Cross-posted from My Left Wing
Update: Bush had the Iranian Embassy bombed at Erbil in Northern Iraq, in Kurdistan. The Kurds have been our allies there, and they stood nose to nose with our troops locked & loaded. This will not do much for Bush's support! Apparently 5 men were arrested & pc's recovered...who knows what "evidence" will be created now......
To the nay-saying "Shoulda screamed at them more" crew, I answer you:
My husband & I sat there and said "Right the fuck on" at the Dems, on the whole thing.
It was fucking brilliant that they said NO, MR PRESIDENT we will not send more troops! (And Barack¹s line about the burden of proof for this plan resting with Bush because NOTHING else he has done has worked was perfection)
They were canny enough to frame it in a way to NOT LOSE the flag-waving Repug's who have soured on Bush's war on oil. Many of them made the point
that even the generals say we don't have enough man-power to spread it that thin. Even (choke, I hate him) Joe Scarlboro.
Back to Bush. Kudos for not smirking. My husband said something about a butt-plug, but I assured him that he must have been standing on a few tacks to sustain that pained look for that long. I am not convinced he doesn't wear a butt-plug ALL the time, hence the smirk.
Let me see (in no particular, first-coffee order):
"Regimes" QUITE a few people, including KO, pointed out that by using this term, he belittled other nations and inflamed them more.
"Sunni, Sunni, Sunnni...." As Bush rattled off the list of so-called allies, then so-called enemies (I am reminded most of the allies, which are dictatorships anyway: SA, Jordan, Kuwait.....) he used it to say how we wanted non-sectarian rule in the area.
Every DEM who responded was brilliant in that they stayed on message, and equated the inter-tribal, sectarian violence has gone on for millennia. One pundit even pointed out that there was NO civil war until we intervened in the first place.
I think by not reacting, overreacting and going berserk over the President¹s underlying meme of spreading the war to new arenas, they exercised HUGE restraint. They stayed UNITED and ON MESSAGE, something that has worked for the Republicans for years now.
Give them time to frame and smooth out the language to respond to the Iran/Syria threats...
It MUST be done so as not to alienate the Bushites who have lost their taste for Iraq, but still don't "cotton to no unpatriotic talk"!
Durban said it perfectly. 20,000 troops won't make a damn bit of difference. Obama was slightly more moderate. He pointed out that the
"Shi'ite army will not, and has not stood up" (paraphrasing from memory).
(Do you think for a moment that Maliki will go after El Sader and destroy his Shi'ite base? Would Bush go after the born-againers? No.)
The fact remains...there will be no easy way out of any of this. We have to acknowledge that there is a shit storm brewing. When the Afghani passes clear in the spring...more violence will occur.
Many said that going to Afghanistan made sense in the first place (YEAH!) while dropping that ball and going to Iraq did not (RIGHT THE FUCK ON).
The Iraqi troops have not stood shoulder to shoulder with us yet, and will never do so. They will not oppose Shi'ites knowing that Sunni majorities (and the West by coalition) are killing them in Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia...(remember MOST of Africa is Muslim....we need to get the fuck out & quit taking sides and let them decide what they are going to do, before we alienate the whole world).
The language was somewhat coded to play to Bush's base, but the message was loud & clear:
"No, Mr. President, you cannot have your escalation."
"No Mr. President, an escalation will NOT help."
And I for one, say right the fuck on.
There will be more to follow, be assured of it. I applaud the Democrats use of restraint, and staying united on message, and not alienating or saying anything to make us look WEAK or UNPATRIOTIC, while still saying "FUCK NO!"