For the last two weeks, the President has insisted that the Iraqi resistance was in its last throes. However, today, in his weekly radio address,
he flip-flopped and said that there would be many months of hard fighting for our men and women in uniform.
While this is a welcome change from the President's previous rhetoric, the President continues to fudge on the facts regarding Iraq. He says that the Iraqi people are growing in optimism and hope,
contradicted by an Arizona Republic article in which only 15% of Iraqis support the Americans, 45% of Iraqis support the insurgency, and 40% are sitting on the fence.
The President fails to understand that winning the War in Iraq involves winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people as well as the American people. The Iraqi people were willing to give the elections a chance to work in January. But since then, the resistance attacks have multiplied considerably, while the Iraqi government army has shown an inability to protect the Iraqi citizens from the resistance attacks.
The President also stated that the US objective was to defeat the Baathists and the Sunni insurgency. However, that objective is not good enough. The president needs to define what victory means, how far along we are on the objective, and what we need to do to accomplish that objective. The President did none of these things in today's address.
My definition of victory is that of winning the hearts and minds of at least 60% of the Iraqi people. Given the data above, we have failed because of the Abu Girhab torture, the Qu'ran desecration, the 40% unemployment in Iraq, the chronic electrical and water failures, and the massive increase in child malnutrition. Because of these failures and others, we are, as Lech Walesa said, no longer in a position of moral authority in the world. We need to pull out and work with someone else, like the UN, to broker a peaceful solution and get economic aid to Iraq.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other news:Suicide bomb kills six in Baghdad.NY Times editorial: Rumsfeld not interested in Iraqi facts.Basra one of the few refuges from war.Al-Ahram editorial: US presence in Iraq hindering democracy in Middle East.Most of US troops killed in recent bombing were women.