Lost in the Desert
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Wednesday 22 November 2006
It's hard to remember when America has been so stuck. We can't win and we can't leave.
The good news is that the election finished what Katrina started. It dismantled the president's fake reality about Iraq, causing opinions to come gushing forth from all quarters about where to go from here.
The bad news is that no one, and I mean no one, really knows where to go from here. The White House and the Pentagon are ready to shift to Plan B. But Plan B is their empty term for miraculous salvation.
(Dick Cheney and his wormy aides, of course, are still babbling about total victory and completing the mission by raising the stakes and knocking off the mullahs in Tehran. His tombstone will probably say, "Here lies Dick Cheney, still winning.")
Even Henry Kissinger has defected from the Plan A gang. Once he thought the war could work, but now he thinks military victory is out of the question. When he turns against a war, you know the war's in trouble. He also believes leaving quickly would risk a civil war so big it could destabilize the Middle East.
Kofi Annan, who thought the war was crazy, now says that the United States is "trapped in Iraq" and can't leave until the Iraqis can create a "secure environment" - even though the Iraqis evince not the slightest interest in a secure environment. (The death squads even assassinated a popular comedian this week.)
The retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who thought Mr. Bush's crusade to depose Saddam was foolish and did not want to send in any troops, now thinks we may have to send in more troops so we can eventually get out.
[...]
At a Senate hearing last week, Gen. John Abizaid sounded like Goldilocks meets Guernica, asserting two propositions about the war that are logically at war with each other. He said we can't have fewer troops because the Iraqis need us, but we can't have more because we don't want the Iraqis to become dependent on us.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/opinion/22dowd.html
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6 comments:
if pottery barn were smart, they'd narrow their aisles....
KEvron
Send even more people to die in Iraq for no good reason is a bad idea.
Don Cut-n-Runsfeld has already shown us the best way to deal with a scenario gone horribly wrong; get the hell out of town while the gettin' is good...even if the scenario is your own damn fault.
And shred as many of those pesky incriminating documents as possible on your way out the door.
KEv, I think you're right ... However, as I understand it, the Pottery Barn folks are tied down over at the Door ...
Snerd
Don Cut-n-Runsfeld, Great!
Yes! The 'Honour' Vortex, an argument for getting more troops killed to honour the troops already killed ... the increasing requirement to honour more dead troops with more live ones.
Isn't this the argument they used in Vietnam when they ran outta Dominos ... when the actual reasons for being there became insufficient?
Snerd
If the troops are "honored" any further, there won't be any left!
off-topic, but getting back to the baker-hamilton commission:
the poetry man likens baker to fortenbras, with interesting results.
KEvron
KEvron
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