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Tuesday, April 8. 2008
Straight Bull Express
Man, what a week. Please click the Ads by Google. I could use the ching.One thing that has always bothered me — and I always forget about it when I get to my keyboard — is Senator John McCain’s statement to remain in Iraq for 100 years. When he made that statement he was being asked about President Bush’s assertion that our troops would be fighting in Iraq for 50 years.
McCain’s rationale for remaining in Iraq for 100 years: “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years, Korea for 50 years.” Umm … last time I was in those places we weren’t in a shooting war with either. We no longer are an occupation in Japan (that actually ended rather quickly once Japan adopted it’s current form of government) and we were never an occupation in Korea, trying to subdue the South Koreans, whom we are actually protecting from the North Koreans who invaded South Korea, with China’s help, in 1950.
That’s been the hallmark tactic of the Republicans since the Supreme Court put Bush in the White House. Use a non-sequitor to justify something. There’s absolutely no relation, or comparison to the occupation of Iraq and what we did after World War II in Europe or Japan. The closest we could possibly come would be Okinawa, which wasn’t turned over to Japanese control until 1972. But even then we weren’t fighting a daily war against insurgents.
When I was on the Rock there was no problem walking the streets alone at night, unless I ran into a bunch of drunk fellow Marines … in which case … at any rate, I had no worries about getting beheaded by Okinawan extremists. But, I did have to worry about Whispering Alley and B.C. Street in Okinawa City. Naha may be the capital, but all the good stuff — if you’re a drunk and horny Marine — happens on B.C. Street and Whispering Alley.
Lots of mythology surrounding those two places, but the truth is, you can get drunk and laid for as long as your wallet holds out. I think it’s one of Okinawa’s national treasures.
Justification for going into Iraq? Well, Al Qa’ida, although before we began the current occupation of Iraq, Al Qa’ida wasn’t in Iraq. Of course, when people started pointing that out, the rationale changed to Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Which brings up yet another hallmark of the Bush Administration and its lackeys in Congress: How many “turning points” have there been in Iraq since this war and occupation started? Don’t bother counting. Heard this on a talk show, maybe Real Time with Bill Maher: if every American had a dime for every time the Bush Administration claimed Iraq was at a “turning point,” all of our financial worries would be over.
But none of the newsies are calling McCain on this blatant lie, and that’s what it is. Comparing the occupation of Iraq to our troops in Japan, who are there only by the invitation of the Japanese government (and that invitation gets strained) is a lie. There aren’t any insurgents shooting U.S. military personnel, or even mass bombings every day. Iraq is nothing like Japan and for Senator McCain to compare the occupation in Iraq to our presence in Japan is just an outright lie.
The former Straight Talk Express has evolved into a blatant I’ll-get-elected-at-any-cost candidate. Will either of the two Democratic candidates call him on it? Quite frankly, my impression is that people think — most Americans think — that if John McCain said it, then it must be true. He’s a war hero; he spent five years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war.
While in Congress he actually opposed policies of his own party members. He called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the two iconic leaders of the Religious Right, the Republicans’ strongest contingent, agents of intolerance. So he must be an honest guy … and I’m the man that’s gonna make an honest woman out of Sara Jean Underwood.And now he’s lying about the war in Iraq. It’s no surprise General David Petraeus is kind of buttressing McCain’s position. Everyone, including those in the media, treats the Commanding General of MNF-1 as the infallible Pope of all that’s Iraq. He wrote a manual for combating insurgencies and the latest escalation in Iraq was based, partially, on the manual. His latest tidbit of information: troop reductions in Iraq will have to “slow down” this summer.
Fits right in with McCain’s plan to keep troops fighting in Iraq until the next century. Kudos to the troops. They do this mission, rotation after rotation, regardless of the risks and consequences.
Just this Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Senator Jim Webb, himself a highly decorated war hero, talked about a study that said 27% — over one quarter! — of the military’s NCO core is suffering symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The most significant factor: the repeated rotations to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s most ardent and prominent supporter, said the military has met all of its recruitment and retention goals and the troops were re-enlisting for the chance to return to Iraq! Senator Webb set the record straight: the main reason people re-enlist is for economic reasons. The working world sucks right now and the same reasons that propelled people into the military exist today.
Let’s wait to hear what Petraeus has to say when he testifies in front of Congress. Is the “Surge” a success? What political changes have occurred since the “Surge” began? Graham brought up the new Anti-Baathist Law passed in Iraq the supposedly makes it easier for members of the former Hussein regime to re-enter the government work force. It actually calls for former baathists to be fired from their jobs if they are already working in government and forbids Baathists from holding jobs in a number of government departments and from attaining too high a post in the few departments where they can work.
The law was written primarily by those loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite cleric who recently called on his followers to start attacking American military personnel. Hussein, the leader of the former Baath Party when Hussein was still the ruler of Iraq, murdered his father. But the Sadrists (as they’re called) were magnanimous in granting former Baathists back into the government. Many Sunnis in government didn’t even want to vote on it, let alone ratify it and on the day it was passed, the Iraqi Parliament barely made muster, which means as few as 72 people could have voted “Yea” for that law.
That is the great success on which the president and the Republicans will base their case for the “Surge” and continuing the never-ending war in Iraq. And in September, there will still be at least 140,000 troops fighting and dying in Iraq.Now, it’s almost time for Cyber Girl of the Week Hour, when the latest Playboy Cyber Girl is unveiled to the public. It’s as important as waiting for episodes of the Sopranos, except that, unlike the hit HBO TV series, I’d like to take the main attraction home!
So, I’m ending this screed. I have priorities.
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