Why Washington is Playing with Fire--Joe Klein

[Gloria]

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1139778,00.html

Saturday, Dec. 10, 2005
>
> Why Washington Is Playing with Fire
> These are not clever times in Washington
> By JOE KLEIN
>
> An important press conference was not held in Washington last week.
> The leaders of the Democratic Party did not say, "We'd like to thank
> President Bush for his new, realistic tone about the war in Iraq. In
> his recent speeches, the President has acknowledged that U.S.
> military strategy has been defective, especially in the Sunni
> triangle. He has made clear the difficulty we have had in training
> Iraqi security forces. He has expressed concern about the power that
> ethnic militias have overthose forces. He has expressed dismay about
> the corruption rampant in the new democratic Iraq. He has admitted
> that large reconstruction contracts given to U.S. corporations like
> Halliburton have been a failure. He has repeatedly asserted that
> there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the
> intelligence that caused him to attack Iraq was wrong. We applaud the
> President for finally acknowledging those mistakes. Given the
> Administration's sad record of incompetence in planning and executing
> this war, we do have concerns about the President's ability to bring
> it to a successful conclusion. In the meantime, we hope he will
> continue to be candid about the difficulties we are facing in Iraq."
>
> Or something like that. Jujitsu is an ancient and honorable political
> strategy: if you are clever, you can upend your opponent by
> leveraging the force of his own assertions. But these are not clever
> times in Washington. The President has taken to the manic repetition
> of the word victory, apparently on the advice of a Duke University
> professor, Peter Feaver, a new addition to the National Security
> Council staff. Feaver conducted a cold-blooded review of recent
> polling and concluded that the American public would be more tolerant
> of the carnage if victory, whatever that means, were the likely
> result. And so Bush gave a speech at the Naval Academy where plan for
> victory signs were festooned wantonly. But spin was mitigated by the
> substance of the speech, which was followed by an even more
> substantive effort last week at the Council on Foreign Relations. The
> President is finally using the right words to describe the nature of
> the enemy, the difficulties on the ground and the more pragmatic
> steps needed for counterinsurgency and reconstruction. But he remains
> weak—to the point of being purposely deceptive—on the time and
> resources needed to succeed with those plans. The Feaver slogan
> seemed like half a fortune cookie: "You should plan for victory ...
> but expect something less."
>
> Indeed, the most effective Democratic criticism of the
> President's "victory" offensive came from two West Point graduates
> who had opposed the war, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and
> General Wesley Clark, and both took Bush to task for the skimpiness
> of the Iraq effort. Clark wrote a New York Times Op-Ed piece offering
> a thoughtful list of suggestions for a more successful prosecution of
> the war that he had opposed, including the deployment of more troops
> (which he would transfer from other regions). Reed pointed out that
> the President, despite his talk of limited success in the
> reconstruction of the cities of Najaf and Mosul, "didn't tell the
> American people how we're going to replicate that success in other
> parts of Iraq ... how many more teams of Americans, both military and
> civilian, need to go into these communities (and) what it will cost
> us." Most important was Reed's tone—quiet, humble, dispassionate,
> substantive.
MORE

[tularetom]

1. There is simply no way to describe

what would constitute a "victory" in Iraq. And this is bush's dilemma. He has dug the US in a deep hole and there is no way to dig us out honorably. As time goes by he will be forced by election year politics to "cut-n-run" which will make all the tough talk ring hollow. And God help the troops as they are drawn down. If the casualties continue to rise at the current rate, the voters will be preparing the tar and feathers by next November.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Quite true. We cannot "win" in Iraq.......what's to win?

All we can do is decide the level of our losses. Deferring that to another day won't make the problem go away.

[cliss]

4. I have these visions of Bush

arguing in the board room with his advisors.

Bush: Can't I tell them that we're doing this for the oil?

Advisor: No, it'd be insane. The American public will not go for it. You have to use the words like "victory" and "democracy", you know; noble words like that. We used 'em in back in WW2, and people really ate it up. They really galvanized; they worked together. You know, Victory Garden and all that?

Bush: Yeah, but that's not the real reason.

Advisor: So? You get out there, and use words like "Lincoln" and "Honest Abe" and we'll data mine in the history books.

[bemildred]

3. Well, he's right, but it's hardly a new thing.

Political discourse has been thoroughly debased for quite a long time. And there is every reason to think it will stay that way as long as debased methods "work".