Priorities for this President and the new Congress
Since the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group official presentation to the President on December 6th, there have been 84 more Americans killed in Iraq. That's over a month in delayed response from the President. There were 76 in December and, so far, 8 this month. Wednesday the President is to announce his new strategy. The House of Representatives, on a request from Minority Leader, John Boehner (R) of Ohio, is not holding session today, as the Democrats had promised would be their first 100 hours of actions, as it seems a College Footbal game takes precedent. Do these 2 bits of information have any relationship to each other? Yes they do. They raise the question as to whether we have got our priorities set correctly?
posted by Charles Amico at 1:06 PM
1 Comments:
OK, Bush will unveil his new approach to the 4 year Iraq war on Wednesday. I guess we can call it Iraqization. You remember or have read about Vietnamization.
Rewind to the Vietnam era, when Richard Nixon coined Vietnamization as a way to convince Americans to support his vietnam policy. Nixon new that it was necessary to reduce American casualty rates and the number of combat troops in Vietnam. To this end, Nixon defined his policy as “Vietnamization” — the idea that South Vietnamese would gradually assume a greater combat role and ultimately eliminate the need for American ground forces. Because the US would not withdraw abrubtly, the policy of Vietnamization would require time. The domestic political objective was to convince the public that the Army of South Vietnam could eventually handle the war on their own.
Fast Foward today. As reported in major news outlets, including WaPo, Bush is widely expected to announce a boost in U.S. military forces in Iraq by as many as 20,000 troops, a jobs program to put Iraqis back to work and political benchmarks that the U.S. expects Iraqi leaders to meet in forming a national reconciliation government.Snow repeatedly declined at his daily news briefing to respond to questions about specifics in Bush’s speech, which, he said, is still being written.
Let’s rewind back to the Vietnam era on a November 3rd evening when, President Nixon addressed a national television audience from the White House. This speech, whose date was announced just two days before the first moratorium, was designed to buy time in Vietnam and to reach out to dissident Democrats along with Nixon’s core constituency. In the speech, the president traced the history of American involvement in Vietnam, highlighted the negotiating efforts of administration since taking office, outlined his policy of Vietnamization, and placed the blame for the continuation of war on the government of North Vietnam. The speech reached its crescendo when he appealed to the public for support.
Sound Familar? Expect Bush to follow the same pattern on Wednesday.
African American Poilitical Pundit says: P.S. The Iraqization policy of Bush won’t work, like the Vietnamization policy of nixon didn’t work. It won’t work for the American people and it won’t work for our American troops. It won’t work for the familes of the 5,640 Iraqi civilians and police were killed in the first half of 2006, or the 17,310 were killed in latter half 2006. I guess no one is listening to the American people.
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