Search:

Reactions To Bush's New Military Strategy: Lacking Coherence Opposition Ensures Our Defeat In Iraq

By: Edwin A. Sumcad

[ Posted On: 2007-01-15 ]

Policy makers are now feverishly evaluating public reactions to President George W. Bush's January 10, 2007 announced proposal to send about 21,000 more troops to Iraq to win the war in Iraq.

On the same day it was announced, television viewers glued to Bill O'Reilly's evening show were informed of the results of FoxNews survey indicating certain critical reactions to Bush's troop surge plan. Flashed across the screen was 70% approving and less than 30% disapproving. [1]

I saw those figures myself, and reflected on what they mean. But the viewers were not sure if the respondents in the polls were Republicans or the interview was conducted only among Bush's supporters. If it was, party-loyalty-wise, the less than 30% who disapproved the plan are Republicans and Bush supporters that do not see eye-to-eye with what President Bush is doing in Iraq.

We have Republican House and Senate leaders who were not in accord with Bush's new military strategy in Iraq. We have a composite profile of this Republican minority within the party whose bat-like perception of the problems in Iraq hugs the limelight even if it is only for recognition purposes, e.g., the likes of Sen. Susan Collins [R-Me], Sen. Olympia Snowe [R-Maine]; Sen. Norm Coleman [R-Minn]; Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-N], and Sen. Sam Brownback [R-K]. Sen. Hagel described Bush's plan as "… a strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost." [2]

Vietnam war veteran Hagel is entitled to his opinion that is out of sync with his own party leadership. The big words he used in criticizing Bush's plan do not necessarily make his conviction right. But it is difficult for the public to disapprovingly ignore Hagel's self-image building critique on Bush whose latest military strategy on Iraq is thrown into the limelight without being accused of intolerance or bigotry in the exercise of freedom of speech.

On the other hand, if the FoxNews polls were taken at random using a stratified "universe" [the statistical term used in random survey], then the plan really clicks with the general preference of the American public.

However, other polls showed different results. For example, about three days before the announcement [1/5-7/07], Gallup Poll took some dead heat figures [3] as follows: "… 54% are clearly on the other side from the President … 43% on the President's side." But "Forty-eight [48%] think we can achieve our goals… with more troops in Iraq." 47% believed we cannot achieve our goals in Iraq.

In general, Americans "… think it is a good idea to add troops" in Iraq.

What this means is that, if from now up to November 2008 President Bush can "muster" support to his plan of about 45% of the masses, this magnitude of approval will not only improve his standing in the eyes of the American public but it will also be viewed as a "significant move in the right direction" in favor of the beleaguered Republican administration.

But as defeat in Iraq is not acceptable to all Americans, so is withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is intolerable to almost all Americans. It is 70% no-no in the latest December 11, 2006 Gallup Poll rating. It was even higher -- 77% -- on December 12, 2005.

In other words, approximately 8 out of 10 Americans do not consider abandoning Iraq as an option. To them leaving Iraq is a U.S. defeat in the Middle East. Let us establish this as our premise in the main part of this editorial analysis.

We can conclude from this intense public reaction that favors Bush in spite of his low rating in handling the war in Iraq, that opponents to the new strategy of military buildup in Iraq who wanted President Bush to leave Iraq and bring our troops home are ensuring our defeat in Iraq.

Let's review in random just about a couple or so of historical references, how the Democrats' respond to Bush's troop surge proposal, guarantees our defeat in Iraq.

Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi [D-Cal] is consistent in her diatribes against the escalating cost of war in Iraq. Joined by Sen. Edward Kennedy [D-Mass], Pelosi is solid on this stand now as she was in her 2004 response to the State of the Nation Address. [4] She doesn't believe that we should be in Iraq in the first place. For anyone expecting that as Speaker of the House she will support the plan to send more troops to Iraq is like hoping that hell might freeze over and relieve the heat on Bush-bashing.

CBS-AP reported that, "In one of the most pointed Democratic denunciations of the war in Iraq yet, Sen. Edward Kennedy … called the Bush administration's case for going to war a fraud 'made up in Texas' to give Republicans a political boost." [5] In reacting to Bush's January 10, 2007 publicly viewed television address, Sen. Kennedy suggested that Congress could [should] cut off funding for Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq. In plain language, like Pelosi, Kennedy is campaigning for U.S.'s Iraq withdrawal as the Democrats begin their rule in Congress.

Do they care about what the American public wants? Americans want Bush to "stay the course" in Iraq as shown in the highest percentage ratings of the Gallup Poll. To leave Iraq means defeat, which is not acceptable. Without coherence to what the American public wants, their avowal in seeing to it that we quit the war in Iraq ensures our defeat in Iraq.

Sen. Barack Obama [D-Ill.] objecting to what President Bush was proposing: "We're not going to baby sit a civil war" [in Iraq]."

It is not clear whether or not Sen. Obama has turned himself into a Democrat babysitter in the Senate. That is not a kind likable role for the senator who is being touted by supporters to be the forthcoming Democrat standard bearer nominee for the 2008 presidential election.

Neither was there any clarity nor candor when Sen. Obama said this: "Democratic-controlled Congress would not undercut troops already in Iraq but would explore ways to restrict the president from expanding the mission." Notice this double-talk … "to restrict the [P]resident from expanding the mission" is to "abort" our military engagement [mission] in Iraq, which is another statement for "withdrawal".

Sen. Obama is being groomed to become the first black candidate for President of the United States in 2008. It would be exciting for me and my kind to support such candidate. However, a certain charismatic attraction is needed more than what the senator is showing right now about himself and about what he thinks of the war in Iraq. For, to be indifferent to the wishes of the worried public over such sensitive issue as "staying the course" in Iraq where 8 out of 10 Americans believed that withdrawing from Iraq is a U.S. defeat which is not acceptable, does not speak of the quality of a presidential candidate that a supporter would give an arm away to get his or her candidate elected to the highest office of the land.

Sen. Obama's colleague Sen. Dick Durbin [D-Ill] was a little bit different in the way he articulated his dissent to demonize the new Bush strategy. Sen. Durbin sounded like he was issuing a threat to the President when he blurted out a public statement against Bush's announced troop surge agenda. When Congress convened last week, Sen Durbin declared that "… questions are now being asked of this administration [the Bush administration} that haven't been asked for almost four years."

What does the senator think he was hiding behind his back for the last four years … some kind of a secret "Timebomb" that he was about to explode on President Bush? What happened to the issue whether or not we should increase the number of our soldiers in Iraq? This lack of coherence is horrendously hideous in the center stage of public attention.

This is, to say the least, weird! If such is a threat, then it is one of those liberal excesses. The Liberals' excesses as well as shortcomings in politicking are never publicly doubted.

Some of these shortcomings are blatant recklessness in treating issues with intellectual attention and judicious consideration. The lack of logical coherence is displayed with wild abandon when they attack Bush… attacks which actually insult the intelligence of the American public.

Let's step back a little bit and point to examples of those negative liberal thinking and to the radical oppositions and protestations of their left-wing comrades-in-arms on the controversial Iraq invasion issue.

Democrats knew that no matter what Bush would have done, Russia, France and Germany would not have joined American forces in going to war with Iraq. Thus our United Nations courtesy and diplomatic initiative has failed through no fault of President Bush. But in the eyes of the Democrats, it was Bush's fault, as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Gulf Coast devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the likes of those other occurring disasters were all Bush's failings as President of the United States.

Anything at all, including a load of political garbage [calling the President unprintable names in a concerted nationwide character assassination campaign] that the Democrats and their left-wing allies could heap on Bush was to the Democrats and their radical supporters a God-given opportunity that should be taken advantage of at the heat of the moment.
Going to war in Iraq on our own sans the imprimatur of the inutile United Nations leadership, was the second best critical choice of the day. The war on terror could not wait for another September 11 to bury more Americans in the rubbles. Only a pygmy mind would think that the war on terror is just against Iraq, and that the cost of war that Americans have to bear is worth a penny. For Bush's liberal critics to think that the cost of war is cheap is very foolish. Primarily, this is what Pelosi and Kennedy were protesting against… the war in Iraq is too expensive to continue, for all Americans to bear and suffer any further.

There is no such thing as a "cheap war". How wrong Democrats could get when they tell the American public that we should leave Iraq alone because it is too costly to stay there and fight our cause until we won the war, surprises me as it does many other incredulous Americans!

Ergo, to criticize that we are waging an expensive war in Iraq is not only irrational but also thoughtlessly imprudent. The absence of logical coherence in this criticism is very disturbing, to say the least.

Similarly, how wrong Congressperson Pelosi is in her stand against the cost of war in Iraq which she outlined in her response to the 2004 State of the Union Address [in her mind the taxpayers' billions of dollar that underwrite the cost of war in Iraq were just going down the drain], appalled me to no end. As if there is any sense other than horse sense to argue that we should avoid war because it is too expensive! If not going to war is a free choice because there has never been any reason to go to war, no country in the world would ever have any history of war.

Is this real? It is to those who have no logic. It is to those who have no mind's eye. It is real to the incoherent, and to the legally declared mentally blind.

This anti-war menu that the Democrat Congressperson from California is serving the public needs a little sprinkle of brain to suit the taste of our intellectual palate. Otherwise it is just a tasteless insult to the intelligence of the American public.

We have Democrats in the helm of constructive politics that we cannot help but admire for their frankness, candor, and honesty and not to say the least, our respect of and praise for their brilliant minds. I go along with what the American public traditionally believed on this. Yesterday it was the likes of Franklin D. Roosevelt whose presidency established the social security system in the United States - the 8th wonder of the modern world according to Albert Einstein. This celebrated mathematical genius computed to the nth time what "compounded interests" of money means, which to him demonstrates what the social security system was all about as an economic safety net to most if not all needy Americans. Time proved that Einstein was right. Millions of Americans are now benefiting from this 8th wonder of the modern world.

Today, we have the likes of Sen. Joseph Liebermann [D-Connecticut] whose candor, frankness and honesty cross party lines, and whose intelligence blurs the boundary of politics. He could be as smart as if not smarter than President Bill Clinton under whose presidency the lowly American on record enjoyed for the first time in history a certain degree of fiscal abundance when our economic cooperative engagement with China started to bloom, although compared to Liebermann, Clinton has left something to be desired.

But this peculiar motive of today's suspicious Democrats in their exercise of mental dishonesty every time they attack Bush who happens to be the President of this greatest country on the planet, insinuates that Americans have been falsely led to this reported financial quagmire in Iraq. This present brand of sword-brandishing Democrats gives out a public impression that when they attack the President of the United States who happens to be Bush, on this particular cost-and- benefit issue on Iraq, they appear to be deceitfully chameleon. An example of what deceitfully chameleon means in bringing down the Bush administration is shown on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report where troop withdrawal from Iraq is recommended by March this year. The report ensures Bush defeat in Iraq.

Deceitfully chameleon when criticizing Bush on the war in Iraq is real beneath of what appears to be only apparent on the surface.

For example, in lambasting Bush for the cost of war in Iraq, the Democrats are showing a bleeding heart for the heavily taxed ordinary American, but for a reason that is so politically incorrect. [Refer to Note (2)] In responding to the 2004 State of the Nation Address, [Refer to Note (4)] Congressperson Pelosi gloated over her announcement to the American public that "… the American taxpayers are shouldering almost all the cost, a colossal $120 billion and rising …" allegedly for Bush's misadventure in Iraq. Her heart is heavy with sympathy for the plight of the overburdened taxpayers.

The truth of the matter is, the decision to go to war in Iraq was not Bush's decision alone. It was a Republican-Democrat decision in Congress to invade Iraq. Hence Democrats who voted for the invasion of Iraq, and are now criticizing the President of the United States for going to war in Iraq because it is costly, are guilty of mental dishonesty.

In this illustration, the real motive behind the attack on President Bush's supposedly faulty Iraq war economics is to whip up animosity if not anger against the Republican administration as the Democrats set their eyes at and focuses their energy on recapturing White House come November 7, 2008 presidential election.

The crocodile tears shed in public for the alleged heavy tax imposition to fund the war in Iraq have nothing to do with the predicament of the taxpayers who are anyway whether they like it or not, destined to shoulder the prohibitive cost of war … any war for that matter.

This lack of coherence in opposing the sending of additional troops to Iraq, and the absence of a coherent logic to stop the funding of war in Iraq which would eventually lead to our withdrawal, clandestinely ensures our defeat in Iraq. #

Notes [1] to [5] are available for reference but not printed for space.
© Copyright Edwin A. Sumcad. Access January 13, 2007.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Edwin A. Sumcad is a veteran diplomat-journalist and for more than 45 years a recipient of numerous excellence awards in journalism. His editorial insights appear in other publications and published in several websites. A brief comment may be e-mailed to ed.superx722[at]yahoo.com.sg. [Please replace [at] with @]

| View Profile & All Articles By: Edwin A. Sumcad |

		Post Comment
		Blog This Article!
		Discuss Article in Forum(s)
		Publication \| Reprint Terms

Please Rate this Article

# of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 1/5

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive The Americas Articles Via RSS!

| Category Feeds | All-in-one Feed | Other Feed & Syndication Options |

Additional Articles From - Home | Politics | The Americas

	Print This Article
	Post Comment
	Add To Favorites
	Email To Friends
	Ezine Ready \| Syndication
	Make PDF Article
	Share in FaceBook
	Post To del.icio.us
	Post To Furl
	Add To Google Bookmarks
	Submit To Propellor
	Add To Yahoo! My Web
	Add Main Feed To Outlook
	Post to BookMarks @ AfroArticles.com

	Post To BookMarkAfrica.com

| More Subscription Options |

Site Home

Article Categories

More Search Options

Site Map

Submit Articles

Top Authors

Most Recent Articles