Bush, five years at war: 'America can and must win'

Give me a break. This guy can't win at anything. He couldn't even win an election, he had to steal it. America can win, but under Bush's failed polices it won't be easy.

What else is Bush going to say?

W and Darth Cheney's pre-emptive, uncalled for invasion/occupation of Iraq was a foreign policy blunder from the get go and everyone but the 19% of Americans (Republicans) who are still dumb enough to believe that Bush is doing a good job as President are the only ones who believe him anyway.

I'd like to take a look at the guy (John W McCain) who is running for a third term of the Bush/Cheney administraion, a guy who plans on not only continuing the mess Bush and Cheney have made in the middle-east but want's to expand it.

John W McCain likes to call himself a "foreign policy expert" so I'll let the "expert" speak for himself.

From the Washington Post:

March 18, 2007

In comments to reporters in Syria Jordan, John McCain demonstrated that he does not understand even the most basic of facts about his signature issue, the Iraq War.

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda...

McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

Al Qaeda in Iraq is of course entirely dominated by Sunni extremists who view all Shiites as heretics. The rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq and everything it has done there has been shaped by it's contempt for Shiites. The course of the insurgency, down to and including the "Sunni Awakening", has reflected that fanatical hostility that Al Qaeda brought to bear inside Iraq. Iranian involvement in financing and supporting Shiite militias in Iraq came partly in reaction to the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

This isn't just a minor slip. This betrays a profound lack of foreign policy expertise, a shallowness so extreme that if the remark had been made by Barack Obama, say, it would have called into question his viability as a presidential candidate.

So you should expect the "serious" thinkers of the traditional media to dismiss the gaffe as 'trivial'. We are not allowed even to consider the possibility that John McCain is a foreign policy lightweight...not with all those splendid psychopathic Neocon foreign policy advisers he's assembled.
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/03/17/mccain-advisers/

McCain made the same foolish assertion last night on Hugh Hewitt's program:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/18/mccain-iran-al-qaeda/

"America can and must win".....at any cost. The lives of our soldiers, our economy, our standing as a moral authority, the lives of so many Iraqis...

What's to win? Everyone pounces on Rev Wright saying God Damn America, but that is exactly what Bush is saying with his actions.

MISSION FREAKIN' ACCOMPLISHED!!!!

Of course it was worth it. . .none of OUR kids died.

"THE COMMANDER GUY SPEAKS"

HELLO BOYS AND GIRLS, WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY, TO SAY GOODBYE TO THE DEARLY DEPARTED. THEY ARE DEPARTED BECAUSE THEY WENT TO IRAQ.

SO IF I DON'T GET MY "IMMUNITY" FROM PROSECUTION, AND PROTECTION LIABILITY FOR MY FRIENDS THAT FORMELY RAN AT&T AND MCI THAT NOW RUN YOU KNOW "FANNIE/FREDDIE"

WELL, AGAIN, WE ARE HERE TODAY TO SAY GOODBYE TO THE DEARLY DEPARTED.

CONDI...LET US PRAY!

I find it tragically amusing that this knucklehead has been using the same ridiculous, infantile and INCORRECT rhetoric for 5 years.

Please, I want to hear from one of the right-wingers so I can see the word "loony liberal" on this one. I dare you, I defy you, to make sense of this war. Please explain it so this loony liberal can understand. I don't want to hear catch phrases you learned from Rush, either.

You couldn't prove to this gut that 1+1 is two if he thought it was 3.

America will win on January 20, 2009, when we send this miserable failure back to Crawford Texas for good.

The surge was to give the Iraqi gov't breathing room so they could do political things, and get their political house in order. The US troops won their original objectives of 1) Not finding WMDs, and 2) Finding Saddam--no connection to 9/11. The ball is in the Iraqi gov'ts hands now. It isn't even a jump ball. Now Bush wants the US troops to stand on one side of the ocean and touch the other side--to do the impossible in Iraq--no matter how far they reach, no matter how far they stretch out their arms and fingers--while standing on tip toe. To ask anyone, or to force them to do the impossible is the definition of abuse. Bush is abusing all US troops in Iraq. He should be impeached for that. Bush is thinking of his ego. And, he is a wimp--as are all chickenhawks. Bush does not clean up after himself--he probably pees in the country club pool bf getting out. We need to support the troops that have not been killed yet and bring them home. If chaos later erupts in Iraq, we need to send Bush and Cheney over there personally with the same defensive equipment that they originally sent with the troops. Also, the world court needs to take these two men's family fortune to reimburse the nation of Iraq for bombing the hell out of their infrastructure, and for the many, many civilian deaths

Why isn't this clown and his pals in jail?

It is not John McCain who is wrong on the iraq war it is the many posters who really don't know their history. Who don't know how and when this all started. Mr. Kissenger who really knows the middle east knows Iraq goes back years, ask him, this war was not started in 2003 it goes back much furher. Posters need to study history before making senseless comments.

Yeah, but you see our efforts democratized murder in Iraq.

Before, you see, only Saddam murdered people, but now...well, lots of Iraqis are free to kill lots of other Iraqis, and that's a good thing isn't it?

Also, America's fighting men and women (God, I love our troops!) get to kill lots of Iraqis, too. Sure, we make some mistakes, maiming or killing a small girl here or there, but mostly we kill the bad guys--Dead Enders and those insane Al-Qaeds; and, hey, if we didn't kill them crazy Al-Qaedas over there, they'd come here and blow up the Jewel and the Costco. You don't know it you stinkin' liberals, but we've got evidence of this.

And sometimes our troops lose it a little and kill your average Abu Jabbar or Laila Iraqi, but that's 'cause the f-in bad Iraqis have made our guys crazy, so you have to excuse us if we get into an occasional rage and do that stuff.

The people there they love us. It's like Dick Cheney said, "They're just treating us like LIBERATORS."

Isn't the surge something great? Man, it's like we wrote the book on counterinsurgency. Just hang on a few more months you gutless liberals.

left wingers are so evil that they would rather humiliate america than let freedom, democracy and free trade take a foothold in the muslim world.

Wait, is that the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on crime or the war on the national treasury?

Only one of those seems to be going well for Bush and Co.

The 9 hate-Bush bots above (collective IQ--87) spew their hatred because they can't articulate an argument--even a bad argument.

To the extent they have thoughts, the thoughts are:

1) deny the reality on the ground that the terrorists are being beaten;
2) deny logic by asserting, contrary to all common sense and history, that the U.S. is better off losing a war.

There are plenty of examples of war losers in the last 2500 years. I'd love to hear them try and give an example of ONE country that was better off by losing a war.

The best part is that since we have been screwing around in Iraq, the Afghan "war" funding has suffered allowing Al-Quaeda to regain a toehold there. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. As I recall the Nazi's fought a war on two fronts...and lost!

Bush = Loser!!!

I'll never understand how he sleeps at night. Oh that's right he and Cheney are getting rich off the IRAQ FIASCO...never mind.

I for one would like to thank Chimpy for demonstrating that Republics cannot govern their way out of a wet paper bag. The sad thing is that it is going to take years to undue all the damage these idiots have done to our country.

As if taking out Saddam was the pretence for going into Iraq. bush seems to have forgotten his fear tactics used to promote the invasion. It was WMD and Iraq's ties to 9-11 all of which was found not to be true and as such became the forgotten part as the spin began. It's been spin every since and this country bought it enought to relect this fool for the second time and still has Republicans backing his play and any thing he wants.

I understand now how it feels when you can't get rid of bad relatives.

Posted by: John Hussein E

Quick!!! Before Brucie nit-picks as usual!!!

The date of the article should be March 18, 2008, not 2007.

So what will W. (and McCain) say on the next two big events coming up:

1) Dead soldier number 4,000

2) The 5th anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" speech.

By the way, there is also audio of John McCain saying that the first 4 years of the war were a failure. You know, the part where the REPUBLICANS were in charge of the Senate. Where was Johnny then?? Why wasn't he using his position there to make sure it was not a "failure"??

Plus, it has now been shown that McCain believed that we would be greeted as "liberators". And this guy wants to be President?????

Must win? Win what? Win how? Win over whom?

You are fighting the population itself, a major part of the population. You are not fighting an army or a state.

What is “win” in this context?

As always, Bush speaks in tired pseudo-historical phrases about a situation he doesn't even understand.

How do you win militarily over an idea or a conviction?

It's ridiculous, just as Bush is ridiculous.

He blurs his gigantic bloody blunder in Iraq with his fantasy war on terror.

There never was any terror in Iraq, just as there never is in any state with an absolute government.

From a purely American point of view, Hussein was better for long term interests than the mess that has been created.

Hussein's tyranny had nothing to do with invading Iraq, absolutely nothing. America does business every day with tyrants, as it did business with Hussein so long as he toed the American policy line.

America plainly loves obedient tyrants in other lands, just as Imperial Rome did. There are so many of them it keeps as associates. It is just a heap of intellectual garbage to speak of American values at stake. Nothing American is at stake, except America’s international reputation which has reached pretty much an all-time low.

9/11 was an attack by a group of mainly Saudi Arabian religious extremists, so what is America doing in Iraq? It never made an ounce of sense. Those men were motivated by American policies in the region, both its putting troops in holy places of Saudi Arabia and its unthinking, unbalanced policy towards the Palestinians.

And as I've said, relatively simple security measures could have prevented 9/11. Lazy-minded American legislators are about as responsible as the Saudi group for not having legislated locked cockpits and better ground searches.

We are supposed to have the most advanced military in the world, and yet we cant beat people living in straw huts.... says something eh?

I don't care if there are only months left in Bush's term in office - HE MUST BE IMPEACHED!! How much more of this lack of leadership and stupidity can America take?? Anyone who votes Republican in the next election should be sent to Iraq.

BEFORE he gets to spend time at his pig farm in Crawford, he needs to make one more stop..The Hague for his WAR CRIME TRIAL!

..... but the Creep from Crawford already declared victory in Iraq in Sept 2003, so how can this be a war we "must win" if we have already won it?

This is the same argument that kept us in VN for so long.

"America will win on January 20, 2009, when we send this miserable failure back to Crawford Texas for good.

Posted by: strut2k | March 18, 2008 11:20 PM"

Strut
Unfortunately he and his supporters will regard the whole 8 year cockup as a huge success. There will probably be 'movements' to have his face put on Rushmore and a new $3 bill.

The Dem congress should have moved to impeach.

I was NOT, I repeat NOT in favor of us going to Iraq. But now that we are there, what exactly do you libs all think is going to happen when the US withdraws. Perhaps a collapse of the current governmnet? Maybe an all out civil war between the kurds, shia, and sunni. Any worry from the left that might spread to Kuwaitt and Saudi Arabia? If that happens $3 dollars a gallon for gas will be a bargain.

Almost certainly Al Quaida will declare victory when we leave. You think they are going to stop there dreams of attacking america. Oh I forgot Al Quaida was just an invention of Carl Rove & Cheyney.

What are we winning? A sand trap? Oil? It's not the freedom of the Iraqi people or we wouldn't be forcing our military upon their people.

When you find your head stuck in a hornets nest, do you A: Pull your head out.
B: Blame France.
C: Keep your head there for 5 years.

wars take time to be victorious, especially when mistakes were made and the enemy turns out to be a different enemy than anticipated.
I can't say the war was flawlessly executed by any means, but that doesn't mean we tuck tail and run away. Its a war and we have to win for the broader good.
Props to all of the servicemen and women that read the Swamp. You ARE appreciated by most of us, and don't worry about the losers that have abandoned you. Every rose has its thorns.

Is it possible to put Bush and Cheney in front of a court for war crimes at the end of their Reign?

There are plenty of examples of war losers in the last 2500 years. I'd love to hear them try and give an example of ONE country that was better off by losing a war.

Posted by: Ex-Socialist | March 19, 2008 1:45 AM

So it seems you are admitting that there is no hope for Iraq to be better off than it was with Saddam because it lost the war in 2003.

So we have a choice between two marxist and a right wing sometimes liberal let the illegals in, old man. We really are doomed.

I'm wondering if those who've written in favor of our hapless president have any family member serving in Iraq. Do any of you dare to answer honestly? Or are you like so many in Congress who voted for this, but wouldn't dream of having their own kids serve in this war?

The privileged class has ALWAYS had someone else do their fighting for them.

Well, if the Iraq War was all about oil, then even that did not work out so great, did it (except for the oil companies, oil stock holders, the Saudis, and Cheney's Halliburton). So I guess someone profited from this war.

A war that has our nation in deep recession, has cost thousands of lives, and has no end. Who has been the victor here?

So we have been there for 5 years? What's a typical term of service in the military? 4 years, right?

So, that means that anyone who is over there now has signed up since they war started & knew what they were getting into. Our soldiers that are over there chose to go over there.

Thank you, "ex-socialist" for proving my point. The neocons who got us into this bloody mess need to spend money as much as a fish needs water, and couldn't save money if they attended a 120-hour total immersion seminar presented by Suze Orman.

There are plenty of examples of war losers in the last 2500 years. I'd love to hear them try and give an example of ONE country that was better off by losing a war.

Posted by: Ex-Socialist | March 19, 2008 1:45 AM

Japan and Germany. That's two.

I am actually against the war not because of any political party views and the decision is not based on popularity.

It is based on the cold logic that our actions in Iraq are no different than Al-Qaeda's. We are a foreign people coming in with our weapons and training, forcing the people to do what we want them to do through violence and death. They are fighting for their beliefs and we are their for ours. It is really no different. We do not see ourselves as wrong and neither do Al Qaeda.

The only real difference is that we are a major state that is "morally" superior to this other religious group so we couldn't possible be partaking in terrorism.

They torture their prisoners to get what they want and so do we, even if we call it something else.

It is really two sides of the same coin. And that is why I am against the war.

America COULD HAVE won had the Bush administration not panicked over the WMD misinformation, planned the whole thing better, taken its time and followed through better.

America COULD HAVE won had we not decided to go in "on the cheap" and under the assumption that the Iraqi people would jump on our bandwagon. History under Bush I should have at least given us pause that the Iraqis MIGHT JUST mistrust us (they believed Bush the first time and thousands wound up slaughtered) and be reticent to follow our lead. There should have been a contingency plan for that.

America COULD HAVE won if we had duplicated the rigorous guard we put on the Oil Ministry with a similar guard put on the armories and the hospitals, thereby denying insurgents the opportunity to loot ammunition later used to make the bombs used against us as well as the samples of germs that could now be used to actually MAKE WMD's. And then there's the -- what? -- 80,000 guns that went missing? How about the billions of dollars that went AWOL in Iraq? Anybody want to figure how much of that is being used to finance terrorists?

America COULD HAVE won had the Bush Administration not decided to put the worst possible and least-qualified people in charge of the country once our invasion was complete. Bremer's inept and short-sighted decisions set back irreparably our ability to run the country and to provide basics to the Iraqi people. Can you say "Good job, Jerry!"? Thought not.

America COULD HAVE won had the Bush Administration not gone bull-headed in its "stay the course" obstinacy. Changes in policy, without necessarily requiring our pulling troops out entirely, could have afforded flexibility in handling the problems.

I'm not saying that winning is now impossible. I AM saying that had Bush's Administration not made the whole situation more and more difficult, less structured, less controllable and less delusion-based, we'd ALREADY BE a lot further along on the right path. The initial invasion of Iraq was very well-handled, and SHOULD HAVE given us all the advantage we needed to put that country on a good course had the initial success been followed sensibly and sanely. If Bush has a complaint about support for his war, I certainly hope he's looking in a mirror when he says it.

I'm with Thomas on this one. Never was a huge fan on going in in the first place until we had better evidence, but to leave would be a disaster - militarily, economically, morally, and internationally.

The troops genuinely appreciate the loyalty and support of the citizens. Thank you to those that support our vital mission to rebuild and care for the Iraqi people. We wont let you down.

Oo rah!

There are plenty of examples of war losers in the last 2500 years. I'd love to hear them try and give an example of ONE country that was better off by losing a war.

Posted by: Ex-Socialist | March 19, 2008 1:45 AM

Umm, Nazi Germany. They are now the 3rd largest economy in the world.

Next!!

Jones... you chump. Who rebuilt Germany?

The U.S.

What's your point, Stevey? Are you "ex-Socialist?"

He asked for a country that benefited from losing a war. Clearly Germany benefited from losing the war, and obviously Op109 had the same idea. Japan also benefited from losing World War II.

As I see it, the whole "winning/ losing" argument is inane. The U.S. should declare victory and leave. This will not be allowed to occur until at least the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law is signed into effect in precisely the manner that our oil companies want it to be signed.

The troops genuinely appreciate the loyalty and support of the citizens. Thank you to those that support our vital mission to rebuild and care for the Iraqi people. We wont let you down.

Oo rah!

Posted by: leatherneck | March 19, 2008 12:16 PM

Nice to see that little Steve S is making up phony troop aliases again to support a war that he himself is afraid to sign up for.

Left wingers are so evil that they would rather humiliate america than let freedom, democracy and free trade take a foothold in the muslim world.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 19, 2008 12:35 AM

Wow, it has taken me a few minutes to catch my breath after laughing at this one. Why, my dear anonymous, is it "america"s business to 'force' freedom, democracy and free trade in the "muslim world"? Other than the cheap fill-up for your Hummer?

So you're OK with the right-wingers bankrupting our country and killing hundreds of thousands of people in order to fulfill this agenda? So, who exactly then is evil and humiliates "america"?

Leatherneck,

Your posting reads like a press release.

[quote]
Jones... you chump. Who rebuilt Germany?

Posted by: Steve Hussein S | March 19, 2008 12:25 PM
[/quote]

Who destroyed it in the first place? Does the nighttime bombing of Dresden ring any bells?