Posted on 12/26/2006 10:33:31 AM PST by presidio9
President George W. Bush has alerted the American people that the war in Iraq will go on for a long time -- easily into the next presidency.
Bush's 2003 "cakewalk" invasion of Iraq to bring about a "regime change" has expanded into what he told a news conference Wednesday is "the beginning stages of an ideological battle."
According to the official White House line, Bush is pondering his options for a "new way forward" in Iraq, with his decision to be announced next month.
But the president indicated Wednesday that he has already made his choice, hinting to reporters at his year-end news conference that he will send more U.S. troops to Iraq.
It doesn't seem to occur to him that some of the escalating violence in Iraq stems from opposition to the U.S. military occupation there. So it's up to the American people and the Democratic-controlled Congress to play a role in these crucial decisions while there is still time.
Bush has engaged in a lot of theatrics in his high-profile consultations with administration officials and past policymakers. He also is awaiting a report from new Defense Secretary Robert Gates who made a quick visit to Iraq.
Some of the military commanders are opposed to an injection of more troops around Baghdad and believe the move would compound the folly. Some powerful members on Capitol Hill also are calling for a phased withdrawal from Iraq.
In a noticeably good mood, the president has hosted a series of yuletide parties and has displayed none of the signs of soul-searching about war that marked Lyndon B. Johnson's agony over Vietnam.
But he told reporters "my heart breaks every night" for those who have died in Iraq. He also said that "the next president" may have to deal with the "radicals and extremists" in the region.
"They can't run us out of the Middle East," he declared.
The drive for more troops in Iraq is being supported by key Republican senators.
For example, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wants as many as 35,000 more troops. For a presidential candidate, he is out of step with the American mainstream.
But former Secretary of State Colin Powell -- who also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- said he is not certain more U.S. forces could turn the tide in Iraq.
Bush has given short shrift to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., especially the suggestion that he start a phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, starting next year.
Sometime early in January, the president plans to lay it all out. Maybe then he will finally tell us why he invaded a Third World country under false pretenses. He may even explain why U.S. forces continue to be there.
The nearly four-year war has already lasted longer than World War II.
The president is obviously frustrated that most Americans no longer see it his way. He has been quoted as saying he may be dead before Americans "get it."
These days Bush is likening himself to President Harry S Truman, who left Washington under a cloud as a result of scandals involving members of his administration and the stalemate in the Korean War. His popularity polls were down to 23 percent when he went home to Independence, Mo., in 1952.
But historians have resurrected Truman's place in the presidential panoply for his great contributions to collective security treaties in the aftermath of World War II.
Bush has a long way to go to catch up with Truman.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com). -and I'm sure she would welcome your feedback/holiday greetings (although bear in mind that she's an arab).
...just to pi$$ off this old ratbag is why.
Actually, by her standards WW II is still going on, because we still have troops in Germany and Japan (Korea).
We could end this one tomorrow, the same way we ended that one, but I'd prefer not, Helen.
Typical of the kinds of deceptions Hell-en Thomas and her ilk in the evil media engage in, she puts the words "cakewalk" in quotes and associates them with Bush's name as if those are his words and they are not. Some undersecretary of nothing used that wording about the initial invasion, which was more or less a cakewalk, not Bush who never represented the Iraq effort as anything other than likely to be tough--and she knows it too the filthy lying hag.
And if this Arabic 5th columnist witch hasn't gotten the message by now as to why we must finish this war, then no amount of repeating it is going to get it into her 6 inch thick granite skull. So get a new refrain idiot. Anyone who has paid the least bit of attention or has more than a walnut sized brain has heard the arguments, regardless of whether you accept them or not, as to why the war must be fought until a successful conclusion has been arrived at.
This tiresome media boilerplate of "I don't get it and Bush won't explain it" just makes you all look like a bunch of lame-brained dolts who are so slow and uncomprehending you must have rode the little bus to school.
Anyone who didn't understand that goiong in was kidding themselves. In WWII we lost 1o,ooo people a month. Since Viet Nam, our country thinks we can fight a war as an extra-curicular activity-and not put our full will behind it. We HAVE to win this. Period. Our way of life depends on it.
Not to mention, WW2 was an entirely different form of warfare. The enemy had homelands, capitals, infrastructure and industry that could be bombed to defeat them. They met us on the battlefield in open, set piece battle. This enemy hides among civilians, dresses as civilians, is part of no government nor based in any large scale fashion in any one country, it is not dependent on logistical routes, supply chains, industries or natural resources it needs to keep on fighting which we can take out to crippled them. They rarely engage our forces openly in battle and largely engages in terror attacks on civilians and sissified stand off attacks like IEDs when they do engage our forces.
There is no Al Qaeda capital that can be bombed to ruin like Berlin or Tokyo and no civilian population that can be tired out through constant bombing raids on their cities such that pressure can be brought to bear on the enemy itself to disengage. Nor is there a civilian economic structure that can be destroyed that would dissable Al Qaeda.
To try to compare WW2 to this war, and frankly any war, and to use that as a benchmark as to how long asymetrical warfare should last is the height of stupidity and sloppy thinking, which I suppose is Helen Thomas' stock in trade really.
review
I don't know why people make fun of her physical ugliness....
when her sheer mendacity is even a bigger target, and that's saying a lot.
The nerve of you Helen to compare all Americans to your longing for your 72 virgins so you can finally get it.
What war?
Who is the enemy?
What nation(s) do they come from?
What is their goal?
Or is this simply terrorism seeking to cause anarchy, chaos, and terror?
Will the war "end" if we leave or will the combatants take the war to this country (or other American interests)?
Who do we negotiate the peace with? Al Qaeda? Do you feel they are honorable to be counted on living up to any agreement made with them? Where do we contact them? How do we hold them accountable if they reneg on the peace resolution?
March along, sing our song,
With the Army of the free
Count the brave, count the true,
Who have fought to victory
We're the Army and proud of our name
We're the Army and proudly proclaim
First to fight for the right,
And to build the Nation's might,
And The Army Goes Rolling Along
Proud of all we have done,
Fighting till the battle's done,
And the Army Goes Rolling Along.
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong,
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
Valley Forge, Custer's ranks,
San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks,
And the Army went rolling along
Minute men, from the start,
Always fighting from the heart,
And the Army keeps rolling along.
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong,
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
Men in rags, men who froze,
Still that Army met its foes,
And the Army went rolling along.
Faith in God, then we're right,
And we'll fight with all our might,
As the Army keeps rolling along.
Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong,
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.
World War II didn't not begin on December 7th. We did not engage an enemy that we needed to.
Communists in America were against us going to war against Hitler. Just like they were against the war in Vietnam and were against the war against Saddam (WHICH IS OVER).
How can Helen Thomas call this the same war? It would be like clocking the entire Cold War onto the end of WWII since it began soon after.
Call CNN! Call the NY Times! Call the Hearst Syndicate!
(What the heck is a Hearst Syndicate?)
Yes there is.
I have started praying that our Father will protect Misters Bush, Blair and Olmert from their DOMESTIC enemies.
"Bush's 2003 "cakewalk" invasion of Iraq to bring about a "regime change" has expanded into what he told a news conference Wednesday is "the beginning stages of an ideological battle.""
Sorry, could't get any further than that lie.
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