Congress will stop playing the role of enabler to these war junkies? After all, it was the Democratic congressional leadership that provided Bush with bipartisan cover for his irrational "anti-terrorism" invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Some, like John Kerry, now recognize that folly, and even Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, in her appearance on NBC's "Today" show Monday, finally expressed her regrets for supporting the war and opposed a "surge" in U.S. troops for Iraq.

But other Democrats continue to play the dangerous game of supporting Bush's escalation. Particularly alarming were the remarks on Sunday of incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsing a buildup as long as it aims at getting the troops home by 2008: "If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that."

Reid's strategy is as obvious as it is opportunistic: This is a Republican war, goes the thinking, and the Dems will give the Republicans all the rope they need to hang themselves in '08. This seems a deeply cynical position, when you consider that the Pentagon just announced that attacks on American and Iraqi targets are at their highest levels, with a 22 percent leap from just this summer. The difference between taking a position and positioning oneself is what determines leadership; if the Dems fail to provide real leadership on ending this war, they will deservedly lose the next election.

The convenient lie behind all of this is that U.S. military occupation is the indispensable agent of Mideast enlightenment. No, we have become the enablers of Iraqi madness, be it in the form of torture or the ascendancy of religious tyranny in Iraq, where daily life has been reduced to an unmitigated horror.

Yet, like a junkie who needs one more hit to get his life in order, Bush is hooked on the drug of military might. If the Democrats continue to feed his dangerous habit they will only help Bush visit greater mayhem upon Iraq while undermining the core values of our own country.

he lost the election and said ' i really thought we would win .... but what do i know?' this made me angry

[Great Spirit]

he lost the election and said ' i really thought we would win .... but what do i know?' this made me angryJust be glad you don't live in the US of Nazism and subjected to the Enabling Act...I mean Patriot Act. But then again I heard jolly ol' England isn't much better too.

[Zimzum]

GS, What rights have you lost personally? Has any of this had any impact on your life other than learning to type faster?

[Great Spirit]

GS, What rights have you lost personally? Has any of this had any impact on your life other than learning to type faster?Well lets see, I am considered a "terrorist" now if I look Arabic, or praise Allah, or say anything critical of the Bush administration. I have no more habeas corpus because of the Military Commissions Act if I am seen as a "terrorist". My phone calls are monitored by the NSA without a warrant regardless of what I talk about which is illegal. I am subject to monitoring by the FBI because I am a member of the ACLU and Libertarian Party and the MPP. My medical records can be viewed by the government without my consent and my library records can be viewed by them without consent or a warrant.

Worst of all, I can be sent to Gitmo for being a "terrorist" and have no legal council and no habeas corpus......and not even be charged with anything!!! :mad:

And you call Amerika the land of the free?

[Zimzum]

Well lets see, I am considered a "terrorist" now if I look Arabic, or praise Allah, or say anything critical of the Bush administration. I have no more habeas corpus because of the Military Commissions Act if I am seen as a "terrorist".

You and many others on this site (myself included) speak out against Bush and his administration. Yet we are not in military custody.. Racial profiling has been around for many many years, its nothing new to this country.


My phone calls are monitored by the NSA without a warrant regardless of what I talk about which is illegal. I am subject to monitoring by the FBI because I am a member of the ACLU and Libertarian Party and the MPP. My medical records can be viewed by the government without my consent and my library records can be viewed by them without consent or a warrant.

I buy my weed with a phone call.. No federal agency has yet to kick down my door. And to think of the billions of phone calls a day that would be listened too? It would probably take as many people to listen as it takes to make all those calls. Everyone is and always have been under some sort of surveillance. They always know were to send those SSI applications when you turn 18. As for medical and library records there are so many out there that you really need to give them reason to even look. Its not like they thumb thew them for fun or even care about someone having knee surgery at 15.


Worst of all, I can be sent to Gitmo for being a "terrorist" and have no legal council and no habeas corpus......and not even be charged with anything!!!

Any how many America's has this happened to already? And why are not you there now for trying to spread "the truth"?


And you call Amerika the land of the free?

Yes we are free. Compare are current rights to rights of any other nation. We don't arrest our bloggers or journalist. We don't censer the internet like China or Saudi Arabia. People like Alex Jones are still out there exercising there right to free speech. People are free to go before the supreme court to argue against unjust laws.

You answered my question as a "what could happen", but I want to know what, so far, has happened to you personally. Been to any military tribunals? Harassment from the government? Strange van parked outside your house?

[Great Spirit]

You and many others on this site (myself included) speak out against Bush and his administration. Yet we are not in military custody.. Racial profiling has been around for many many years, its nothing new to this country.



I buy my weed with a phone call.. No federal agency has yet to kick down my door. And to think of the billions of phone calls a day that would be listened too? It would probably take as many people to listen as it takes to make all those calls. Everyone is and always have been under some sort of surveillance. They always know were to send those SSI applications when you turn 18. As for medical and library records there are so many out there that you really need to give them reason to even look. Its not like they thumb thew them for fun or even care about someone having knee surgery at 15.



Any how many America's has this happened to already? And why are not you there now for trying to spread "the truth"?



Yes we are free. Compare are current rights to rights of any other nation. We don't arrest our bloggers or journalist. We don't censer the internet like China or Saudi Arabia. People like Alex Jones are still out there exercising there right to free speech. People are free to go before the supreme court to argue against unjust laws.

You answered my question as a "what could happen", but I want to know what, so far, has happened to you personally. Been to any military tribunals? Harassment from the government? Strange van parked outside your house?Ohh!! haha. Yes indeed there was a gray van parked down my street for the longest time. Someone eventually called the cops and had it towed away. I will post a pic of it. It was a construction van but no one ever worked on a house that I saw. Besides, why would they just allow it to be towed after it sat for more than a year?

Last year before Bush admitted the NSA spying, there was a person who looked military parked outside in the parking lot of my place of employment. Whenever I would leave, he would leave. This had happened many many times. A coworkers b/f told security and he hasn't been there since.

You really have no idea what is going to happen which will lead to Dec 21 2012 do you.

Just because you are not paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you!