Wednesday, July 11, 2007

More on the possible "tipping point" (for Bush) on the Iraq War

If there's really is something new brewing among Cheney's and Bush's inner circle on Iraq War policy, the rapidly increasing vulnerability to the Green Zone in Baghdad may be a big part of the reason. When the supposedly more secure spot in the whole country is no longer secure, even Dark Lord Cheney should be able to understand that's a bad sign. Even if escalating the war to include Iran is his preferred solution.

Juan Cole discusses the Green Zone's situation in a 07/11/07 post at his Informed Comment blog. He links to a Los Angeles Times story (Shelling in Green Zone kills 3 by Molly Hennessy-Fiske 07/11/07) that reports on Green Zone attacks, including the recent kidnapping of the Iraqi police official who was Iraqi head of security for the Green Zone:

In other words, the security situation in the Green Zone is spiralling down at an alarming pace, and the guerrillas have such good inside knowledge that they can kidnap the very person responsible for security in it, as he drives in Jadiriya. That, my friends, is an inside job. And such an inside job doesn't bode well for future security in the Green Zone. For one thing, presumably they are "debriefing" Col. Hussein [the kidnapped security official] as we speak, looking for weak points.
Bush in his speech in Cleveland yesterday didn't sound like he was planning to pull out anytime soon. He pretended that in Iraq we're fighting "al Qaeda, the same people that attacked us in America".

(He also made the odd comment, "Some in America don't believe we're at war." Who the heck is he talking about?)

Tags:
Posted by at
Labels:

2 comments:

alain said...

Bush is playing stupid word games, the kind that would have led to Clinton's crucifixion. Entonces:

With respect to Iraq, I think we are not in a war so much as an occupation.

While I think that statement is as obvious as "the sun rises in the east," The Base hears that dog-whistle channel and converts it into "You Liberals want to Grab My Guns!"

Or "Force Me to Marry Gay!"

Or... what-ever.

6:05 PM
Bruce Miller said...

Alain, yeah, he's trying to distract people from what's really going on there.

The biggest reason why it's as successful as it is, is that the mainstream media often report blandly on these claims that we're fighting "Al Qaida" without any kind of qualification to point out to the readers that the claim is bogus. (I have a post going up today, Friday, about that.)

Also, antiwar Democrats could do a better job of challenging that claim. The Dems won't have the same kind of message discipline that the Reps have anytime soon. And that's probably a good thing, up to a point. But the Dems do need to improve thier overall message discipline on the Iraq War.

10:42 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)