SUPPORT FOR THE McCAIN/BUSH WAR ESCALATION PLANS DWINDLING FAST

Most of the senators who listened to the Bush Regime's carefully crafted web of lies and who voted to authorize his outrageous and illegal invasion of Iraq, are still serving in the Senate. ABC News surveyed them to see if they regret the overwhelming 77-23 vote in late 2002 authorizing Bush's plans. ABC says that at the most only 43 stand by that vote. "Twenty-eight of the 77 senators who voted to authorize the war in Iraq indicated, many for the first time, that they would not vote the same way with the benefit of hindsight. Six others indicated that, in retrospect, the intelligence was so wrong the matter would not have passed the Senate, or would not have even come up for a vote... At least 57 senators would vote against going to war, a number that combines those who already voted against the war resolution with those who told ABC News they would vote against going to war, or said that the pre-war intelligence" was such bullshit that it would now be laughed out of the chamber. Even so utter and devoted a Bush rubber stamp and right wing hack and shill like Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) says she would vote no if she had to do it all over again-- as would a shameful gaggle of Democrats who got swept up in war fever-- and have not been punished for it-- including powerplayers Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Max Baucus, DiFi, Jay Rockefeller and Chris Dodd. Of course there are plenty of blood-thirsty and clueless dead-enders who say they wouldn't change a thing and that they stand by their votes: Joe Lieberman, John McCain (each looking to send tens of thousands of more American troops into Iraq), Sam Brownback, Dick Lugar, Pete Domenici, Orrin Hatch, Ben Nelson.

And this could have serious consequences on the Bush-Lieberman-McCain push for more troops and more war, what they blithely call "surge," shying away from what most people clearly see as escalation. Even a member of the Republican Senate leadership, no less a right wing luminary (and loon) than new Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-KKK), says he may oppose the Bush/McCain Escalation Plan. He's just saying that though; he won't oppose anything, although he did seem to admit on MSNBC last night that Cheney is a lying sack of shit who deceived the Senate about the reasons for attacking Iraq.

Matthews: I think Cheney had his thumb on the scale, do you agree? That they were pushing this war so hard, they were working to look at any evidence that backed the war and ignore any evidence that didn’t back the war.

Lott: They were pushing the evidence that justified going to the war, a lot of us, Republicans and Democrats, were concerned about what we were told, and we bought the packet.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, isn't monkeying around. Today's Washington Post reported that he was outspoken in his citicism of the Bush/McCain Escalation Doctrine. According to Biden "top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will 'be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof,' in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam. 'I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost,' Biden said. 'They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy-- literally, not figuratively.'"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Bush today saying they oppose his shenanigans to prolong and escalate the war. You can read the whole letter at the link above but here are a couple of quotes from Pelosi's website:

We want to do everything we can to help Iraq succeed in the future but, like many of our senior military leaders, we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success. They, like us, believe there is no purely military solution in Iraq.  There is only a political solution.

Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain.

Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror.

So while Bush scrambles with semantics, seeks scapegoats for his catastrophic blunders, fires generals, and wrecks honorable military careers, the military is telling him they have no more troops to send for what Chuck Hagel calls Bush's "Alice In Wonderland" military fantasy. And the American people are not shy in telling pollsters that they have had it with Bush and had it with his Iraq policies. A stunning 68% of Americans-- and that includes plenty of Republicans-- are optimistic about the new Democratic-controlled Congress and 45% of them think Iraq should be the #1 priority (the second biggest number of votes was a tie between jobs and health care, each at 7%). Bush's approval rating is at 30% and approval for his job in Iraq is a dismal 23%.


Today the National Security Network released an interesting memo called "Stay The Course 2.0," a great rebuttal to the Lieberman, McCain, Bush absurd and patently false justifications for ramping up the Iraq war.

Increasing troops is simply staying the course, and ignores the national mandate for change. President Bush's decision to adopt John McCain's plan for Iraq and escalate the conflict is just more of the same. Escalation didn't work earlier and won't work now. It goes against the advice of our military, the American people, and the Baker Hamilton Commission. It will put even more strain on our troops. Our priority is to make America safer, and further escalation will fail to do so.
Iraqis need to take responsibility for their own country. The U.S. must press for an Iraqi political solution to end the civil war and, focusing on that strategic objective, begin redeploying our forces out of Iraq.

Bush-McCain "surges" don't work. Since June, American force levels have risen by 15,000, and yet violence has increased. Just this July, the Bush administration sent in 9,000 more troops to secure Baghdad. Things only got worse, and now he and McCain want to add more. Previous surges, such as Summer 2006 and Fall 2005, had no lasting beneficial effects. The situation continues to deteriorate.

The military is against escalation. Last month the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously opposed sending more troops to Iraq. According to the nation's top Army General, the active duty Army "will break" if deployments continue on the current course or are increased.

The president is ignoring the Baker-Hamilton Commission and going against the wishes of the American people.  The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group recommended removing all combat troops from Iraq by 2008 and 80% of Americans do not believe we should increase troop levels.

More troops in the middle of a civil war will increase Iraqi dependence on American forces.  Iraqis need to resolve this civil war, not U.S. forces. Iraqis need a clear message that American troops are not staying forever and U.S. presence will be reduced.