So Yeah, About That Surge...
Well, now that we're a couple of months into Bush's troop surge in Iraq, we've got to be seeing some results, right? All of those thousands of additional soldiers shipped over to secure Baghdad surely have to be having some effect by now, right? Yeah... as it turns out, the cumulative effect so far is that violence and death have gone up, up, up. The very day that this country was shocked by the shootings at Va Tech that claimed 32 lives, a string of bombings in Iraq killed more than 250 Iraqi civilians. Over 180 in the supposedly reinforced and more secure Baghdad alone. Not that our media covered that story or anything. April's death toll was over 100 and there doesn't seem to be any indication that the violence will be stopped or even slowed down anytime soon.
And so how does the Bush Administration respond to the news that things are indeed getting worse in Iraq rather than better? Why, with some creativity and good ol' fashioned American ingenuity of course! To deal with the increasing death tolls, the Bush Administration has decided to stop counting deaths that are a result of car bombs. Yes, you heard it right. Deaths resulting from car bombs will no longer be tallied in the official body counts. And using numbers that exclude those deaths, the Bush Administration has had the freaking audacity to claim that there has been a dramatic decrease in sectarian violence.
In explaining the justification for excluding these deaths, the Preznit said:
Not to point out the obvious, but prior to our occupation, Baghdad experienced neither car bombings or suicide bombings. But hey, why let a little factoid like that get in the way of a perfectly good talking point, huh?
It is true that the number of bodies that had been turning up tortured and executed has declined. They're only finding 10-15 bullet-riddled, tortured and mutilated corpses per day instead of the 30-40 a day they were finding. So I guess by Bush standards, that's... progress. The decline has been attributed in part, to radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr ordering his Mahdi militia to stand down for the moment and the Shiite militias aligned with PM al-Maliki having been reigned in. Despite the decrease in the number of executions however, there has been a sharp increase in the number of bombings and also in the number of deaths due to those bombings. You know, the deaths that the Preznit claims don't count. Not officially anyway.
You know, using that Bushian sort of logic, if I took away all of the losses my Raiders suffered last season to teams with names that ended with an "S" then my Silver and Black actually went undefeated. You know, I might be able to get into this logic after all!
It comes as no surprise to any of us that Bush's "surge" has failed and it has failed miserably. Instead of providing the security and stability he promised, it's provided only more death and destruction. It's time to end this stupid charade and bring our troops home. Iraq is in a state of outright civil war with our brave men and women caught in the middle. 70% of this country wants us out of Iraq and still this "president" refuses to obey the overwhelming will of the people. Bush is the single most intransigent president in the history of this country. The time for Congress to act is now. No more "non-binding" resolutions and no more talk of "timetables" and "benchmarks." Bush is the most intransigent president in this history of this country and it's painfully obvious to anybody with half a brain that he is going to veto any spending bill with "timetables" attached to it. It's time for the Democratic majority to cut the funding for this war. Period. Not one dollar more. We put them in office in November to end this war and to bring our troops home. I can understand the diplomatic and legislative efforts they've tried to this point. But it's done no good. Nor will it ever, so long as Bush sits in the White House. He listens to nobody nor cares what the people want. It's time to cut the funding entirely. It's time to end this war. The Democrats had best pay attention to us, or we will find others in the coming elections that will.
~Kevin S.
And so how does the Bush Administration respond to the news that things are indeed getting worse in Iraq rather than better? Why, with some creativity and good ol' fashioned American ingenuity of course! To deal with the increasing death tolls, the Bush Administration has decided to stop counting deaths that are a result of car bombs. Yes, you heard it right. Deaths resulting from car bombs will no longer be tallied in the official body counts. And using numbers that exclude those deaths, the Bush Administration has had the freaking audacity to claim that there has been a dramatic decrease in sectarian violence.
In explaining the justification for excluding these deaths, the Preznit said:
"If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory."
Not to point out the obvious, but prior to our occupation, Baghdad experienced neither car bombings or suicide bombings. But hey, why let a little factoid like that get in the way of a perfectly good talking point, huh?
It is true that the number of bodies that had been turning up tortured and executed has declined. They're only finding 10-15 bullet-riddled, tortured and mutilated corpses per day instead of the 30-40 a day they were finding. So I guess by Bush standards, that's... progress. The decline has been attributed in part, to radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr ordering his Mahdi militia to stand down for the moment and the Shiite militias aligned with PM al-Maliki having been reigned in. Despite the decrease in the number of executions however, there has been a sharp increase in the number of bombings and also in the number of deaths due to those bombings. You know, the deaths that the Preznit claims don't count. Not officially anyway.
You know, using that Bushian sort of logic, if I took away all of the losses my Raiders suffered last season to teams with names that ended with an "S" then my Silver and Black actually went undefeated. You know, I might be able to get into this logic after all!
It comes as no surprise to any of us that Bush's "surge" has failed and it has failed miserably. Instead of providing the security and stability he promised, it's provided only more death and destruction. It's time to end this stupid charade and bring our troops home. Iraq is in a state of outright civil war with our brave men and women caught in the middle. 70% of this country wants us out of Iraq and still this "president" refuses to obey the overwhelming will of the people. Bush is the single most intransigent president in the history of this country. The time for Congress to act is now. No more "non-binding" resolutions and no more talk of "timetables" and "benchmarks." Bush is the most intransigent president in this history of this country and it's painfully obvious to anybody with half a brain that he is going to veto any spending bill with "timetables" attached to it. It's time for the Democratic majority to cut the funding for this war. Period. Not one dollar more. We put them in office in November to end this war and to bring our troops home. I can understand the diplomatic and legislative efforts they've tried to this point. But it's done no good. Nor will it ever, so long as Bush sits in the White House. He listens to nobody nor cares what the people want. It's time to cut the funding entirely. It's time to end this war. The Democrats had best pay attention to us, or we will find others in the coming elections that will.
~Kevin S.
posted by Lila Schow at
10:25 PM
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