Bush appeals to Congress for time on Iraq

George W. Bush appealed to Congress on Tuesday to give the military more time to help stabilise Iraq before judging the success of this year's US troop build-up.

The president's comments were made amid a fresh push by Democrats to end the war and renewed bloodshed in Baghdad, where one of the biggest barrages against the heavily fortified Green Zone claimed the lives of three people and injured 18 others. Five of the injured were US citizens, including two military service members and three contract employees.

Rising numbers of Republicans have also added their voices to calls for a troop drawdown. Mr Bush said he welcomed the debate and was "glad to discuss different options". But he urged Congress to wait until September, when General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is scheduled to deliver a progress report on the war, before making a decision

There is a duality of issues here.

We cannot simply “pull out”. America’s credibility as an ally is on the line and the consequences in the Middle East of such a perceived retreat in the face of Islamic fundamentalism would be catastrophic.

Yet this Administration has engineered the situation in which we now find ourselves.

Iraq is but a single battle in a major world war against international Islam. WE won this battle but have squandered the political capital. As American forces pushed into Iraq and Saddam and his fiendish sons and henchmen went scrambling into the shadows, waves of repercussions spread throughout the Islamic world. Sure, there were the customary mobs of ignorant Muslims demonstrating in the streets - but they always do that anyway. Any excuse for a little practice. But Libya’s Khaddafy came clean with his nuclear program. The customary screams about the “Great White Satan” were silenced in Iran. They were waiting for the next shoe to fall.

It never did. Bush, like his father before him, blew it.
(Can we pass a law banning all Bushes from National Office?)
Instead of moving on to take out the Ayatollahs in Iran, as so many Iranian Students, demonstrating in Tehran’s streets hoped, or moving against the Baathis regime in Syria - the likeliest hiding place for Saddam’s WMD, Bush got drawn into an idiotic crusade in nation building. As long as Islam is the way Islam is and Muslims behave the way Muslims behave, we will never have a functioning Islamic Democracy which recognizes individual rights and a pluralist society - in short the only kind of Democracy worth working for. Instead, the best we can hope for is a benevolent dictator who can be relied upon to crack the whip against the Islamic hordes under his control - with our military assistance. Iran may be possible exception but more of a oligarchy than a democracy.

And so, now what do we do? We CAN’T pull out. We MUST engineer a better approach to dealing with this phase of what is CERTAIN to be a LONG, LONG war with Islam - unless of course, you are willing to put your daughters in burquas, burn down your churches and synagogues, outlaw alcohol, support a state church, grow beards, kill all your dogs, and break all your musical instruments and DVDs.

What I read on Rush's site makes a whole lot more sense to me.

RUSH: San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Epstein writing: "Senate Democrats, increasingly restive over the war in Iraq, plan to force a series of votes starting today aimed at either changing the course of President Bush's policy or embarrassing Republican members over their continued support for a war the public has soured on." They've done this over and over and over again, but, "This time, Reid said, things will be different. 'We want there to be change and it should not be a fig leaf,' he said." These things are going to be different this time. "A draft of the interim report," whether the Iraqi government has reached its benchmarks, "circulated Monday among government agencies, concludes that the government in Iraq has met none of its targets for political, economic and other reform, an official who asked not to be identified told the Associated Press. Another report, this one from Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker on how Bush's troop-increase strategy is working, is due by Sept. 15. But," as I told you yesterday, Dingy Harry "Reid and the Republican Senate defectors said they don't want to wait until then to change Iraq policy." They don't want to wait until General Petreaus reports in September, for all the obvious reasons. "The strategy of the Republican Senate leadership as Democrats seek votes on anti-war amendments is still not clear." Of course it's not clear because they're undecided what their strategy ought to be.

But let me give you a couple realities here, folks, and listen to me on this. Reality number one is that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are running Congress and they have been running Congress twice as long as the General Petraeus plan has been in place. Reality number two is that public support for Congress has collapsed. Have you seen the latest polls? I don't care what the president's numbers are. They are what they are. The congressional numbers are even worse.

Do we not think, ladies and gentlemen, that it may be time for new leadership in Congress? Perhaps maybe Senator Reid should be replaced and Speaker Pelosi should resign. Congress needs a new direction. Take every argument they're using to get us out of Iraq -- ignore Petraeus, deny his plan, the time to work and so forth -- and turn it around against them. The current leadership of Congress has failed. They've failed to deliver on their promises. They failed to set the country on the right course! They've failed to gain the support of the American people. They're a total political failure. As a matter of fact, during their leadership, Reid and Pelosi, the American people have rejected, overwhelmingly rejected their leadership. Anybody who has lost faith with General Petraeus has to be disgusted with Reid and Pelosi. If the Petraeus leadership can be judged in, what is it, two or three months now, the Reid and Pelosi leadership's had two or three times as much time and has clearly accomplished zilch, zero, nada, nothing, except a whole bunch of political stunts: Armani suits, grandchildren on the knee, a big mallet, 100 hours on the road to nowhere, secondhand smoke legislation, secondhand mirrors, minimum wage, a bunch of chicanery supposedly getting rid of earmarks but not really doing it -- and America gets it. Disapproval of the Reid-Pelosi Congress has collapsed, 37% to 24% after only six months. Well, if we're not even going to give Petraeus the full length of time he was promised and assured, and we're going to pronounce it a failure already and "a collapse of leadership" and there's no political will and support, the Iraqi people haven't met their benchmarks, well, neither the hell have Reid or Pelosi. They haven't met one benchmark. They haven't done one thing. The support for the US Congress in this country has not just plummeted. It has totally collapsed. So using their line of reasoning and thinking, we need new leaders in Congress, and we need them now. The Democrats are the ones that need the new plan and they need the new plan now, folks.

“If there ever was a time to make an appeal to the people, this is it.”

EXACTLY!

Now, more than ever, the country needs the President’s moral clarity:

“My fellow Americans, over 90% of you supported the invasion. When you invade a country, you are responsible for it. I know things look bad now, but we can’t leave Iraq until we have established a stable state that provides security to all of its citizens. I don’t know how many troops it will take. I don’t know how much longer they’ll have to stay. And I don’t know how much more it will cost or how we’ll ever pay for it. But you got what you wanted and it would be immoral to pull out, no matter the cost in American lives, American security or the tax increases you’ll have to live with, possibly for generations to come.”

It’s just like abortion — no matter WHAT the consequences, you have to have that baby. You can’t say “Oh, gee, look at how it would ruin my life.”

Americans need to understand there are some decisions one has to keep paying for, no matter how great the eventual cost. So it is with abortion. And so it is with Iraq.

Am I right, or am I right?

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