The last few days have shown that putting McCain in charge of the American economy would be a serious mistake, because all he has to offer is more of the same failed Bush policy. The same is true of the situation in Iraq. McCain simply doesn't understand the situation as it exists.
McCain sees the situation just like Bush and Cheney. He would like us to believe that we're in the middle of a war that we're winning and the end result will be an American victory. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Instead of a war, we're in the middle of an occupation of a foreign country with too few troops to do the job -- and it's not going well. Victory is not an option. The only options are when do we leave and under what conditions do we stay until it is time to leave.
Bush and McCain would like to stay indefinitely, with American troops calling all the shots over there. That way, they can control Iraqi oil and won't have to admit what an extraordinary mistake it was to invade that country in the first place. Rather than admit their failure, they can hold out hope for some mythical "victory" in the future.
But anyone who has been keeping up with the Iraqi occupation will know that just won't happen. The Iraqis want us out -- the sooner the better. The current U.N. mandate that justifies our presence in Iraq will end at the end of this year, and the Iraqis want some big changes.
Bush has tried to negotiate a pact with the Iraqi government that would let us stay with the current rules intact. The Iraqis have refused to agree to that. They want the Americans to immediately withdraw from the cities, completely withdraw from the country by the end of 2011, give up their right to detain Iraqi citizens, and give up their right to immunity from being tried in Iraqi courts.
Personally, I think the Iraqis know the Americans will not agree to those terms, and that's just why they are insisting on them. Unless we agree, we won't have a legal right to stay past December 2008. They want us out immediately, and this is their backdoor way to try and accomplish that.
We should give them what they want. We should immediately withdraw all American troops. It's the only thing that makes sense anymore. Obama would begin that withdrawal if elected. I believe McCain would stay, even if he had to do it illegally (after all, neocon Republicans don't worry much about legalities).
This is just one more reason to vote Democratic in November. Voting Republican will just mean more needless American deaths.
Here is the tragic/ironic/unbelievable result of a war begun with lies and pursued for control of the world’s new mega oilfields. (Iraqi oil reserves from developed, and more importantly undeveloped, oilfields are rumored to be far beyond what the Saudi fields claim to contain.)
ReplyDeleteFrom the Yahoo news blurp:
Iraqi Cabinet approves China oil deal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080902/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_china_oil
It is a Saddam-era deal and I believe it to be one of the motivations behind the invasion of Iraq. Bush/Exxon/bankers needed to stop this deal and return Iraqi oil to dollar sovereignty while keeping Iraq oilfields in the hands of major oil companies.
With the announcement of this deal, it is obvious that their criminal machinations failed.
So, not only did innocent lives get lost…not only did the cost of the war bankrupt our country…not only did Halliburton and others of that ilk rake in billions of profit on the backs of our valiant troops and paid for by taxpayer indebtedness far into the future..BUT!
China will reap the benefits from our colossal failure to look beyond our fears into what Bush and the boys were actually doing. China gets the oil, folks.
Interestingly, within a week of the announcement of the China/Iraq oil deal, the Bush administration began talking about a “timeline” for troop withdrawal.
Currently, China is our banker. We can’t afford to anger our banker. We are leaving. Personally, I don’t care what the reason…get us the hell outta there.
Somebody needs to be in JAIL.
Mick