The news Friday is that Gen. David Patraeus is saying we’ll be in Iraq for, well, around another decade:
Gen. David Petraeus told a congressional delegation visiting the Middle East that success in Iraq will require a U.S. military presence there for about a decade, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said Friday.
The commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who will deliver a highly anticipated progress report next month, said the U.S. “will be in Iraq in some way for 9 or 10 years,†according to Schakowsky. The general also highlighted progress in Anbar province, where former Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda extremists in recent months.
Source: The Hill
What I want to know is what’s the big f***ing surprise about this? And don’t tell me, “It’s not where the real war on terror is, that’s why the surprise,” because everyone SHOULD HAVE PAID ATTENTION TO WHAT BUSH SAID ON SEPT 20 2001, which forecast exactly what he was going to do and scared the hell out of me as I stood listening to his address to the “Joint Session of Congress and the American People”.
Here’s a refresher. He said…
Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command — every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war — to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.
This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.
When Bush said that it would be a lengthy campaign “unlike any other we have ever seen” I took him at his word. That he was going to launch us into an unwinnable, go-where-he-or-whomever-wants, VERY long war. I heard something down the order of at least 15 years in my brain. I was thinking, “Hell, he’s talking sci fi epic war! He’s talking sci fi epic war where from now on everything radiates from 9/11 with it as the excuse for anything and everything, where 20 years from now our children will be living 9/11 like it was their birth date and certainly their house, because it’s going to replace every wall, floor and ceiling we know with an intelligence gathering network, and everything inside and outside the US is going to be the enemy. In the name of the People and 9/11, they will make every single one of us the enemy.”
Now, General Lute is saying that reinstating the draft is on the table, but that Bush doesn’t want it. And Americablog (link above) is saying, “Just because Bush says publicly the draft isn’t necessary doesn’t mean anything. Bush lies.”
Well, in a way I hope he’s lying. Because as far as I can tell, reinstating the draft is perhaps the only thing that’s going to get us out of this mess. Why? Because I seriously believe there’s no way in hell that America’s kids will go along with it. A reinstating of the draft will get kids and their families in the streets protesting, as in the 70s, “Hell, no, we won’t go!” The government could deploy all the remaining National Guard here against the protesters and they’d still be out in the streets because they’re not going to want to come home from the desert in a body bag. And the National Guard having been treated as roughly as it has been, I wonder just how many of the National Guard deployed against protesters would join arms with them instead.
Listening to that speech on Sept 20, 2001, I literally went dizzy. I was standing in the living room of the place we were renting in Decatur, and I literally went dizzy contemplating and foreseeing everything that would happen…as it has happened since then. I thought, “Hell, and the American people are going to go for it because they’re all, even people I thought were sane, out buying flags and putting them up everywhere. They’re not listening. I don’t know why but they’re not going to be listening to what this man is saying. Lengthy war against whomever, wherever, and all of us rooming in the house that Information Gathering Jack Built. And because they’re not listening, several years from now the American People are going to be asking when is the war going to end?”
In the meanwhile, the coffers raped, we’ve got individuals responding to today’s NY searches of vehicles for dirty bombs with…
“This is fine. In fact, it’s great…They’re protecting us from all the bad things that could happen…I have no problem with it. It’s keeping us safe.”
Right. Protecting us from all the bad things that could happen. Keeping us safe. The economy is for shit for the 90 something percent of us who aren’t members of the super rich getting richer, America’s infrastructure is collapsing and no effort is being made to address the catastrophe of global warming.
A draft? Sure. As Bush says, “Bring it on!” How many kids do you know who will show up at boot camp?
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