"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Thursday, February 22, 2007

I just got off the phone with Jim, and I wanted to post some follow up to this post from this morning.

I understand that the Brits are, generally speaking, withdrawing from Iraq along a schedule that has been in place for some time.  That’s a separate issue from the way the British public views the war.  Look, the British are pretty much just like we Americans.  They like a good war as much as anyone else.  They like to see their guys flying their flag and kicking ass just like we do.

What’s going on in the UK is very much like what’s going on here.  They’ve lost faith in the mission.  If the mission was going well, had been planned and executed faithfully, and there been some tangible results, there wouldn’t be the immense public pressure forcing Blair’s hand.  In other words, if Iraq wasn’t a fucking disaster, they wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave, they’d be sticking around and doing their thing while we did ours.  But Iraq is a disaster.  We’ve taken an authoritarian dictatorship and turned it into the world’s largest terrorist training ground.  We haven’t struck a decisive blow against terrorists, we’ve made the problem worse.  So, in this context, I don’t blame the British people for wanting to get the hell out of Iraq, nor do I blame the British government for listening to them.

But let’s not delude ourselves that the war is going super peachy, and that the Brits leaving is a sign of all the wonderful progress we’ve been making.  That’s bullshit, it’s a bald-faced lie.  That was the point of the post, Cheney’s perfect record of lying his fucking ass off.  Republican or not, conservative or not, I don’t like being directly lied to.  I know that political messages have to be massaged and coated slick with bullshit, so I’m not a purist in this regard, but what Cheney does is just flat-out wrong.  It’s Orwellian doublespeak, providing a convenient cover for administration apologists.  “Oh look, there’s nothing wrong in Iraq!  The Brits leaving is a good thing, it’s a sign of how well things are going!” I mean, fuck!  This sounds like the goddamned Chinese communists explaining how the famine in their country is actually evidence of how well their collectivized agriculture program is working.

I’m more than willing to support a long, ugly, brutal mission, because I think it’s vitally important for American national security.  But, in return, I expect to be told the fucking truth, not Cheney’s bullshit and spin.  That’s what got us into the situation we’re in now, and I’m just flat-out sick of hearing it.  When Bush announced that Cheney was going to be his running mate you couldn’t have found anyone more pleased than me.  I always admired the man because of his performance as SecDef during the Gulf War.  When 9/11 happened I thought that it was damn near providential that Bush and Cheney were in charge, because we were going to strike back and kick some ass.  How wrong that all turned out to be.

I’m done trusting anything that comes out of that man’s mouth.  If he told me that 2+2=4 I’d have to get a calculator out and confirm it.

Update: Oh man, check this out.

Cheney:  “I look at it and see it is actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.”

Pelosi:  “If it’s going so well, we’d like to withdraw our troops as well.”

Hey, like her or hate her, she just fucking nailed old Dick.

Update 2: If you think that this withdrawal is part of some long agreed upon timetable then you don’t remember reality.  Let this site refresh your memory.  We’ve gone from “There is no timetable for victory” to “Well, the British leaving is a sign of how well we’re doing.”

I guess what’s going on in Iraq is “victory,” huh?  Some people have a definition of victory far different from me, I guess.