General Nonsense

Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, refuses to rule out the possibility of permanent bases in Iraq here (dated last April, around the same time that Dubya said it would be up “to future presidents and future governments of Iraq” to decide when our troops should come home).

The only part of Erik Leaver’s article that I object to, by the way is his mention of Ron Wyden’s plan for the next three years. I applaud Wyden for trying to get specifics from the crooked Bush cabal, but the notion of three more years of this illegal war is too sickening to contemplate (and we are LOSING…I know saying that isn’t “supporting our troops” according to some right-wing hammerheads, but actually it is, because I’m trying in my way to get them out of that slaughterhouse – despite all of their heroic efforts, they’ve been undercut by what passes for our “leadership”).

And today, Abizaid said that Iraq “could move towards civil war.”

I have news for General Abizaid; according to this statement from pg. 4 of this article by Ruy Teixeira of The Century Foundation (link), we’re already there:

“The public…overwhelmingly believes that the Iraq situation now qualifies as a civil war. In (a) June CBS poll, 82 percent agreed that ‘there is a civil war going on in Iraq among different groups of Iraqis right now.’ Only 12 percent disagreed. Not surprisingly, then, the American public also lacks confidence that a good outcome from the war is likely. In (an) early June Gallop poll, for example, only 19 percent thought the U.S. would ‘definitely’ win the war, alongside another 29 percent who thought the U.S. would ‘probably’ win the war in Iraq. In contrast, 21 percent of the respondents believe the U.S. can win the war but won’t; another 27 percent believe the U.S. simply can’t win.”

This quote from Gen. Peter (Rumsfeld’s Sock Puppet Flunkie) Pace also caught my attention:

"Shiite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other."

General, the Sunnis and the Shiities consider us and the Israelis to be pretty much the same at this point anyway. You don’t need to steal a quote from one of that country’s former leaders to amplify that.