Posted on 11/17/2003 6:52:12 PM PST by Pikamax
It sucks to be a Democrat these days
Nag, nag, nag. That's all Democrats do these days about Iraq. Morning, noon and night. Not an hour goes by without the Griping and Grumbling Democrats griping and grumbling about how terrible things are going in Iraq. They opposed the invasion, but nag that Bush should've used more troops for the invasion. They opposed using force, but nag that Bush should've used overwhelming force to crush Iraq's army completely. They also nag that there's no Iraq army; we scared the bejeebers out the Iraq army during the invasion with too much firepower and too many U.S. troops. Faced with overwhelming firepower, the Iraq army fled the battlefield. (Invading with French troops deploying white flags could've prevented this, but Bush "wasted every opportunity to build an international coalition," Sen. John F. Kerry pointedly notes). Bush won the war too decisively, in short. It produced a power vacuum. Had Bush had a little more Quagmire during the invasion -- as Big Media predicted he would -- we would not be in a Quagmire now. But, oh, no, Bush, stubborn as always, had to do it his way, winning the war in record time, proving infallible media predictions wrong, ignoring the injury to media egos this would cause. Not only that, but Bush refused to carry out solid Media invasion scenarios of ecological and human disaster. No food crisis, no refugee crisis, no environmental crisis, no civil war, no Arab uprising, no raging oil fires, no Scud Missile strikes on Israel, no tens of thousands of dead G.I.s, no al-Qaeda revenge here -- no wonder we're in so much trouble now!
As a huge body-bag surplus threatens huge body-bag job cuts, "The Q-word (Quagmire) is getting some air as America settles down for a winter at war," writes Tony Karon of TIME magazine.
"The Q-word," he writes, "has been popping up with increasing frequency as the war in Iraq drags without any bankable signs of progress. Webster's Collegiate dictionary defines a quagmire as 'soft miry land that shakes or yields under foot' and as 'a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position.' It has been part of the U.S. political lexicon ever since it seemed an apt description of the U.S. experience in Vietnam. In the last week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has had to devote a considerable amount of his time explaining why it's a misnomer for the current situation in Iraq. He was responding to the steady rumble from the media, politicians, Iraq experts and even some U.S. allies that the operation (in Iraq) has the hallmarks of a classic military-political quagmire -- unclear goals, no visible victory post and no convincing exit strategy."
"The military insists things are going according to plan," adds Karon, "and that the critics are forgetting the initial warnings from the Pentagon and the White House that this would be a long, complicated war in which previous definitions no longer apply...Still, the pundits' concern (about the deepening quagmire in Iraq) is understandable."
Regarding Operation Iron Hammer, Karon writes that "The bombing thus far has not dislodged the Taliban..."
Huh? The Taliban? Hold on there. Doesn't make sense. Must be a typo. I'll double-check.
Uh-oh.
Major screw-up.
Yes, I did it again, FReepers. You'd think I'd be more careful after that last screw-up of mine, but, oh, no, just had to screw-up again. How embarrassing.
The Karon article I've been quoting was not about Iraq but about Afghanistan -- days before the Taliban fell! Sorry for the confusion, FReepers. Next time, I'll really, really be careful ;-)
Meanwhile, in a wholly unthinkable and unprecedented development, there are reports that Bush isn't well liked by Britain's freakazoid antiwar Left, with anti-Americanism running high among groups devoted to anti-Americanism.
More shocking still, there are credible reports that antiwar protesters there are protesting, the protesting prompted by war in Iraq (funny, I thought they said the war was bogus) and Bush's visit for talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the first full state visit by a U.S. President. Organizers expect a massive 1% of the British public to show up for the protests. Only 59,920,000 Brits will sit out the protests. The protesters, displaying an impressively firm grip on fairyland, their anger at Bush for toppling Saddam sizzling, will make believe they're toppling Bush by toppling a make-believe statue of Bush in central London on Thursday. (Strange again. I thought they said the U.S. lost the war. This should be a victory march, not a protest).
The Stop The War Coalition, which sponsored the protests, includes such perfectly mainstream, everyday groups like the Workers Power (which praises "mainstream" suicide bombers), Green Socialist Network and Socialist Alliance (which praises 'mainstream' Castro), Socialist Workers Party (committed to 'mainstream' killing and global revolution), the Socialist Party (committed to Socialism as key to well-being and prosperity), Lawyers against the War, Globalise resistance, Al-Awda, etc. These groups, Ba'athists from the Ba'ath wing of the Ba'ath Party, say Bush is a bloody terror mastermind who duped Blair into helping Bush's global war policy. (Who knows -- maybe Bush planned the Kennedy assassination!) These groups also say Bush is really, really dumb.
The protesters are so peaceful and mainstream, "London police have mounted an unprecedented security operation," CNN reports, with concrete barriers "erected outside Buckingham Palace, while the Metropolitan Police have scheduled 14,000 officer shifts" to guard against assassination and other civil disobedience by the peaceful protesters.
A new poll by The Guardian newspaper shows how mainstream these mainstreamers truly are. In the survey, published Tuesday, only 62 percent of Britons consider America "a force for good" in the world, while a whopping 15 percent agreed with Howard Dean that America is an "evil empire." The survey also found that only 47 percent consider themselves bloody warmongers like Bush, supporting the decision to topple Saddam, although the number of bloody warmongers is up from 38 percent in September. The Guardian blames the rise in bloody warmongers in Britain on reports of suicide bombings in Iraq. No doubt the suicide bombings were either a fraud made up in Texas (see Teddy Kennedy) or the suicide bombers were working for evil Halliburton (see Henry Waxman, who's still investigating Enron). Yeah, yeah, go ahead, dismiss Kennedy if you want; I say the Neanderthal-baiter has a point when he says Bush has driven our policy in Iraq off a bridge, letting it drown in a tide-swept neo-con pond while Bush safely swims to shore. This policy is a car wreck! er, train wreck...
Analysts and keen observers say the trip could prove a PR nightmare for Bush. They say the danger for Bush is that Americans, seeing images of angry mobs on the streets of London burning U.S. flags, shouting anti-U.S. slogans and images of Left-wing crazies acting like Left-wing crazies could move voters in Missouri to say, 'Well, that does it for me. I can no longer support Bush or the war if Left-wing crazies in Britain don't support Bush or the war.' And we all remember how, after massive street demonstrations here in the U.S. last March, Bush was forced to cancel the war on Iraq -- NOT. Which is why the crazier the mobs, the angrier the mobs, the more Americans will rally to Bush.
Meanwhile, USA Today reports that "President Bush's job approval rating is sagging, and in several other categories he is at or near the lowest point of his presidency, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds."
Seven months after major combat operations were declared over, Iraq is still not a perfect democracy and as the war "drags on, (Americans are) nearly split over the president's leadership: 50% approve of the job he is doing, and 47% disapprove," says USA Today. "That equals the lowest approval and highest disapproval of his presidency."
Not only that, but in utterly horrific news for Vulnerable Bush, Democrat registration nationwide has surged again, soaring from 33 percent of total registration to 45 percent currently! We know this because, among the 1,004 interviewed in the USA Today-Gallup survey, no less than 457 were "Democrats or Democratic leaners." If the massive shift in registration continues apace, all Americans will be registered Democrats in about a month. The rebounding economy doesn't matter, say experts. Bush's reelection will depend on conditions in Iraq, not pocketbook issues here in the states.
Bush is finished! Doomed, I tell ya! Dean can measure the drapes in the White House.
In a related development, ABC News reports that "public views of the war in Iraq are holding steady" and the President's "job approval rating has stabilized as well."
"According to an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Bush's overall job approval rating stands at 57 percent, about the same as it was in late October and fairly stable since," says ABC News. "These are positive results for the White House," and "62 percent of Americans say U.S. forces should remain (in Iraq) until order is restored, despite the casualties."
The rebounding economy does matter, poll results show. Bush's reelection will depend more on pocketbook issues here in the states, than on conditions in Iraq.
Bush is unfinished! Undoomed, I tell ya! Howard Dean can not measure the drapes in the White House.
It must suck to be a Democrat these days.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
Been there once. Wasn't that impressed. Don't desire to come back. End of the story.
Perhaps you need a refresher course in history. Britain stood alone during the Battle of Britain.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" - WLSC.
I thought everyone knew that.
IN ONE OF HIS FAMOUS SPEECHES Churchill asked America 'Give us the tools and we will finish the job'. But America wouldn't 'give' anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only £87 million. Britain's £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser, 'Louisville ' to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up forty two million Pounds worth of British gold, Britain's last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition!. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old destroyers, he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall. (Of the 50 lend lease destroyers supplied to Britain, 9 were lost during the war)
QUOTE. Lord Beaverbrook was later to exclaim 'The Japanese are our relentless enemies, and the Americans our un-relenting creditors'.
A quote from Harold Wilson's Memoirs: 1916-1964 (1986):
Lend-Lease also involved Britain's surrender of her rights and royalties in a series of British technological achievements. Although the British performance in industrial techniques in the inter-war years had been marked by a period of more general decline, the achievements of our scientists and technologists had equalled the most remarkable eras of British inventive greatness. Radar, antibiotics, jet aircraft and British advances in nuclear research had created an industrial revolution all over the developed world. Under Lend-Lease, these inventions were surrendered as part of the inter-Allied war effort, free of any royalty or other payments from the United States. Had Churchill been able to insist on adequate royalties for these inventions, both our wartime and our post-war balance of payments would have been very different.
The Attlee Government had to face the consequences of this surrender of our technological patrimony, but there was worse to come. Congress had voted Lend-Lease until the end of the war with Germany and Japan and no longer. When the European war ended, most people expected the conflict with Japan to last for another year or so. The atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended that assumption. Almost within the hour, President Truman, unwillingly no doubt, but without any choice in the matter, notified Attlee that Lend-Lease was being cut off. At that time it was worth £2,000 million a year. There was no possible means of increasing our exports to the United States to earn that sort of sum. Britain was in pawn, at the very time that Attlee was fighting to exert some influence on the postwar European settlement. The only solution was to negotiate a huge American loan, the repayment and servicing of which placed a burden on Britain's balance of payments right into the twenty-first century.
A quote from Anthony Eden's Memoirs: The Reckoning (1965):
Mr. Churchill was continually pressing them to further efforts. He asked, among other things, for the loan of fifty or sixty destroyers, and this scheme was discussed between London and Washington.
The negotiations did not go smoothly, nor did I altogether approve of the details of the final settlement. At one time the suggestion was put forward in Washington that the entire British West Indies should be handed over for the cancellation of our war debts. I thought this less than friendly bargaining. At another, the destroyers were to be exchanged for a public assurance that the British fleet would sail to North American waters if Hitler gained control of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister rightly protested that such an announcement would have a 'disastrous effect' on British morale. The West Indian bases alone were certainly worth more than fifty or sixty old destroyers.
The sweeping nature of the first American demands caused some delay in the negotiations. Local patriotism in the West Indies was justifiably affronted. By August 14th, however, the agreement was settled, to be ratified at the beginning of the following month. Our desperate straits alone could justify its terms. The age and condition of the fifty destroyers made unexpectedly large demands upon our dockyards. Only nine ships were available before the end of 1940, by which time our own naval construction was catching up on our losses.
By the way, the Marshall plan was only extended to Britain after the British government agreed to hand over all our Uranium ore supplies to the USA, which substantially slowed down the production of the first British Atomic bomb. That bomb wasn't tested until October the 3rd, 1952 at Monte Bello Islands, Australia. We should have had it by the time the Soviet scum got theirs in 1949, but we didn't, because we had to give our Uranium to the USA.
By the way, I didn't realise that the US War of Independence was due to Britain's 'liberal crap', perhaps you would be kind enough to explain that enigmatic statement.
By the way, its spelt Limey, not Limmie.
Good day to you sir.
Anyway, from another Retired Army SFC to our great British allies, have a bloody good day.
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