Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Buying Words With Blood

Sen. Carl Levin says the glass in Iraq is more than half-empty, Sen. John Warner says it may be half-full and Fox News sees it brimming over.

“Sens. Warner and Levin Travel to Iraq, Praise Surge Results” is their headline for a story that starts: “Sen. Carl Levin said Monday that the Iraqi Parliament should vote no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki because of its sectarian nature and leadership.

"The Maliki government is non-functional," Levin, D-Mich., said.”

Since President Bush, instead of drawing down troops in Iraq at the beginning of this year as 70 percent of Americans wanted him to do, announced the Surge, more than 700 of our young people have died there and thousands have been wounded.

With all this blood, we have bought words--from the White House, Congress and self-appointed experts across the political spectrum. Next month, we will get words from Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, which will lead to even more words from armchair warriors on all sides.

None of them will stop the dying and, if we want to know what for, here are words from a commander on the ground: “This is not black and white here. It’s all shades of grey, and there’s a mixture of extremist elements and terror elements and criminal activity. It’s all of the above,” according to Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of Multinational Division Center and Task Force Marne, whose words are reported on a Department of Defense web site.

“It’s naive to believe that all sorts of violence inside of Iraq is Sunni vs. Shiia or Shiia vs. Sunni; that’s just not true. And when you find intra-Shiia rivalry, it’s primarily a function of the struggle for power and influence.”

How many words will it take to stop the bleeding?

3 comments:

Ron Davison said...

Bush knows that Iraq will someday be a democracy like Switzerland, but with less skiing. He's never once indicated what events within this lifetime would ever dissuade him of his dream. That's just scary.

Mike said...

Levin's support for the surge is a disgrace. I hope the people of Michigan are taking note of this.

Watch 'n Wait said...

Come 9/11 or 9/12, as the case may be, the words Gen P will read from "his" Iraq report will not be his. He will read a report written by the White House. Pitiful.