Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Beginning of the end of the occupation?

By Libby

Ron Beasley has a good round-up of the latest dismal developments in Iraq and makes a rather encouraging case that we may be seeing the last throes of the Bush doctrine.
The bottom line is that the Iraqis have had it with the US occupation. Over 70% of the people want the US out and think that it's OK to kill Americans. The Iraqi government has given the Blackwater cowboys six months to get out of Dodge. How much longer before the give the US occupation forces a deadline and we have another helicopter on the roof moment, this time in the Green Zone.

I'd say the answer to that last question could be well be December, when the Iraqi parliament is due to vote on extending the authorization for our troops to remain in occupation.

One thing is clear. The American people are sick of this so called war. The Iraqi people are sick of it. The only remaining supporters seem to be the pundits who have been wrong about every prediction they made from the start and are now desperately trying to salvage some meaning from the whole exercise in futility, the White House and it's corporate cronies who are making a fortune on keeping it going. Oh and the deluded souls who still believe these idiots.

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9 Comments:

Blogger nolocontendere said...

"Helicopter on the roof moment" is exactly what it will take to extricate the occupiers from Iraqi soil, Libby, because the fascists mean to stay there forever. They don't care what the American people want, or what the Iraqi people want, and plan to maintain a presence there in perpetuity. Of course when it's bombs away in Iran the so called Green Zone will become a charred, smoking ruin unfit for human habitation so the Iraqis may not have long to wait.

8:54:00 PM  
Blogger LeftLeaningLady said...

Pretty sure if we manage to bring the troops home from Iraq it will just be to send them to Iran.

And I believe (maybe I am wrong) that there are a lot more of 'the deluded souls' that we can comprehend. Hell, I am related to some of them!

8:30:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Nolo - I'm afriad you're right. These people obviously have no conscience and that's the result they want - human cost be damned.

LLL - There are certainly far too many deluded folks out there. I shudder to think what it's going to take to wake them up.

9:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You'd think Bush would capitlize on this and say "we gave it 110% but we can go no further without political reconciliation" and begin bringing the troops home. That's what makes political sense and I seriously doubt he has any actual principles on the issue that would be compromised.

11:03:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Lester, Bush doesn't want to leave. His cronies are making too much money on it.

1:33:00 PM  
Blogger Swampcracker said...

I wouldn't count on an early end to the occupation, because:
a. Bush has invested too much personal and political capital to quit;
b. The neo-con authoritarians have infiltrated every brach of our own government and it will take years to get them out, if ever;
c. Bush has shown that the Unitary Executive does indeed hold all strings of power, and the Democrats have demonstrated little resolve to pull the financial plug;
d. Backlash within our own body politic - while 70% of voters are sick of the war, there are too undecideds, fence sitters, and sycophants to comprise an effective political force.

About conscience, that went out the window when the election was stolen in year 2000. Yes, I am very pessimistic about any kind of positive outcome. Democracy in America has died a silent and unnoticed death. RIP.

1:26:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

I'm slightly more optimistic Jeffrey. I'm hoping it's not too late for a code blue.

4:29:00 PM  
Blogger Swampcracker said...

Libby, I though this may interest you:

Post-Mortem America:
Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead
by Chris Floyd (02 September 2007)

It won't come with jackboots and book burnings, with mass rallies and fevered harangues. It won't come with "black helicopters" or tanks on the street. It won't come like a storm – but like a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality has taken its place.

As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns – plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the "consent of the governed" will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons ...

The rulers will often act in secret; for reasons of "national security," the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, the murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, all this will come to seem "normal," as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone."


Link: http://www.chris-floyd.com/8/24/

12:06:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

I love Floyd Jeffrey. I read that piece when he posted it. I may even have blogged it.

7:06:00 AM  

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