Posted on 08/22/2007 6:50:32 AM PDT by SE Mom
"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of a three-day visit to Syria.
"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere," Mr. al-Maliki said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Thank you for saving me time with that response.
Bush reiterates support for Maliki AFP 17:02
KANSAS CITY, United Sates (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Wednesday reaffirmed his support for embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, calling him a “good man with a difficult job.”
“Prime Minister Maliki’s a good guy, good man, with a difficult job, and I support him,” said Bush, who was seeking to dispel any sense that Washington has been distancing itself from the beleaguered government in Baghdad.
Bush appeared to fuel that feeling on Tuesday when he noted “frustration” with Maliki’s administration and, without offering his usual words of support, said it was up to the Iraqis to decide whether to replace the prime minister.
On Wednesday, the US president moved to change that impression even as he pleaded for patience with his unpopular strategy and confronted worries about stalled efforts in Iraq to forge national reconciliation.
“Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this,” he said. “A free Iraq’s not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship.”
But “it’s not up to the politicians in Washington, DC, to say whether he will remain in his position, that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship,” he said.
Full:
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070822155516.y0vxft70.html
“it’s not up to the politicians in Washington, DC, to say whether he will remain in his position, that is up to the Iraqi people....”
once upon a time that was said about Ngo Din Diem.....
So we should keep dumping everything we have into solidifying a government that seems to have no regard for the work we're doing or the sacrifices we've made. You keep saying it's for our national interest. Great. The immediate effects of EVERYTHING we do here is for Iraqi national interests (interests that, enshallah, will jive with our own). You are saying that it doesn't matter if he's a roadblock. So we're going to keep pouring money and lives into this place, regardless if they're willing to accept the help? It's one thing for these people to be incredibly callous and ungrateful for what we've done for them (and they are), but it's a whole other thing to expect us to shrug it off and keep going at it with smiles on our faces.
Yep. The above is a perfect example of an Administration sending mixed signals. When reading exactly what Bush said, there’s nothing in there that gaurantees Maliki anything :) Bush supports Maliki today, ok, no big deal here. Critical legislation in Iraq is on hold right now, Maliki can’t make it happen. “The people of Iraq” one way or the other will make adjustments as necessary, and as a “democracy”. That’s still a win, no matter who they fall in line to support.
The fact that he is cozying up to Iran and Syria is what I find most distastefull. I don't trust this guy. He needs to be kicked to the curb.
I've never understood the partition idea. Would cause more problems than it's worth frankly. After all, one would think the lesson had been learned by creating Iraq in the first place after WWI.
No, Iraq will create strong ties with Syria, possibly Iran as they begin devolving into a theocracy. Of course they'll have voted for it with their purple fingers so all those that claimed 'democracy is working' in Iraq will have nothing to complain about...
Way to go, Levin!
The Dummies are forever putting their feet in their pieholes. They just don’t get it....our enemies LOVE us when we’re being STUPID. “American imperialism” is alive and well,and it has a face....The Democratic Party!
Weird, is all I can say.
I can believe that without any troube -- you haven't sid anything to amount to anything so far.
You’ve watched this nucklehead Maliki long enough too I’m sure, to know that our support (Bush Adminisration) of Maliki has been wobbly in the past, and Maliki’s troubles have been many. Many of his troubles are to his own doing, like...say telling Exec and DOS to piss off as many times as he has. Not to mention his causing the early hiccups we saw with the surge (Mid Feb) by his mouth writing checks his rear end couldn’t cash with respect to numbers and organization of soldiers. I say the Admin needs to spin it, but really they don’t.
I don’t think you two are really at odds.
We need to OPENLY admit that our national interest is (perhaps equally, but maybe not) divided between the Iraq beach-head in our genuine “WOT” and the oil supply, and that the “democracy” thing is in reality little more than a talking point.
So the military mission is justified on those 2 points (WOT/oil), but in true feelgood fashion is diverted to the talking-point excessively.
MEDCAP type projects are somewhat productive and should surely be pursued. But this apparent near-total building and rehab of any and all infrastructure is nonsense, at least if you aren’t an employee or stockholder in the corporate maze that manages the money pit which has resulted in Iraq from the moment Bush landed on the flat-top off the California coast in 2003. My God! There are probably nearly as many non-DoD Americans in Iraq as there are GI’s, and almost every single one of them are part of cost-plus contracts that also include the funding for the work-products of these infrastructure projects.
Given the degree of actual military mission diversion just to secure these projects and worse yet the military diversion into non-military LABOR heaped upon GI’s, it seems as if it might be that a whole lotta casualties and money attributed to the military mission is really due to this infrastructure bit. Seems wrong to me. Babysitting for corporate civilians and wiping iraqi butts and doing iraqi dirty work is NOT a real military mission.
Just one quick example.....roadside IED’s.......how many casualties are generated while hauling freight or military security to these infrastructure projects as distinct from a true military mission? I can only guess, and I guess that it is a shocking and unacceptable percentage.
Part of my perspective is taken from Iraq Veterans who are now showing up in larger numbers in the VA Medical Center to which I go 12-15 times a year.......I seek them out in waiting and smoking areas. They are not disloyal or unpatriotic or unwilling to do the job. They don’y write articles or get trotted onstage by right or left type groups. They are average American GI’s who for whatever reason are no longer on active duty. They are not wannabes, and they are not cowards. In almost every case, it takes some doing and finesse on my part to experience the privelege of learning their opinion based upon their first-hand observations and experiences.
Pardon my rant, I didn’t intend it to be so long. I’d best hit the button before I change my mind.
Everyone believes the US will leave at the latest by the end of Bush's term, and knows that as soon as we do, the war to control Iraq begins all over again, this time without Queensbury rules. Most of the Shia recognized that the largest power in Iraq as soon as that happens will be Iran, and its clients, the Sadr wing of the Shia.
The only forces inside Iraq willing to fight Sadr, that being the case, are the Sunnis. They expect to be supported with gobs of money by the Saudis. Saudi Arabia and Iran will conduct a proxy war through their clients as soon as the US leaves. Iran is almost certain to win that war.
Petraeus has recently been arming the Sunnis as a means of trying to pressure Maliki, but it will only drive him deeper in the arms of Iran. Maliki is emphatically preparing himself and his party for the time when your conclusion, that Iraq isn't worth it, is acted upon. The result will be first a civil war on a higher level of conflict, second the defeat of the Sunnis without restraint in how they are treated as they lose (which will drive millions into exile in Jordan and Saudi Arabia), and finally Iranian alliance with the new Iraq.
I agree. This is the expected response to asshat Levin and Co.
Maliki's actions are the perfectly predictable result of Petraeus defying him and arming the Sunnis, in line with the wishes of the Saudis, and as a means of balancing against Iran. The naive hope that this would result is some touching national reconciliation is and always was a pipe dream.
The Sunnis have bombed mercilessly for years without consequences to themselves, are securing US and Saudi support despite it, and regard themselves as indispensible to the world for the same reasons they think Saddam was - as an Arab strongman front against Iran and the Shia. As far as the Sunnis are concerned, they are winning, and when the Americans leave, they expect to fight the Shia, defeat them, and rule them with the utmost brutality just like they did under Saddam. They never accepted the loss of even a particle of their power. The most they will do in the future is be somewhat nicer to the Kurds and make sure they get along with the Saudis.
The Shia see all of this, even if the US does not. Abandoned by the US, they will side with Iran, as likely to still be around in five years and actually willing to help them. Instead of telling them not to fight back when mad bombers slaughter their children in the marketplace every morning, the Iranians will tell them to go to it and murder their enemies. Which they will proceed to do. Probably with complete success, since US failure to quell the Sunnis is entirely a result of our Queensbury rules and attempts to be "even handed" between the terrorists and their targets.
The Sunni terrorists in Iraq will be defeated militarily in less than two years by Ahmadinejad, who will then crow that he succeeded in half the time where the US with all its supposed might, failed. He will trumpet this as a vindication of Islam etc. The Saudis will react to all of the above by seeking their own nuclear deterrent to contain Iran.
Can anyone here play this game? It would appear not.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
I’m not as naive as our leaders.
OK, neither are the Shi'ites. It's impossible to choose sides in this. I've fought in Sadr City (all Shi'ite) and Dora (vast majority Sunni). We've taken way too many casualities in both areas. So which side do I crack down on? I was clearing an apartment complex that was majority Shi'a once. We met a very nice Sunni family that were terrified (and under direct intimidation) to leave their apartment. The mother worked in the Green Zone, but she couldn't go anywhere due to the very real threats of her whole family being killed if she did. I cleared another Sunni neighborhood where I met a couple of Shi'a families who were hightailing it for the South due to Sunni intimidation and violence.
If that's not all bad enough, we have the Kurds up north who really, really like us. The Turks really, really hate them and are supposedly allies with us (to say nothing of anti-Kurdish violence with Syria and Iran, too). Do we help them and alienate Turkey? Do we ignore them and possibly allow them to be wiped out by Turkey, Syria, and Iran?
The point is, there are WAY too many variables for us to be terribly effective in the region. We just need to boil it down to the essentials. We're involved in the Middle East for oil. Bottom line. Why don't we seize those fields and take it? We've paid more than enough for it, I'd say.
All that comes to my mind is
Kobayashi Maru
Kobayashi Maru
Indeed.
re #15 MEGABUMP!
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