BUSH: "Timeline will give enemies victory"

[Mephisto]

He can't define what constitutes victory for our troops in Iraq, but apparently knows that the Dems plan to withdraw constitutes victory for "our enemies."

Bush: Emphatic no to timeline to withdraw troops

POSTED: 11:31 a.m. EDT, April 14, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday that a Democratic plan to set an end date for the war gives "our enemies the victory they desperately want."

Bush and Democratic congressional leaders are trying to bolster their positions on the Iraq war before a scheduled White House meeting.

At Bush's invitation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are due at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the war, particularly a bill funding the military mission through September.

In both the House and Senate, Democrats have attached timelines for withdrawing troops to the bill containing $96 billion in military funding.

Bush: Timeline restricts commanders

Bush says the meeting will be about his nonnegotiable stance on a timeline.

"Instead of approving this funding, Democrats in Congress have spent the past 68 days pushing legislation that would undercut our troops," he said in his weekly radio address. "They passed bills that would impose restrictions on our military commanders and set an arbitrary date for withdrawal from Iraq, giving our enemies the victory they desperately want."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/14/bush.radio.ap/index.html

Let's see, attacking with relative impunity, choosing when and where to attack, using improvised explosives and small arms to hold off one of the world's most technologically-advanced militaries, making it through various levels of the most stringent security to hand-deliver explosives, recruiting fighters from neighboring countries with ease and taking a costly toll on our military as well as sabotaging oil flow (that was going to pay for the war) seems pretty much to me like our enemies can already claim victory.

It's no secret to them that we can't stay in Iraq indefinitely. It's no secret to them that every day we stay there costs us millions of dollars and all they have to do is "wait us out." Why is our illustrious leader so positive that our continued presence will result in victory for our side?

 

[Thunder]

Um....they have already won. The American people are not willing to commit troops to Iraq indefinately. The forces of "evil" in Iraq...are Iraqi people. The day we leave, is the day they take power. There is nothing that can be done about it. We must face the fact that democratizing Iraq may have been a lost cause.

 

[Azure]

Is he wrong or right?

If we give a timeline, all the terrorists need to do is sit back, and wait until we leave.

Didn't we see this in Vietnam too? Where 2 million innocent people were killed after the US pulled out?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Is he wrong or right?

If we give a timeline, all the terrorists need to do is sit back, and wait until we leave.

Didn't we see this in Vietnam too? Where 2 million innocent people were killed after the US pulled out?

Let's not forget that millions of innocent people were killed while the U.S. was there.

 

[Puppycow]

Recent polls show that 70% of Iraqis favor a timetable for withdrawal, and 67% think that security will get better when US forces withdraw.

The American people and the Iraqi people agree: both overwhelmingly support some sort of timetable for withdrawal.

In any case, there already is one. It's called the election cycle. The insurgents can read the writing on the wall too.

 

[jimtron]

Let's not forget that millions of innocent people were killed while the U.S. was there.

Exactly. How much longer should we have stayed in Viet Nam, and what would we have accomplished?

What would we accomplish if we stay in Iraq (other than spending lots of money, lives, and fanning the flames of terrorism)?

 

[Puppycow]

Didn't we see this in Vietnam too? Where 2 million innocent people were killed after the US pulled out?

It seems to me like the Vietnamese as a whole wanted the North to win. The south never had nationalist legitimacy. I think the situation would have perhaps been better and at least no worse if we hadn't gotten involved and also if we had pulled out earlier. The lesson of Vietnam is not to fight in someone else's civil war. We should have let them make their own choices as an independent nation. The same applies to Iraq. Today, Vietnam is not really so bad. All the dire predictions of a domino effect did not come true. In fact after we left, cracks began to form in the communist monolith. Vietnam attacked Cambodia, and China attacked Vietnam, and the Sino-Soviet relationship went sour, which turned out to be an opportunity for the US which Nixon took advantage of. Basically, we gained nothing by prolonging Vietnam, and actually delayed some good developments.

 

[Pardalis]

It seems to me like the Vietnamese as a whole wanted the North to win. The south never had nationalist legitimacy. I think the situation would have perhaps been better and at least no worse if we hadn't gotten involved and also if we had pulled out earlier. The lesson of Vietnam is not to fight in someone else's civil war. We should have let them make their own choices as an independent nation. The same applies to Iraq. Today, Vietnam is not really so bad. All the dire predictions of a domino effect did not come true. In fact after we left, cracks began to form in the communist monolith. Vietnam attacked Cambodia, and China attacked Vietnam, and the Sino-Soviet relationship went sour, which turned out to be an opportunity for the US which Nixon took advantage of. Basically, we gained nothing by prolonging Vietnam, and actually delayed some good developments.

Interesting analogy, but I don't think it's the same dynamic here, it's missing the wild card which is Israel, in my opinion.

 

[Puppycow]

Interesting analogy, but I don't think it's the same dynamic here, it's missing the wild card which is Israel, in my opinion.

Nothing's ever quite the same, but I think the basic point is the same: we don't gain anything by prolonging the inevitable, and we may in fact be delaying some positive developments and an eventual resolution.

 

[Upchurch]

If we give a timeline, all the terrorists need to do is sit back, and wait until we leave.

If we don't give a timeline, all the forces we are currently fighting* need to do is sit back and wait until we leave.






* they aren't all "terrorists", y'know.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Didn't we see this in Vietnam too? Where 2 million innocent people were killed after the US pulled out?

We also saw 50,000 of our people killed before we realized an indefinate deployment wasn't the proper course of action.

Whatever we do, I hope we realize it before that point arrives.

 

[Crossbow]

We have already lost the war.

Bush just wants to make sure that the history books do not record that the president who started the was also the same president that lost the war.

 

[Azure]

We have already lost the war.

Bush just wants to make sure that the history books do not record that the president who started the was also the same president that lost the war.

And that bitch Hillary doesn't want to deal with the war either, neither do ANY of the Democrats, which is why they're pulling for a timeline.

Make a pact with the Iraqi government, but don't announce it over the airwaves. But knowing the dumbass politicians in Washington, one of them will.

 

[Azure]

If we don't give a timeline, all the forces we are currently fighting* need to do is sit back and wait until we leave.






* they aren't all "terrorists", y'know.

Puts you in a pretty bad spot, eh?

Up here in Canada, nobody is calling for a timeline, and we lost 8 of our fine young men this past week.

 

[Upchurch]

Puts you in a pretty bad spot, eh?

My point is that it doesn't matter whether or not we give a timeline. All the insurgency has to do is wait.

 

[Azure]

My point is that it doesn't matter whether or not we give a timeline. All the insurgency has to do is wait.

Well there is the option of the Iraqi military having enough strength of provide security.

 

[Ranillon]

I personally see Bush's (and his staff's) tactic as basically the return of the "Stabbed in the Back" excuse. It's based on a self-fulfilling "Heads I win, Tails you lose" approach to conceptualizing the war.

If the Iraq invasion had turned out well Bush and Co. would have spent every moment since then patting themselves on a back for supposedly proving their ideological notions correct. However, since things are turning out badly they are instead going to plan B -- arguing that they didn't fail, but that assorted opponents here at home sabotaged their efforts and let the terrorists "win." Thus they were "stabbed in the back". The result is that no matter what they can claim ideological victory. Seen more cynically, it's just a technique for trying to weasel out of responsbility (and the political cost) for failing.

 

[Crossbow]

Puts you in a pretty bad spot, eh?

Up here in Canada, nobody is calling for a timeline, and we lost 8 of our fine young men this past week.

The reason why there is not a hue and cry from Canada to get out of Iraq is because Canadian forces are not in Iraq.

While there are some Canadians that are working for the UN in Iraq,
and there are some Canadians that are embedded with US forces in Iraq,

never the less, Canada is not now, nor was in the past, a part of the Iraq Coalition Forces.

 

[corplinx]

There is a weird catch-22 with these countries. If you stay you are hated and incur casualities. If you leave, you empower them for generations to come (e.g.e Lebanon).

At this point we need to set some goals, achieve them, get out. A timeline however is basically a statement of surrender if the timeline doesn't move if goals aren't met.

 

[egslim]

And that bitch Hillary doesn't want to deal with the war either, neither do ANY of the Democrats, which is why they're pulling for a timeline.

Whoever is in charge when the US leaves Iraq will expend a lot of political capital doing so, and even more during the subsequent chaos.

Your argument cuts both ways. If Bush is the one who withdraws the Republicans are toast in 2008. On the other hand, if Bush doesn't and the Democrats win in 2008 it will hurt Democrat chances in 2012 as withdrawal happens under their watch.

I can give three fairly objective reasons why Bush should be the one to withdraw, instead of his successor:
1) Personal responsibility. The mess happened under his watch, therefore he should be the one to clean it up.
2) Politically speaking, Bush has already expended his political capital, he has much less to lose than his successor.
3) It's not worth billions of dollars and thousands of US lives to postpone an inevitable decision for to other result than to manipulate election chances.