Betrayal and the bull in the china shop

This week Democrats in the Senate caved in to the same-old Republican gimmick of using a hot-button issue to divide their opposition.

MoveOn.org ran a full page ad in The New York Times which suggested that General David Petraeus might betray us by failing to tell the truth in his testimony to Congress. Senate Republicans fashioned a condemnation of this expression of free speech and 22 Democrats signed on. How nice. Split the party when there is some glimmer of hope that the next election will provide enough of a victory that election fraud and the Supremes can’t steal it again.

These high and mighty Republicans are the same crowd that outright lied about Sen. John Kerry’s war record. They’re the ones that led us into an illegal war in lock-step with their war criminal president. They’re the ones that blocked meaningful investigation of 9-11 and vote fraud in the last two presidential elections and torture by U.S. agents and approved right-wing judges for the Supreme Court … and so much more … and they have the contemptible nerve to question the patriotism of those of us who call a spade a spade?

MoveOn was right. Petraeus delivered a report written in cahoots with the White House. Hundreds or thousands more American soldiers will die because he bolstered Bush’s plan to keep on keeping on in Iraq. Every way out of the mess we have created in Iraq looks terrible. Continuing with the high troop levels and increasing use of air power will result in continued U.S. casualties and increasing Iraqi civilian deaths. Cut back a little bit, divert our remaining troops to training one side or the other or both (or what, three, four, five sides?) and we will continue to endure U.S. casualties and continue to abet a civil war. Leave immediately and? Yes, there might be a bloodbath. There might be a civil war. The Iraqis might quickly see that they need to cooperate to survive and get their government back on the track we so rudely blew away. But, for sure, U.S. casualties would end. The appeal of Iraq as a terrorist training camp, a camp we created, will diminish.

Colin Powell made an insipid remark a couple of years back to the effect that we broke Iraq so we own it now. But his lame analogy missed an important piece of the story. If I go into an antique shop and break a Ming vase, I pay for it. I own it. But the shopkeeper doesn’t really want me hanging around breaking more pottery. If I do it often enough I will probably, reasonably, be asked to stay away from the store. Yo, George. Get out of the frigging store.

General Petraeus, don’t betray us. Tell Bush and the nation what you really see in front of you. Five years into this war and we haven’t even “secured” the Green Zone. Thousands of American soldiers will be wearing prosthetics for the rest of their lives, living in wheel chairs, unable to work and unable to raise families, likely to veer toward drug addiction and disfunction if Vietnam offers any clues.

Support our troops. Bring them home.

The bull needs to get out of the shop. Now.

~ by bothwellsblog on September 23, 2007.