They're Not Serious
By David Tatosian (10/27/06)
Republicans appear nervous at what might befall them in November. They connive and scheme over earmarks and campaign strategies while a very real enemy watches and makes ready for the next slaughter.
The very ones we’ve entrusted with our safety and the future of the nation aren’t paying attention.
They’re not serious.
In the aftermath of 9/11 most Americans were united and well aware of who our enemies were. Had the President mobilized the good people of this nation anything could have been accomplished. Americans would have made whatever sacrifices or contributions required to secure our homeland and insure that those responsible for that act, and their supporters, would cease and desist or be destroyed.
That is what a people do when attacked, and that is what war against the Islamic jihad demands.
But the President never availed himself of that unity and patriotic fervor. Instead, he told us to stay alert, get on with our lives, and withdrew into his inner circle.
From that point on, this war belonged to him and his rubber stamp Republicans.
For the President, the Iraqi war was over when he stood beneath that mission-accomplished banner on the Abraham Lincoln. He was done. He and his advisors hadn’t planned on an insurgency, or IEDs or beheadings, or Iranian funded militias or the typical descent into sectarian/religious strife that has characterized the Middle East since Mohammad hijacked his first caravan.
To this day the only thing the President and his advisers know about Mohammad or Islam is whatever Grover Norquist or the Saudis have told them.
In fact, President Bush has so mangled any semblance of a coherent strategy in Iraq that we have been treated to the spectacle of watching the President’s daddy bail him out of the mess he’s made.
As a result, two weeks before the election, President George Bush says he will revise his strategy in Iraq.
Don’t bet on it. As a general rule, George Bush doesn’t like changing his mind, whether he’s right or, as is more often the case, wrong.
So far, President Bush’s strategy for the war on terror includes calling Pervez Musharraf our best ally while Musharraf provided sanctuary to both Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Both groups regularly cross the Afghan border to carry out attacks. Curiously, Musharraf’s recent surrender of North Waziristan to those groups hasn’t derailed President Bush’s commitment to deliver 36 F-16 fighters, rockets and tons of ordnance to Pakistan.
And there’s his Palestinian strategy, “Rice has officially sanctioned a policy put together by US Army Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton to expand by up to 70 percent Abbas's presidential guard and personal army, Force 17. The administration wishes to raise some $20 million to fund the training and arming and expansion of Abbas's army from 3,500 to 6,000 soldiers. This move comes after the US transferred 3,000 rifles and 1 million bullets to Force 17 in June. Yet Force 17 is a terrorist army led by terrorists…Right after he received the weapons shipment, Abbas appointed Mahmoud Damra commander of the force. Damra, who like many of the Force 17 officers and soldiers, doubles as a Fatah terrorist, was wanted by Israel due to his direct involvement in the terrorist murder of at least 15 Israelis. One of his deputies claimed that the US rifles were immediately used to attack a bus carrying Israeli school girls in Judea.” (Caroline Glick, JerusalemPost)
Giving arms and ammunition to Palestinians is like passing out sharp sticks to a room full of methamphetimine-addicted monkeys.
Apparently the president’s strategy is to fund and arm those who mean to do us and our real allies harm.
Forgive me but you can’t bribe the entire Arab world. And you certainly can’t (and shouldn’t) bribe or arm your enemies who are committed to killing you.
President Bush thinks the jihadis are recalcitrant legislators who can be persuaded to see things his way by rewarding them with a slab of pork.
That’s not a strategy, that’s a payoff. That’s dhimmitude
Republicans have a congressional majority. Where’s the oversight here?
There is none because they are not serious about this war. They are serious about maintaining political control and getting reelected. Period.
President Bush, besides being a lousy judge of character, cannot learn from his mistakes.
And should any mistakes be pointed out to him, he becomes increasingly inflexible and obdurate and so continues to repeat those mistakes.
He’s not serious about any war on terror. There is no grand strategy at work here. It is simply an arrogant and ill-advised George Bush doing whatever George Bush wants.
And just as President Bush didn’t foresee a real war in Iraq, rewards the actions of Musharraf and arms Palestinian terrorists, so he disregards any possibility of terrorists, arms and ammunition, explosives, Stingers, RPG’s, sarin, cyclosarin, anthrax, the plague or nuclear devices crossing our vulnerable southern border.
The same border that thousands of illegal aliens cross daily.
As a President, George Bush lacks vision. He is secretive. He is hostile when reminded of constitutional constraints and unable to respond to shifting realities in his war on terror or here at home. This man will cause us great harm.
The inability or disinclination of Republicans to make this man face reality should not work in their favor.
They can slap one another on the back and tell us what swell guys they are, but their actions show us time and again; in a deadly serious world, Republicans aren’t serious.
David Tatosian
Sources:
Waziristan
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wotali054618726feb09,0,4795733.story?coll=ny-worldnews-toputility
http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/09/taliban_office_in_no.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1883737,00.html
Jets
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/07/pakistan_to_receive_36_f16_fig.php
Palestinian Arms
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1159193405354
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