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Iraq & The Forever War: To Everything There Is a Season: Burn, Burn, Burn
Conservatives, as absent minded as their president when it comes to the lessons of history, are forgetting a significant cyclical aspect of the history of the Iraq war in their hearty hosannas over the “success” of the surge.
In each of the first four years of the war, there has been a spike in violence as temperatures cool down, summer wanes and Ramadan approaches.
I pray that this year is different. But in a scary confluence of events, Ramadan begins on September 13 this year, two days after the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that President Bush insists were launched by insurgents in Iraq and two days before General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker go up to Capitol Hill to deliver the most anticipated progress report since the Bush twins got their braces off.
Brigadier General Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning for the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that insurgents are likely to attempt to make use of these events to launch “sensational†attacks.
In past years, frequent targets have been women, often with children in tow, who are queuing for cooking fuel to use throughout the holy Muslim month, as religious pilgrims and other civilian targets.
In August 2006, the Baghdad government reported that 2,966 Iraqis were killed. In September 2006, that number spiked at 3,539.
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6 Responses to “Iraq & The Forever War: To Everything There Is a Season: Burn, Burn, Burn”
Bush is now calling for $50 billion more to keep the surge going through April. This isn’t surprising, really, but it reminds the American people that while withdrawal would bring with it some major costs in chaos, staying this course also carries with it major financial (and human) costs. Are the ephemeral “gains” of the last several months really worth spending $3 billion dollars a week? Is this the best way to spend our money? Are we going to spend that money to paper over the increasingly open civil war in the South – now that Britain is pulling out? Will this money even be enough to pull troops out of Baghdad to stop the bloodshed around Karbala and Najaf? What about Kirkuk where a referendum this fall will almost certainly lead to massive violence? WIll this $50 billion cover those security expenses? Will Bush come back asking for $50 billion more in April when the inevitable chaos elsewhere destabilizes regions that just months before were relatively calm? When does it end? 10 years, as Petraeus suggests? When our army is completely broken in April? When our treasury runs out of money?
Congress better be prepared to ask these tough questions in September. $50 billion won’t be the last request; nor, of course, is it the first. What’s the end game here?
Shaun -
Re: my comment in ‘The Future’ thread
Your post:
This is another example of the smearing and tarring of entire groups (not just the President, who certainly falls into the public figure category of fair game) that is typical of how you start you posts, and makes it hard to both try and reasonably listen to your point of view, and respond without lowering the discourse to the level you have set.
I for one will admit to allowing myself to be goaded by your rhetoric, and responding with comments directed personally towards you that were inappropriate. In the spirit of Joe’s request to such responses, I will do so.
But is it too much to ask that you in kind limit your attacks to the public figures and polices in question that you have a problem with, and not lash out vitriolically at those that simply have a different viewpoint than yours? to give credence to the the the possibility that perhaps we think the way we do not out of ignorance, malice, hatred, greed, racism, etc., but because we do believe that our way of thinking leads to better results for all?
In short, are you willing to do your part to help make TMV a place for more civil discourse again?
Sorry.
In the spirit of Joe’s request to such responses, I will do so.
should read:
In the spirit of Joe’s request to stop such responses, I will do so.
And three “the’s” in a row? Poor editing, what can a say.
“Liberals, as absent minded as their president when it comes to the lessons of history….”
Sounds like something Coulter would write. I’m a big fan of Shaun’s but I think AR has a point. Aside from that do think a lot of folks who think the surge is working need to be reminded that we’ve seen similar successes before that proved to be totally hallow, and I really don’t see any indicators that point to this being any different. Time as always, will tell.
I would have more empathy for complaints about Shaun’t style if those same complainers would object when a post hits high gear with a viewpoint they agree with. I don;t see that happening.
AR-
When someone doesn’t like a style of writing, he/she complains about it in a comment. Period.
No author is obligated to please everyone.
I would borrow from retorts when people complain about FOX news. Change the channel, if you don’t like it.
What’s good for the goose…..
But Shaun, not all conservatives support the president’s foreign policy. Liberalism and conservatism are not defined by an allegiance toward a particular party but toward a particular set of beliefs. And there are some conservatives out there who have argued that Bush’s foreign policy is not in any way conservative. Afterall, nation building was considered to be “liberal” when President Clinton was doing it.
Let’s not forget that Ron Paul, the most fiscally conservative member of Congress was one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of the Iraq War. How are anti-war liberals and anti-war conservatives to unite when anti-war liberals tar all conservatives with the same brush?