Stephen P. Pizzo
http://www.stephen.pizzo.com
Email me at: stephen(at)pizzo.com
NEWS FOR REAL
http://newsforreal.com/
Basta!
Enough. Enough, enough, enough! Enough with the spin and re-spin. Enough with slandering those who question this abortion of a war. And enough with the war itself. The time to put a stop to this madness was long ago. But we didn't. Instead we allowed a clutch of half-mad fundamentalists unleash a bloody, unless, un-winnable war that's killed maybe hundreds of thousands. A war that has become an insatiable black hole that sucks in more lives every day.
Now the President, and his shrinking circle of fellow travelers, want to send up to 35,000 additional US troops into that black hole. He will also ask Congress for a couple of hundred billion more dollars (we don't have) to pay for two more years of war.
Enough! We should have said enough, meant it, and forced it long ago. But today is all we have, and today is a far better day than tomorrow, to say it, “enough already!”
To Democrats, like Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, I say, get with it or get the hell out of the way. You've hidden behind your triangulated, mealy-mouthed, obfuscated, do-nothing, take-no-risks, non-positions for too long. And, to our shame, we have allowed you to get away with it. Enough of that too.
The time has come for Democrats to do something for change, to stand for something, for a change. We are onto your dodge, you excuses, which can be summarized something like this:
“Sure I voted to give the President permission to attack Iraq. But I did so only to give him negotiating power. I didn't think he would really do it. And I sure didn't vote for the kind of incompetence we've seen in conducting the war.”
Oh, how tidy. How minced. How nauseatingly weaselly. That vote was four years ago. Where the hell have you been since? That vote was 2951 dead US GI's ago. Since Democrats and Republicans in congress has voted over $350 billion in funding to facilitate that deadly incompetence. So shut up with that crap, Hillary. You and Democrats like you, have your own penance to do, your own crow to choke down, your own shame to shoulder. And the best way to begin is to learn how to say, “enough!”
That's what voters said in November, “enough!” Our vote putting Democrats back in control of Congress, was not a vote for anything. It was a vote against this war. It was not a vote for “Hillary for President,” it was a vote against the current occupant of that office.
The time has come for those of you elected to congress last November to act. The day you raise your hands and are sworn into office this January the very first thing you must do – Nancy Pelosi – is to say "enough!" You need to stop this war, stop it dead in its bloody tracks. And, no, Nancy, that can't wait 100 hours until you raise in the minimum wage. In fact, we can wait for every item on your first 100 hours to-do list, Ms. Pelosi. What we can't wait one day longer for is for congress to say, “enough” to this war. No more continuing resolutions. No additional funds for a “surge” of troops to Iraq. Enough! The only money the administration should get for Iraq is just enough to pay for a safe and orderly extraction of US troops out of Mad Max Iraq.
Below is a chart every member of congress should have stapled to their forehead until they get it. It shows that, when it comes to fighting an indigenous insurgency, sending more troops is simply feeding the beast. As you can see in January 1965 Lyndon Johnson was at precisely the same juncture as George W. Bush finds himself today. The US had 180,000 troops fighting Communist Viet Cong insurgents in Vietnam, and we were losing. Johnson's choices, like Bush's now, were limited; withdraw or add troops. To Johnson, Texan like Bush, withdrawal meant defeat and he was not about to stand for that on his watch. So he added troops – a lot of troops – another 360,000 troops. (See chart below.)
We all know how that turned out. Still, even to this day, die-hard right-wingers will tell you that we didn't lose that war, but forfeited it. That politicians in Washington “tied the hands of our military.”
Excuse me. Tied whose hands? We had B-52's carpet bombing North Vietnam, air tankers defoliating thousands of square miles of rain forest, free-fire zones in which anything that moved, man, woman, child or water buffalo, was shot dead, entire villages were napalmed. I'd hate to see what those right-wingers consider “unhindered” warfare.
I only mention that because that's what we will hear from those now in favor of sending more troops to Iraq. They will argue that we have not fought in Iraq as though it was a real war, and that's precisely what we must do now. And, that if we do send more troops, we can still “succeed.”
Hello. Earth to morons. Vietnam is a smaller country than Iraq -- 325,360 sq km compared to Iraq's 432,162 sq km. We poured over half a million troops into that smaller country -- far more troops than we could muster today -- and we still couldn't gain the upper hand over those insurgents. Nevertheless we are about to be asked by this an administration -- an administration with a unbroken record of failure -- to give them one more crack at it. They want us to accept the unlikely premise that, if we just let them increase US troop strength in Iraq to something around 165,000, we could still “succeed.”
READ THE FULL REPORT:
http://newsforreal.com/
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Bush's Secret Plan
For Iraq
As everyone in the Bush Administration seems to be writing and leaking their own CYA memos, one has to wonder what George W. Bush and Karl Rove are thinking. Well, News For Real has gotten our fictional hands on a memo George wrote to Karl just last week. In it Bush voices some disappointment with his long-time partner, indicates that frin here on he's calling the shoots, and reveals his secret plan for dealing with the meltdown in Iraq.
Memo
CLICK:
http://newsforreal.blogspot.com/
- INTERVIEW: Stephen P. Pizzo, NEWS FOR REAL — Sat Dec 23 00:12
- YOUTUBE: 12/22/06 Cafferty on the Costs of War — Sat Dec 23 01:37
- The cost of those who cause these wars !!! — Sun Dec 24 21:15
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