Obama's Quagmire?

Rick Perlstein, in Nixonland:

It was not as if American leaders hadn't been warned.  It was "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy," the World War II hero Omar Bradley had first observed in 1951.  Such sage warnings tended to be ignored.  When Undersecretary of State George Ball began criticizing the commitment to South Vietnam in the early 1960's, he was shut out of meetings.  He managed to buttonhole the president nonetheless.  "Within five years," he said, "we'll have three hundred thousand men in the paddies and jungles and never will find them again.  That was the French experience."  JFK came back, "George, you're just crazier than hell."  Ball indeed misjudged:  the actual number of troops at the end of 1966 was 385,300.

The parallels between Vietnam in the early 60's and Afghanistan today are striking.  We have a young, idealistic president just taking office, in the face of some doubts over his toughness in matters military.  We are propping up a puppet regime that is unpopular with the native population.  We are facing an insurgency which has the freedom to cross the border of a neighboring nation for safe harbor.  The terrain is ideally suited for our enemy's strengths while neutralizing our technological advantages.  And another imperial power has only recently tasted defeat at the hands of the same insurgents.

 

The American people are, at best, ambivalent towards our presence there.  Most of the attention in this country has been focused on Iraq, until just recently.  President-elect Obama ran on a pledge to draw down troops in Iraq while escalating the force count in Afghanistan.  We've just spent the past five years paying the price in blood and treasure for having a war jammed down our throats through the use of fear-mongering, exaggeration and outright lies.  

We, as a nation, deserve a fair and open debate on the proper course for the Afghan conflict going forward.  Obama has won the election.  He did so partly because the American people preferred his judgement and temperament to John McCain's.  It always struck me as discordant when he spoke hawkishly about Afghanistan and Pakistan, coming down somewhere to the right of McCain.  Perhaps it was campaign rhetoric designed to offset the stereotype of Democrats being soft on defense.  I hope so.

Obama has promised he will listen to his generals when they advise him on a final Iraq withdrawal timetable.  If sixteen months works, fine.  If it takes longer to get out in a responsible fashion, so be it.  One of the main reasons he was elected was because the voters trusted him to bring the Iraq War to an end, rationally and decisively.  The same standard must be applied to the war in Afghanistan.  If a roadmap for victory can be designed (however victory is defined -- another point of debate) and it necessitates more troops, then, by all means, send more troops.  If it's realistic that bin Laden can be captured or killed by our troops venturing into the mountains of northwest Pakistan, let's get it done.  But let's also consider that the finest military in the world, along with our intelligence communities, have dedicated the past seven years to the task with no success.  They're no closer to cornering him now than they were in 2001 the day after they lost him in Tora Bora, despite the standing offer of a $25 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture or death.  

I'm not saying that bringing down bin Laden wouldn't be a huge victory, symbolic as well as tactical.  I'm just asking, at what cost?  How many more lives is his worth?  All we should ask of Obama is that he approaches Afghanistan with the same pragmatism he seems to be applying to Iraq.  In other words, he should be as careful going into Afghanistan as he is promising to be careful getting out of Iraq.

If Obama wants to use the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as his models for changing America in big ways, he would do well to remember how Johnson's presidency -- he of the Great Society -- was ultimately undermined by Vietnam.

The Truth About The Surge

"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders . . . to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds . . .  (and) . . .  we are mired in a stalemate that could only be ended by negotiation, not victory."

That's not a quotation from Barack Obama.  Or even Dennis Kucinich.  

Walter Cronkite said it during the CBS news broadcast of February 27, 1968 in response to the Tet Offensive launched by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces on January 30th.  Although the communists sustained immense casualties over the eventual nine-month campaign (some 75-85,000 troops were killed in action), the 6,328 allied forces killed proved more than the American public was willing to stomach.  Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America," was as responsible as anyone for the public's ultimate rejection of the government's Vietnam policy.

On February 28th, the day following Cronkite's proclamation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned.  Back in Saigon, Generals Westmoreland and Wheeler determined that an additional 400,000 U.S. troops would be required to effectively respond to the communist surge.  This would necessitate the mobilization of the military's reserve forces -- a total commitment to the conflict in Vietnam.  Critics argued that it would only result in an uptick in communist forces and an increasingly bloody stalemate on the ground.  Clark Clifford, the new Secretary of Defense, as well as Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow -- all former hawks on the war -- advised President Lyndon Johnson to pursue a policy of disengagement.  On March 31st, Johnson announced a halt to the bombing and his decision not to run for a second term of office.

Cronkite's words could just as easily have been applied to the current war in Iraq.  The American people were hoodwinked into supporting our neoconservative administration's hubristic determination to spread democracy and American influence in the region through the administration's fear-mongering, exaggerations and outright lies.  The forged "uranium from Africa" document,  the fabricated "senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Iraq's phantom possession of chemical and biological weapons -- all strategies to deceive the public into backing the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Unlike Lyndon Johnson, however, George W. Bush has never wavered in his conviction.  In January of 2007, when the war was at its nadir, he proposed a surge of 20-30,000 troops to his own council of wise men, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  They opposed the increase, with the outgoing head of Central Command, General Abizaid insisting that adding troops was not the answer.  

So who was right?

Well, let's crunch the numbers.  The current confirmed death total of U.S. forces for the Iraq War is 4,104.  In 2003, there were 486 troops  killed in action.  In 2004, the number rose to 849.  2005 - 846.  2006 - 822.  Bush announced the surge in January of 2007.  The death count for the entire year was 902.  So far this year, 201 American soldiers have died.  30,000 U.S. men and women have been wounded in Iraq -- 7,200 of them since the troop surge began to work its magic.  On Tuesday, a bomb in a Sadr City district council building blew up two American soldiers and three civilians working for the army.  Oh, and six Iraqis also died in the blast, if that does anything for you.  On Monday, a security guard assigned to an Iraqi politician opened fire on a group of American soldiers, killing two of them.

If this surge is a success, I'd hate to see Bush and Senator Surge himself, John McCain's standards for failure.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure any such measures exist.  The New York Times details a Government Accountability Office report released Monday claiming "the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration's goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines."  It further claims that the administration "broadly overstates gains in some categories, including the readiness of the Iraqi Army, electricity production and how much money Iraq is spending on its reconstruction."  Any decline in daily attacks rests not on improved Iraqi security performance and a developing political system, but on "the American troop increase, a shaky cease-fire declared by militias loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and an American-led program to pay former insurgents to help keep the peace."

In other words, when the administration tells us, "the surge is working - just look at the statistics," they're cooking the books.  According to Bush, the surge had two goals:  to give the new Iraqi government breathing space to promote sectarian reconciliation and to provide security throughout the country by putting an end to sectarian violence.  Judging by the events of the week to date, as well as the 1,103 troops killed since Bush over-ruled his generals, can anyone really believe the surge is succeeding?  Or that McCain's vision of some type of long-term presence on Iraqi soil is a good idea for our national security interests?

David Brooks does, for one.  His Tuesday column in the New York Times trumpets the surge's success and its opponents resultant lesson in humility.  He lists their stages of denial as the surge has played out:

"First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good.  Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement.  Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress.  Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home."

As if any of this "skipping" could hold a candle to the world-record long jump required to clear the canyon dug by Bush, Cheney and the rest of their cabal's collection of fairy tales and prevarications they spun to justify their intentions.  Brooks is apparently untroubled by the reality that we have spent 4,104 American lives in blood and over $548 billion in treasure to date in pursuit of the neocon ideal of what would be, in effect, an Iraqi protectorate from which we can keep our hand on the oil pump.  He is an apologist for a morally rancid policy that makes no more sense now than it did last January.  Or than it did in the spring of 1968 when, during the height of the Tet Offensive, Clark Clifford wondered:

"How do we avoid creating the feeling that we are pounding troops down a rathole?"

You do it by getting the hell out.  

November seems a long way off.  Especially to those kids who'll be enjoying the surge's success in the meantime.

Bush: Corrupt or Inept?

Distracted by the fun of watching the Obama/Clinton steel cage, death match in North Carolina this week, I almost missed the opportunity to celebrate the five-year anniversary of "Mission Accomplished."  Five years ago Thursday, George Bush dressed up as a fighter pilot and had a real one set him down on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.  All decked out in his costume, he paraded in front of the assembled crew and press, like a kid getting ready for Halloween, and then stood in front of the now infamous banner and told the nation, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Anniversaries being a time to take stock, it seems like a good chance to take a break from the Democratic primaries and remember some of the Bush administration's greatest hits.  All good parties need a game.  Pin the Tail On the Donkey's fun, but I hardly think a donkey would be welcome at a Republican affair.  Truth or Consequences is always a crowd-pleaser but it might take too long to explain the rules to the guests -- the Bush administration has taken precious little notice of either concept.  Something along those lines, though . . . how  about Verdict: Corrupt or Inept?  The game is simple.  We'll look at a few of the administration's signature disasters and choose whether each was a result of outright corruption or simple ineptitude.  Ready?  

We've really got to start with the Iraq War, being as it's pretty much the inspiration for the whole game.  To review:  After toppling the Taliban, we pivoted our focus from Afghanistan towards Iraq in order to remove Saddam, thereby allowing bin Laden to head for the hills of Pakistan and disappear down a cave.  Depending upon whom you believe, Cheney or Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or Feith ordered L. Paul Bremer to disband the Iraqi army, loosing a quarter of a million pissed-off, out-of-work young men into the countryside.  We went after these insurgents with helicopters, bombs and missiles, with scant regard for "collateral damage," a euphemistic term for the innocent civilians killed in our determination to present them with the gift of democracy.  That number, by the way, has just passed 90,000 for those of you keeping score.  We misread the role of Iran in Iraqi Shiite politics, assuming their "interference" was negligible.  To the contrary, Iran is providing arms and training multiple insurgent factions and their regional influence continues to grow, along with their nuclear potential.  Rumsfeld's determination to do the job on the cheap lead the administration to ignore the advice of Army chief of staff General Shinseki, who testified that several hundred thousand troops would be required to stabilize Iraq.  Shinseki was forced into retirement, years passed, thousands died and Bush eventually ordered a surge in American forces.  The list is virtually endless, but I'm getting a headache and this is supposed to be a party, so let's put Iraq to bed.  VERDICT--INEPT

Speaking of taking stock, the New York Times reported yesterday on the study that the Department of Education released of Bush's $6 billion Reading First initiative, which he insisted be included in the No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001.  The report stated, "Reading First did not improve students' reading comprehension."  Grover Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, concluded that the program, "doesn't end up helping children read."  To be fair, Reading First does still have its supporters, including Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.  The relative merits of the program in its current form are debatable.  What is not, however, is that it has been headed by hacks who have used their positions to feather the nests of specific publishers at the expense of the students' best interests.  Chris Doherty, the Reading First director, was forced to resign in 2006 when the conflict of interests became public.  He referred in emails to backers of alternative curriculums as "dirtbags" who were "trying to crash our party."  Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate education committee, accused the administration of putting, "cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last."  VERDICT-- (too close to call, really) CORRUPT and INEPT

Also this week, Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration, which handles billions of dollars in federal contracts, was forced to resign.  Not only did she allegedly use her position to steer government business towards friends, she is also accused of violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from taking action that could influence an election.  A Karl Rove deputy gave a meeting at GSA in which he identified specific Democrats the Republican Party was targeting for defeat in 2008 as well as Republicans whom they deemed vulnerable.  Doan has been quoted as asking him at the meeting how her agency could be used to "help our candidates."  VERDICT--CORRUPT

When Dick Cheney became Vice President in 2000, he left his position as CEO of Halliburton, Co., one of the largest oil-service companies in the world.  He cashed in over $30 million in company stock at the time.  Halliburtonwatch.org details the chronology of the company's truly meteoric rise to their current monopolistic position as contractors to the Iraq War.  Halliburton split its time in the 90's between making billions hand-over-fist and paying comparatively piddling fines levied against them for stock fraud and over-billing practices.  In 2001, Halliburton subsidiary KBR secured a ten-year deal with the Pentagon with no cost ceiling to provide support services to the Army.  Cheney claimed in 2003 he had, "no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years."  Well, except for the $150,000 per year in deferred compensation the company was paying him at the time and the 433,333 shares of unexercised stock options he still owned.  The longer this war goes on, the richer Halliburton gets and the more those Cheney stock options are worth.  VERDICT--CORRUPT

George Bush's Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, chose Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 2006, to dismiss eight U.S. attorneys without apparent cause.  They were replaced by hand-picked interim appointees.  Several of the fired attorneys claimed they were being pressured to direct, or not direct, their prosecutions in a partisan manner.  A U.S. attorney's job is to police politicians.  When the DOJ tells them who, and how, to investigate, the public trust has been breached.  On August 27, 2007, after months of stonewalling, Gonzales finally resigned amid accusations of perjury in his testimony before Congress.  VERDICT--There's more than a whiff of INEPT here, but, to be fair, Gonzales brought that with him when he took over the DOJ.  His qualifications were always suspect.  CORRUPT

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on Monday, August, 29, 2005.  President Bush was on vacation at the time and decided to go ahead with his plans to fly to Phoenix and help John McCain celebrate his birthday.  By the time they got around to cutting the cake, the levees in New Orleans had been breached and the 9th ward was under 6-8 feet of water.  Louisiana Governor Blanco pleaded, "Mr. President, we need your help.  We need everything you've got."  Bush went to bed.  The next day, he visited the El Mirage Country Club in Cucamonga, California, as part of a drug-benefits tour, missing that day's video conference on Katrina.  Mass looting was taking place in New Orleans.  Exhausted police were being used to control the looters instead of engaging in search and rescue.  Bush was pictured playing guitar with country singer Mark Willis before returning to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the final night of his vacation.  On Wednesday, two full days after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Bush flew over the region in Air Force One to assess the damage.  By now, FEMA staff was reporting that people were dying at the Superdome.  Ex-commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, Michael Brown headed to New Orleans in his new position as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  Five of his top eight FEMA officials had also come to their current jobs with virtually no disaster experience.  The top three FEMA officials all had ties to the Bush 2000 presidential campaign or the White House advance operation.  This crack staff was responsible for an inadequate evacuation plan and a relief effort woefully short on planning, supplies, manpower and communication.  A 2006 Republican House select committee investigated the government's response to Katrina and concluded that the response to, "Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare . . ."  They judged Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff "detached" and Michael Brown "clueless."  VERDICT:  CORRUPT (in that FEMA staffing at the highest levels was yet another of the egregious examples of the Bush administration's proclivity for blatant cronyism) and INEPT

Well, that's all the time we have for our game today.  Join us next week when we'll cover classics like Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Abu Ghraib, Pre-911 Intelligence Failures and the skewed/suppressed scientific research at NIH, HHS, FDA and the EPA.  

For now, we'll just say, "Happy Anniversary, Mr. President."  Loved the fighter pilot costume.

And now, back to the wrestling in North Carolina.

In Defense of Sour Grapes

Perhaps Hillary is right -- Obama's not ready to be president.  Perhaps being elected three times as an Illinois state senator and once as a U.S. senator doesn't qualify him as sufficiently seasoned to assume the role of commander-in-chief.  Maybe Clinton's two terms as an elected official and her years as first lady trump his four terms and years as a community organizer and make her, hands down, the wiser choice.  Sure, she voted for the Iraq War resolution.  Yes, she did lobby hard in support of NAFTA (although you wouldn't know it by listening to her campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania) back in the days when she was refusing to bake cookies, opting instead to gain that magic elixir,  experience, at the coattails of her husband.  And granted, her handling of the White House Travel Office scrum exhibited the same imperious hand as did her slamming of the door marked, "Keep Out" behind her as she and her team proceeded to botch their first crack at health care.  Most recently, her pursuit of the presidency has been marked by fits and starts, a seemingly endless hunt for her elusive "voice," and blatant mismanagement of her finances, forcing her to lend the campaign money earned god knows how (we're still waiting to see her and Bill's 1040 -- anytime now would be good).

But maybe all of these experiences d0 add up to a wisdom superior to that of the 46-year old Illinois upstart and his three years time spent in Washington.  Maybe it really is how many years you spend, not how you spend them.  Empirical evidence to the contrary along the lines of Lincoln (two years in the US House), FDR (three years as governor of NY), Theodore Roosevelt (two years as governor of NY and six months as McKinley's V.P.), Wilson (two years in the US House), Eisenhower (no elected experience),  James Monroe (no elected experience) and Hoover (no elected experience) might argue otherwise, but okay.  If the experts say so.  Experience is vital. 

Go ahead, HRC and McCain.  Have at it.  May the more experienced head prevail.

Unhappily, not winning the nomination this year might be the best thing that ever happens to Obama.  Seriously.  Have you looked around lately?  

This war is going nowhere fast and the economy is going south even faster.  The claim that we will end our occupation of Iraq in 2009 is a broken campaign promise waiting to happen.  While McCain's vision of an extended stay is unpopular amongst all but the most pugnacious, it's probably the most realistic reading of how the situation will play out.  And, as a cherry atop our martial sundae, we're gearing up for yet another wild, wild, mid-east stare-down, this time  with Iran.  Every ship and jet we move into the Persian Gulf makes some level of shooting war more likely.  

Back home, Alan Greenspan predicts the most dire financial straits in sixty years lie ahead.  People are loathe to admit the homes they over-borrowed to acquire are worth less than they paid for them so the housing market will be predictably slow to stabilize.  As the price of oil goes up, the value of the dollar goes down.  The Fed bailed out Bear Stearns by orchestrating JP Morgan Chase's takeover and by underwriting $30 billion worth of Bear's sub-prime, mortgage-backed bonds.  (That's on our dime, by the way).  Do we believe this was an isolated incident?  Hardly.  Lehman Brothers and UBS are two more investment banks with huge sub-prime exposure.  The Fed can't afford to let them fail, either.  Perception is everything on the Street and if any of these giants fail they could spark a run on banks and create a domino effect.  The economy grew by just 0.6% last quarter, it's worst performance since 2002.  That six-tenths of a point margin of growth is going to allow the administration to avoid using the dreaded term "recession" next month, as it is defined by two consecutive quarters of declining GDP, but it's coming, as sure as our $300 dollar stimulus checks are going to make everything  all right.  

This is about as bad a hand as an incoming president can be dealt.  It has taken seven long years of hard work for Bush and his cohorts to achieve this level of dysfunction.  You can sense that the pressure is off now that the end is in sight.  They can relax.  Their work here is done.  Bush is doing the soft-shoe shuffle on the back porch for the press corps and crooning sophomoric country ditties bemoaning the unfair legacies of Harriet, Brownie and Scooter.  Cheney has emerged from his cave and weighed in on the country's condemnation of the administration's prosecution of the Iraq War with the brilliantly concise, "So?"  Such chutzpah.  Their contempt for the public is truly breathtaking.  

It's almost impossible to foresee the next president prospering against these odds.  Why not let Hillary, or better yet, McCain, reap the rewards of the Bush clan's work?  Obama could spend a few more years in the Senate polishing his bipartisan credentials reaching across the aisle to pass progressive legislation with the help of the clear Democratic majority.  Or, if Clinton promises to play nice, he could accept the number two slot on the ticket, thereby giving the oh-so-sensitive and skittish electorate four to eight more years to ameliorate their fears of a black man with a strange name in the White House.  He would be perfectly positioned for a run in 2012 or even 2016, at the ripe old age of fifty-four, while Clinton absorbed the inevitable pounding that Bush's folly must engender.  

There's just something ironic about waiting all these years for a qualified, transformative, electable, minority candidate and, upon being presented with Barack Obama, realizing that this is the ultimate no-win situation.  So, although it smacks of heresy to his loyal following, perhaps it's worthwhile to consider the flip side here.  Obama's got another thirty years of public service ahead of him.  Is it in his best interests to spend the next four in hell?   

Lethal Neocon Propaganda

It's a pipe dream to entertain the notion of an Iraq free of U.S. forces anytime in the foreseeable future. 

 I'm not going to repeat the popular progressive misrepresentation of John McCain's quote that we could stay in Iraq for a thousand or a million years as far as he was concerned.  Any analysis free of political agenda makes it pretty clear that he was referring to a presence along the lines of our long-term deployments in Japan or South Korea.  To claim that he was implying that the current situation could continue into the next millennium is disingenuous.  However, he is firmly in the military solution camp and supports a muscular presence until the killing stops.  Until the killing stops.  As Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, that might be awhile.

Clinton and Obama both seem intent upon ending the war and pulling out all combat troops within a year.  They would begin drawing down between one and two brigades a month, leaving a nebulous, unspecified number of support troops to, "strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests."  This pace is faster than most field officers in Iraq deem prudent and they feel it would leave us without enough force to deal with the situation on the ground.

The Democratic candidates' plans are fiction.  Sound-bite strategies to pave the way to the White House along the campaign trail.  At best, they should be taken as optimistic suggestions, much like Hillary's "universal" health care plan.  Even she admits that the health care battle will be fierce and that's why it's necessary to start with the absolute goal of universal coverage.  It's like any act of barter -- you start as low (or as high) as possible and give up as little ground as you can.  

That's how one needs to look at the two proposals for leaving Iraq.  Start with a year and then see how long it will really take.  Eric Rosenbach, executive director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School, predicts, "Four years, optimistically, and more like seven or eight years" until Iraq is self-sufficient.  West Point professor Brian Fishman warns, "...when you talk about some kind of end for American troops, it's certainly in terms of years."  Anyone who takes specific campaign promises to heart, well, either they haven't been paying much attention over the years or they have a serious case of heartburn.

So, I'm willing to grant that the complexities of Iraq make our leaving within the next couple of years unlikely, even impossible.  That being said, is there any goddamn way to get McCain and Bush and the rest of his neocon stooges to quit labeling a measured drawdown of American men and women as a "hasty retreat?"  They've latched onto that tired phrase like a Nebraska housewife clutching her handbag in Times Square.

A hasty retreat is what the French beat in the face of the Germans' offensive from the Somme in June of 1940.  It's the option you chose in high school through your girlfriend's bedroom window when you heard her father coming up the stairs. 

Today marks the completion of the fifth full year of the Iraq War.  That's 1,827 days, counting leap years.  3,990 American troops have been killed, 29,395 wounded.  60,000 troops have completed their service commitments but been forbidden to leave the military until their units return.  8,000 Iraqi military and police killed.  89,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.  4.5 million Iraqi refugees.  $5-7 trillion in estimated costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

THERE IS NOTHING HASTY ABOUT THIS!  This is an agonizingly slow, protracted death of a thousand cuts.  We are spending $12 billion dollars each month on this war.  Two Americans die each day.  EACH DAY!  

Do you think their families would consider this a hasty action?  Best case scenario, let's say HRC or Obama gets elected and, against the advice of the hawks at the table, ends our Iraqi involvement by 2011.  Do you think the families, friends and loved ones of the troops killed between now and then would consider this a hasty retreat?  I don't either.

Look, you want to make a case for a continued presence in Iraq, then do so.  But deliberately stigmatizing any and all reasoned plans to escape the clutches of an unreasoned and unreasonable war as a "hasty retreat" is unconscionable.  It disrespects those who have already died in this game of chicken Bush initiated and it disrespects the thousands who will die in the years ahead.