More Dubya Talk

President Bush told European leaders yesterday that his strategy in Iraq "is going to work."

Forget a timetable for troop withdrawal. At this point, I'll settle on a timetable for when the strategy is going to start working, because it's not working now. And Bush says he has no plans to change it. Well stay as long as it takes to "prevail," whatever exactly "prevailing" consists of.

To those who have lost family members in the war, Bush said, "We're...not going to allow their mission to go in vain."

So we're going to save their mission by sticking to a strategy that's not working?

Mr. Bush's "Dubya talk" reflects the general illogical, emotional rhetoric of the entire chicken hawk echo chamber.

We can't allow those killed in action to have died in vain.

Imagine what you would tell me if I said you had to sacrifice your son to justify my son's death.

If we withdraw from Iraq, we'll demonstrate to the world that the US military cannot win the conflicts it faces in the twenty-first century.

We've already demonstrated that. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the "best trained, best equipped" armed force in history did not protect us from the 9-11 attacks, nor did it deter them. And it's presently mired in a struggle with a marginally trained, minimally equipped insurgency force.

But this is a new kind of war; we have to learn how to fight it.

There's nothing about this war that Thucydides didn't write about in 400 BC (History of the Peloponnesian War), and none of it was new then either. Insurgencies, terrorism, asymmetric forces, religious extremism, and the rest of it have been integral factors in war since time immemorial.

It doesn't matter how we got here. We're here now and we have to stay the course.

It does matter how we got here; how we got here has everything to do with whether or not we stay the course. There's a big difference between sticking with a just, necessary war and sticking with a failing war started by sinister leadership on false pretexts.

We have to show the will of the American people to stay the course.

This is a repeat of the tired (and delusional) history rewrite that blames defeat in Vietnam on the American people. The real version is that the American people got fed up (finally) and rejected a bad war started and run badly by bad men.

The Bush-hawks would have the country believe that if we lose in Iraq, it will because a weak-kneed populace failed to support its president's war. Don't listen to that hogwash. The American people won't lose this war. America's disingenuous leaders will--if they haven't already.

Real American's support their commander in chief.

Unless you're presently on active duty in the military, George W. Bush isn't your commander in chief. He's the commander in chief of your military. Real Americans are not subjects of George W. Bush. We are citizens of the United States of America. Whatever he may think, God did not appoint George W. Bush as president. He is a public servant. If you disagree with his policies, it is your right (and also your duty, I'll argue) to oppose them.

Peace,

Jeff

PS Best Dubya Talk quote of the week:: "I think about Iraq every day, every single day."

Maybe he ought to start thinking about it twice a day, huh?