OLD CUT AND RUN CASEY

Now, after criticizing Democratic lawmakers for trying to legislate a timeline for withdrawing American troops, skeptics say, the Bush administration seems to have its own private schedule, albeit one that can be adjusted as events unfold.

If executed, the plan could have considerable political significance. The first reductions would take place before this fall's Congressional elections, while even bigger cuts might come before the 2008 presidential election.
--"U.S. General in Iraq Outlines Troop Cuts," Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, June 25, 2006.

"The only people who have fought us and fought us against the timetable…are the Republicans of the United States Senate and in the Congress," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif)…

"The Casey plan looks an awful lot like what the Republicans spent the last week attacking. Will the partisan attack dogs now turn their venom and disinformation campaign on Gen. Casey?" said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass).

"It shouldn't be a political decision, but it is going to be with this administration," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich). "It's as clear as your face, which is mighty clear, that before this election, this November, there's going to be troop reductions in Iraq, and the president will then claim some kind of progress or victory."
--"Democrats Cite Report On Troop Cuts in Iraq," Michael Abramowitz and Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times, June 26, 2006.


Let me make several points perfectly clear at the outset. First, for those of you who RESPOND in the comment section before actually READING my posts, or who respond ANGRILY without reading it CAREFULLY…I never said that Republicans don't have children in this war. How stupid would that be? I'm MARRIED to a moderate Republican. All three of my nephews come from solidly Republican homes. Believe me, I know many Republicans whose kids are in this war.

I SAID that the Republican CONGRESS is only too happy to send OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN off to war because, to my knowledge, there is only ONE Republican Congressman who has a child about to deploy to Iraq.

And it is the CONGRESS and the WHITE HOUSE and all their little enablers who have been only too eager and willing to send other people's children into combat to fight, die, and lose limbs and minds.

The only member of the Bush administration to forcefully protest this war was the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who DID see combat, and knew intimately the terrible price of flinging troops into battle, and he was appalled that it was about to be done undermanned and underplanned.

Secondly, the title of this post is in no way meant to be a disrespectful inference on General George Casey, Bush's point man in Iraq. He is doing an impossible job and doing it to the best of his ability. I am quite convinced that it was not Gen. Casey or anyone on his staff who leaked his secret meeting with the White House to the press.

You'd have to ask the Leaker-in-Chief about that. Or Cheney or Rove, all of whom leak whenever it serves their purposes. So, while they were BERATING, MOCKING, VILIFYING, and CRUCIFYING any Democrat who wanted to discuss a reasonable timeframe for redeployments and troop drawdowns, they knew full well that the White House had a plan of its own that was pretty much the same.

Either way, they falsely framed the debate in such a way that to even discuss a phased drawdown with troop redeployment to Kuwait--as several different Democratic representatives and Senators have proposed--was to cut and run.

"Cut and run" is a nautical term. It refers to cutting anchor and fleeing from pursuers. In the mouths of Republicans, the term clearly implied cowardice.

But it was a false frame. As General Casey so wisely pointed out, a phased drawdown of exhausted and stretched-too-thin troops, requiring the Iraqis to defend their own country, is not an act of cowardice.

It's common sense.

But of course, we all know there is no room for common sense in the Republican Congress.

Casey's plan would reduce the total amount of American troops in Iraq to 50,000 to 75,000 by the end of 2007. A couple of brigades would be redeployed to places like Kuwait and remain on varying stages of alert in case a situation were to get out of control for the Iraqi forces--again, an idea already floated by Rep. John Murtha, a man who has been absolutely DEMONIZED in conservative circles.

But General Casey floats the idea…so now what? Mock and vilify him too? Or act as if it's a great idea as long as it serves their purposes?

Isn't it convenient, really, how the troop withdrawals are timed to coincide with the elections of '06 and '08?

We have seen this kind of monumental hypocrisy and EVIL manipulation of war for political purposes before. Richard Nixon, also a Republican, was elected in 1972 by promising to end the war in Vietnam. After all, his opponent, George McGovern, was running on an anti-war platform; the vote had just been granted to 18-year olds--(when it was pointed out that they were old enough to die for their country but not old enough to vote for the people who sent them to die)--anyway, there was a legion of young baby boomers campaigning hard for McGovern.

So Nixon promised he would end the war; thus undercutting his opponent (along with the Watergate break-in).

Oh yeah, he ended it all right. THREE YEARS LATER. But hey, he got re-elected anyway, and that's what counts in the land of Oz.

At the time, I thought that was the most heinous, malevolent act of a politician I had ever seen. How many thousands and thousands of boys died so Tricky Dick could hold onto power?

How many?

I never dreamed that in my lifetime I would see such a thing again, and I certainly did not imagine that my own child's life would be in the hands of such people, but here we are.

I wonder whether Americans will ever become fed up with the loathsome politicking, the fear-mongering, the dissembling and the gruesome incompetence of this crowd. From the Bush-Rove perspective, General Casey's plan is not a serious strategic proposal. It's a straw in the political wind.

How many still have to die before we reach a consensus that we've overpaid for Mr. Bush's mad adventure? Will 5,000 American deaths be enough? Ten thousand?

Has the war been worth their sacrifice?
--"Playing Politics With Iraq," Bob Herbert, New York Times op-ed, June 26, 2006.

It's interesting to me that a newspaper columnist would raise that question about sacrifice. Just yesterday, my exhausted, dispirited son called me from Iraq at midnight his time.

He told me that someone he knew had lost an arm and a leg. HALF of that boy's body, GONE.

Dustin said that this deployment, the troops have no sense of accomplishment, no clear understanding of what they're doing there. He pointed out that in both the Marine Corps allegations of troop misconduct involving the deaths of civilians, those units had seen fierce combat in Fallujah and then both of them had re-deployed for a THIRD time to Iraq.

Worn out. Worn thin. Aged decades beyond their youth. My 27-year old son mentioned that, when he doesn't shave, his beard is growing in white.

And then he told me about the boy who lost half his body and now lay in critical condition. My son said, "I just don't believe it's worth the sacrifice anymore."

One of my readers said that I was going to ruin my health spewing hatred in my blog. I told him that what was ruining my health was sending my child out to risk his life over and over and over again so that this administration could use his patriotism and his service to his country for cheap political gain, for sound bites, for power.

We swore in this country that we would never let it happen again after Tricky Dick tricked himself out of office, and look what we have done? Fallen for the oldest con in the book: Either you get behind my war, or you hate the troops and you hate your country.

Nobody wants to be accused of not supporting the troops or not loving their country, so they reluctantly relinquish their doubts and put their trust in a cabal of cronies that never knew combat--never wanted to--but knew just how to get into office and stay there.

Nothing like a good war, eh?

But you know, there's something else that interests me and actually gives me a small glimmer of hope. On a morning news program, I heard that a recent poll said that 49 percent of the American people think that a phased drawdown and a timetable for withdrawal is needed in Iraq. That is up from 39 percent.

What I find most interesting about that statistic is that, this comes after a relentless and merciless week of Republican preening and posturing that any Democratic talk of such things was, as Cheney put it, a disaster.

He said that, knowing full well that Casey was working on a plan of his own for the White House.

So, they're sending out all their meanest attack dogs, and the Cult of Karl obediently mouths all the salient talking points so that they show "unity" with the White House, and they hammer those points over and over and over again on talk radio and C-Span and morning news programs and e-mail forwards, most of which get sent to my mailbox.

The Bush administration has learned, in other political campaigns, that it's the best way to hypnotise and mesmerize the American people. It's always worked before.

But you know what? At least half of the American people don't care any more and aren't listening. I hope that, especially now that Casey's plan has been made public, the patience of the American people will finally give out for an administration who has no problem playing politics with the lives--and deaths--of innocents.

We've had enough clownish debates on the Senate floor and elsewhere. We've had enough muscle-flexing in the White House and on Capitol Hill by guys who ran and hid when they were young and their country was at war. And it's time to stop using generals and their forces under fire in the field for cheap partisan political purposes.
--ibid

I couldn't have said it better myself, Mr. Herbert.