Is Bush's Dream ("Reforming the Iraq Whore") Your Dream?

Sometimes, another blogger sums up the sentiment of most thinking Americans much better that I can. Joshua Marshall over at the Talking Points Memo does just that. Have a look:

It's often been noted that we've had a difficult time explaining or figuring out just who we're fighting in Iraq. Is it the Sunni irreconcilables? Or is it Iran and its Shi'a proxies? Or is it al Qaida? The confusion is not incidental but fundamental. We can't explain who we're fighting because this isn't a war, like most, where the existence of a particular enemy or specific danger dictates your need to fight. We're occupying Iraq because continuing to do so allows us to pretend that the initial plan wasn't completely misguided and a mistake. If we continue to run the place a bit longer, the reasoning goes, we'll root out this or that problem that is preventing our original predictions from coming to pass. And of course the longer the occupation continues we generate more and more embittered foes to frame this rationalization around, thus creating an perpetual feedback loop of calamity and self-justification.

It's a huge distortion to say that this means the war was 'lost'. It just means what the war supporters said would happen didn't happen. The premise was bogus. Like I said at the outset, the whole exercise is like getting trapped in a brown paper bag. You can keep going into the bag and into the bag and into the bag and never get out or change anything. Or you can just turn around and walk out of the bag.

Of course, the damage that's been done over the last four years of denial is immense -- damage to ourselves, to the Iraqis, damage to Middle Eastern security and our standing in the world. So walking out of the bag isn't easy and it won't fix things. But the stakes alleged by the White House are largely illusory. Most of the White House's argument amounts to the threat that if we walk out of the bag that we'll have to give up the denial that the White House has had a diminishing percentage of the country in for the last four years. The reality though is that the disaster has already happened. Admitting that isn't a mistake or something to be feared. It's the first step to repairing the damage. What the president has had the country in for four years is a very bloody and costly holding action. And the president has forced it on the country to avoid admitting the magnitude of his errors.

Meanwhile, what's the president up to, you ask? Entertaining the Japanese:

The Abes and Laura and I had a really good dinner; it was very relaxed.

Well, how nice for W's digestion. But the friend who pointed me to the above and a few other links had this to say:

Petraeus is is right, it could take a long time (and many lives, and we still might not 'win'). But why do we want to marry the whore that is Iraq? This is Bush's dream, reforming the whore, but it isn't our dream. 'We' were interested in WMDs, not a do-over of Iraqi society. Bush can take his vacation in Baghdad instead of Crawford if he's keen on his agenda.

Let's have a closer look at W's speechifying and unscripted "joint press availability" so to see what we can learn, direct from the horse's mouth:

Q Mr. President, the Democrats have voted for a withdrawal timetable from Iraq, which you have said that you will veto. What ideas do you have for breaking this logjam going forward? And would you be willing to veto a second bill?

Good question. What say you Mr. Bush?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, I haven't vetoed the first bill yet. But I'm going to. And the reason why I'm going to is because members of Congress have made military decisions on behalf of the military. They're telling our generals what to do. They're withdrawing before we've even finished reinforcing our troops in Baghdad. They're sending, in my judgment, a bad message to the Iraqis and to the enemy and, most importantly, to our military folks. So I made it clear I'd veto.

They are not telling generals what to do, they are telling Mr. Bush what to do, and certainly well within their rights to have some oversight of the Executive Branch.

And, by the way, they're adding spending that shouldn't belong in the bill in the first place. Maybe they're important issues, but they ought to be -- these spending bills ought to be -- or spending issues ought to be debated in the normal course of business. So I've said this all along, my position has been consistent.

And this wasn't done by Republicans on other bills when Clinton was President?

I'm sorry it's come to this. In other words, I'm sorry that we've had this, you know, the issue evolve the way it has.

I don't know about you, but the lack of sincerity behind those last two sentence is obvious.

But, nevertheless, it is what it is and it will be vetoed and my veto will be sustained. And then the question is the way forward.

Well, that was the original question. What is W prepared to do?

And my suggestion is that -- and I invite the leaders of the House and the Senate, both parties to come down soon after my veto, so we can discuss a way forward.

Really?

If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept a timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one. I just don't think it's in the interest of our troops.

Why? Well, here's where you know that W is totally losing his marbles here.

I think it -- I'm just envisioning what it would be like to be a young soldier in the middle of Iraq and realizing that politicians have all of the sudden made military determinations.

This is the fundamental flaw with the W, Rove and Co. They think they have cornered the market on what other people think. AND, if you or I don't think like them, or they are not even remotely close to able to empathize with such populations, you are considered some kind of devil. Moreover, there is absolutely no way that any one from the W, Rove and Co could know what it is like to be a young troop in Iraq because they are not even remotely close to able to empathize with such populations as they live in palaces where they have relaxing meals with Japanese dignitaries.

By the way, who's decision was it to go into Iraq? I don't think it was the generals that made that decision, but politicians (and the whole of the W, Rove and Co), no?

And in my judgment, that would put a kid in harm's way, more so than he or she already is. I really think it's a mistake for Congress to try to tell generals, our military experts, how to conduct a war.

Really? A time table does all that? Oh, but there is more...

Furthermore, the idea of putting all kinds of extraneous spending on a bill, the purpose of which is to fund our troops, I just don't accept that. So if they want to try again, that which I have said was unacceptable, then of course I'll veto it, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Does this sound like a man who is willing to compromise?

I believe we can work a way forward. I think we can come to our senses and make sure that we get the money to the troops in a timely fashion. It's important to have a political debate, but as I've consistently said, we don't want our troops in between the debate.

It takes two sides to debate and both are equally at fault here, no?

And Congress needs to get this money to the Pentagon so the Pentagon can get the money to the troops, so our readiness will be up to par, training missions will go forward.

Have our troops ever had their "readiness" "up to par?"

I know Congress, no matter what their position is on the war, doesn't want to affect readiness, and they don't want to affect the military families, I understand that, but they're going to if they keep trying to pass legislation that is -- that just doesn't -- that withdraws troops or micro-manages the war.

But correct me if I'm wrong, the bill contains all the money W needs to accomplish this. It's the timeline that he will base his decision to de-fund the troops by deploying the veto here, nothing else. You see, it's Bush who is ultimately going to, with a stroke of the veto pen, deny troops the funding, not the other way around.

So I'm optimistic we can get a bill, a good bill, and a bill that satisfies all our objectives, and that's to get the money to the troops as quickly as possible.

Really? And what are you going to compromise to make sure this happens, because frankly, it doesn't look like you are willing to come meet folks anywhere near the middle here.

What say you folks? Did W answer the question?