Ithaca 37
New member
You guys can cheer lead all you want about Iraq, but even conservatives are being critical of Bush. Please read this opinion by Thomas Oliphant and tell me if there's any truth in it.
".......... In Fallujah, US commanders and their civilian superiors back here saw the fighting as an opportunity to smash one key element of the 14-month insurgency, especially after intelligence reports came in that foreign fighters had become involved as well. We were fighting, we were told, to achieve an important victory.
Against the murderous units of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, we were also told that the purpose was victory. Specifically, the same people here and there said the aims were to kill or capture Sadr and to crush his militia, one of several in the country that threaten stability and American lives simply by existing.
In each case, however, we ended up by giving up and retreating after lengthy discussions mediated by Iraqi political and religious figures who threatened to publicly denounce the Americans if we did not halt our offensives and withdraw. For our trouble and lives, we got a fig-leaf "peace" with the very people who killed Americans and would do so again in a second...............
Bush's final fib was to note that the "terrorists" consider Iraq "the central front in the war on terror." He says it all the time to further a reelection strategy to confuse these very different situations.
Two days later, Bush's domestic security officials begged to differ. They have credibility problems of their own, but Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller reminded us that the central front is a place called the United States, the enemy is called Al Qaeda, and the threats that should worry all of us have bupkus to do with Iraq. They never did........."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/30/credibility_is_a_casualty_of_us_retreat_in_fallujah/
".......... In Fallujah, US commanders and their civilian superiors back here saw the fighting as an opportunity to smash one key element of the 14-month insurgency, especially after intelligence reports came in that foreign fighters had become involved as well. We were fighting, we were told, to achieve an important victory.
Against the murderous units of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, we were also told that the purpose was victory. Specifically, the same people here and there said the aims were to kill or capture Sadr and to crush his militia, one of several in the country that threaten stability and American lives simply by existing.
In each case, however, we ended up by giving up and retreating after lengthy discussions mediated by Iraqi political and religious figures who threatened to publicly denounce the Americans if we did not halt our offensives and withdraw. For our trouble and lives, we got a fig-leaf "peace" with the very people who killed Americans and would do so again in a second...............
Bush's final fib was to note that the "terrorists" consider Iraq "the central front in the war on terror." He says it all the time to further a reelection strategy to confuse these very different situations.
Two days later, Bush's domestic security officials begged to differ. They have credibility problems of their own, but Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller reminded us that the central front is a place called the United States, the enemy is called Al Qaeda, and the threats that should worry all of us have bupkus to do with Iraq. They never did........."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/30/credibility_is_a_casualty_of_us_retreat_in_fallujah/