[NYTr] Dowd: Bush's Fleur du Mal Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 14:34:54 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The New York Times - May 27, 2007 http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/opinion/27dowd.html Bushbs Fleurs du Mal By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON For me, the saddest spot in Washington is the inverted V of the black granite Vietnam wall, jutting up with the names of young men dying in a war that their leaders already knew could not be won. So many died because of ego and deceit b because L.B.J. and Robert McNamara wanted to save face or because Henry Kissinger wanted to protect Nixonbs re-election chances. Now the Bush administration finds itself at that same hour of shame. It knows the surge is not working. Iraq is in a civil war, with a gruesome bonus of terrorists mixed in. April was the worst month this year for the American military, with 104 soldiers killed, and there have been about 90 killed thus far in May. The democracybs not jelling, as Iraqi lawmakers get ready to slouch off for a two-month vacation, leaving our kids to be blown up. The top-flight counterinsurgency team that President Bush sent in after long years of pretending that webd bturned the cornerb doesnbt believe therebs a military solution. General Petraeus is reduced to writing an open letter to the Iraqi public, pleading with them to reject sectarianism and violence, even as the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr slinks back from four months in Iran, rallying his fans by crying: bNo, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!b W. thinks he can save face if he keeps taunting Democrats as the party of surrender b just as Nixon did b and dumps the Frankenstate hebs created on his successor. bThe enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland,b he told Coast Guard Academy graduates. bThe enemy in Iraq does. Nine-eleven taught us that to protect the American people we must fight the terrorists where they live so that we donbt have to fight them where we live.b The president said an intelligence report (which turned out to be two years old) showed that Osama had been trying to send Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to attack America. So clearly, Osama is capable of multitasking: Order the killers in Iraq to go after American soldiers there and American civilians here. There AND here. Get it, W.? The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesnbt know webre leaving. Osama hasnbt been found because hebs hiding. The terrorists moved into George Bushbs Iraq, not Saddam Husseinbs. W.bs ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then complaining your garden is toxic. The president looked as if he wanted to smack David Gregory when the NBC reporter asked him at the news conference Thursday if he could still be ba credible messenger on the warb given all the mistakes and all the disillusioned Republicans. bIbm credible because I read the intelligence, David,b he replied sharply. But he isnbt and he doesnbt. Otherwise he might have read bBin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.b in August 2001, and might have read the prewar intelligence reports the Senate just released that presciently forecast the horrors in store for naC/ve presidents who race to war because they want to be seen as hard, not soft. Intelligence analysts may have muffed the W.M.D. issue, but they accurately predicted that implanting democracy in Iraq would be an balienb idea that could lead to turbulence and violence; that Al Qaeda would hook up with Saddam loyalists and bangry young recruitsb to militant Islam to bwage guerrilla warfareb on American forces, and that Iran and Al Qaeda would be the winners if the Bushies botched the occupation. W. repeated last week that he would never retreat, but his advisers are working on ways to retreat. After the surge, in lieu of strategy, come the bconcepts.b Condi Rice, Bob Gates and generals at the Pentagon are talking about long-range bconceptsb for reducing forces in Iraq, The Times reported yesterday, as a way to tamp down criticism, including from Republicans; it is also an acknowledgment that they canbt sustain the current force level there much longer. The article said that officials were starting to think about how to halve the 20 American combat brigades in Iraq, sometime in the second half of 2008. As the Hollywood screenwriter said in bAnnie Hallb: bRight now itbs only a notion, but I think I can get money to make it into a concept and later turn it into an idea.b Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================