Thursday, August 03, 2006
Iraq Testimony
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Rumsfeld and Generals Pace and Abizaid discussed the situation in Iraq. They were cautiously optimistic ("Am I optimistic whether or not Iraqi forces, with our support, with the backing of the Iraqi government, can prevent the slide to civil war? My answer is yes, I'm optimistic that that slide can be prevented”) but at the same time acknowledged that the current escalation of violence was unforeseen (“Pace said he did not anticipate one year ago that Iraq would now be in danger of descending into civil war”).
Pardon me for my skepticism, but every prediction these guys have made has turned out to be crap. From Secretary Rumsfeld (We know where the weapons of mass destruction are” and it will last “six day, six weeks, I doubt six months”) to his generals, these guys have sunk hundreds of billions of dollars of your money into a country in which the violence is escalating, the electrical grid in Baghdad is still way below pre-war levels, a country whose democracy might go the way of Egypt’s “democracy,” a country whose representatives might prove to be very antithetical to US interests. Rumsfeld, Bush, and the entire conservative movement have always insisted that they know Iraq will turn around any day now, when in reality, as they occasionally admit, they have no idea.
All of this while Afghanistan charts a similar descent into the Abyss, and Secretary Rumsfeld refuses to offer a frank acknowledgement of the situation. Pay no attention to the country we left to the Taliban, ladies and gentleman.
Our staunchest ally, Britain, seems to be less optimistic than our military leaders about Iraq.
Conservative blogs, Fox News, and right-wing talkers like Michael Medved have advanced the conspiracy theory that the Qana massacre wasn’t really Israel’s fault. Unbelievable. Thinkprogress has a good deconstruction of this.
President Ahmadinejad once again suggests that the destruction if Israel would solve the Middle East crisis.
Media Matters has a good deconstruction of David Horowitz’s latest book, an effort to smear George Soros.
Despite the US media calling the Mexican election for Felipe Calderón, a review of the evidence suggests voting fraud. Let the ballot counting run its course.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:59 PM 
