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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19902)	6/3/2005 1:51:16 PM
From: SiouxPal	Respond to of 362361

Downing Street Memo.... Friday, June 3, 2005 Bush not at all realistic about the war JOE CONASON SYNDICATED COLUMNIST Conservatives believe they know the best way to honor the sacrifices of our troops in Iraq: We must all pretend that the war is going fine, that progress is proceeding according to plan, that the insurgency is soon to be routed, and that victory is somewhere just over the horizon. When things momentarily went well last winter during the Iraqi elections, we were urged to proclaim an imminent triumph -- just as the right-wing pundits and politicians did so deliriously back then. When things began to deteriorate again with the recent upsurge in bombings and attacks, we were told to ignore the bad news -- as those same pundits and politicians are doing so quietly now. Although the ongoing carnage in Iraq no longer gets the headlines reserved for exhibitionist celebrities, even the flickering attention paid to death's daily drumbeat is too much for certain war enthusiasts. A conservative columnist for The New York Times has suggested that the media simply cease coverage of suicide bombings. It was a strange proposal from someone working at one of the world's most important news organizations, but one that aptly reflected current attitudes in the White House, the Defense Department and much of official Washington. Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney evidently believe their own uplifting rhetoric and brusque dismissals of criticism. They won't let reality-based analysis intrude on their faith-based perspective. At his latest news conference, Bush said he thinks the new Iraqi government "will be up to the task of defeating the insurgents." He harked back to the January elections and said he was "heartened" to learn that there are now "40,000 Iraqi troops" sufficiently well trained to protect Baghdad. (In fact, our own commanders place little credence in that encouraging statistic.) To him, every devastating attack merely serves as further proof that the insurgents are "desperate." Cheney takes the same optimistic approach. He told CNN interviewer Larry King that he perceives "major progress" in Iraq, where "they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." He didn't seem to realize he contradicted that remark when he then predicted the war might conclude before 2009, although his general assessment remained vague. "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," he said. How that "presence" will serve U.S. interests remains as vague as Cheney's timetable. In the meantime, it is worth noting that administration predictions have proven considerably less reliable than those of the war's opponents. Many months ago, CIA analysts indicated that bitter conflicts among Iraq's competing ethnic and religious groups were driving the country toward civil war. At the time, Bush brushed aside such warnings as mere static from habitual critics. Yet now we can see that the car bombings, partisan assassinations and sectarian massacres are vindicating that grim assessment. Cities and villages beset by the insurgency have become training camps for militant Islamists, the future cadre of the next terrorist movement. The Iraqi killing fields are creating new terrorists, just as the bloody civil war in Afghanistan encouraged the rise of al-Qaida. The war's advocates once suggested that Iraq would serve as "flypaper" for those terrorists, gathering them where our superior firepower and tactics could decimate them. "America will be safer in the long run when Iraq, and Afghanistan as well, are no longer safe havens for terrorists or places where people can gather and plan and organize attacks against the United States," insists Cheney. But according to The Washington Post, federal counterterrorism officials now anticipate "the bleed out" of "hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe." So while the president may tell us the terrorists are being vanquished in Iraq, his own officials know better. The American people now realize their initial support for the war was misplaced. Over the past month, polls have consistently showed decreasing confidence in the way Bush has conducted the war, and diminishing confidence that the price in lives and treasure was justified. Very few are willing to say we are losing the war -- but even fewer agree with the president that things are going very well. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to realize that he cannot wave away those misgivings -- and that he may already have foreclosed an orderly and honorable conclusion to this war during his presidency.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19902)	6/4/2005 7:52:54 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362361

One more interesting post from "a conservative blog" where they are debating the state of our democracy... theconservativevoice.com Posted: 2005/6/3 15:46 Updated: 2005/6/3 15:46 Re: Kerry To Push For Bush Impeachment The most suspicious thing about the Downing Street memo is that Rupert Murdoch's London Times is the one that came up with it. I know fairness in reporting laws still hold in Britain, so its possible its on the up-and-up, but its also quite possible we're all being duped by some Rovian ploy. In any case if the DSM isn't enough grounds for impeachment and prison, the completely unrelated issue of election tampering and fraud certainly is. Of course we won't see it happen if the GOP doesn't lose its majority in 2006, and that won't happen until fair elections are possible. I encourage everyone to talk to their city, county, and state officials and to find out about your local voting systems, and to PRESSURE them to change laws to allow paper recounts, and to force paper trails with all electronic voting. They ALSO need to be pressured to require Electronic Security standards which prevent tampering of central tally machines. Sorry to divert this into an election fraud issue, but the real problem isn't that bush lied to take us to war (although that's incredibly bad), the real issue is that he shouldn't even have been president in the first place! Do you really think Gore would have pre-emptively invaded Iraq. Hell, do you think Gore would have ignored terrorism problems right up until September 11, 2001?