General Casey to likely be fired

General George Casey's unwavering view that U.S. troops should withdraw from Iraq may ultimately lead to his demise.  According to reports, President Bush is expected to fire Casey:

Bush plans to fireGeneral Casey, commander of American forces in Iraq, whose plan totransfer security responsibility to Iraqis failed. American Generalsagree: Bush doesn’t want withdraw, he wants victory

A New York Times Tuesday column explained just how bleak the situation is in Iraq:

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said theWhite House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed totake seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador inBaghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turnMr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods andtowns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

“Wecould not clear and hold,” Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s nationalsecurity adviser, acknowledged in a recent interview, in a frankadmission of how American strategy had crumbled. “Iraqi forces were notable to hold neighborhoods, and the effort to build did not show up.The sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make theprogress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnisoff the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience, and began tosee the militias as their protectors.”

When you are two or three steps behind your enemy, you cannot expect to adjust accordingly.  What is taking place in Iraq right now is a genocidal war between Sunni and Shia.  It is out of our hands.  The question then becomes whether we ought to stay there and use our soldiers as human shields.  If we listen to the neocons that write for the Weekly Standard newspaper, then that just might happens.

Comments

[George]

"See, I listen to the generals on the ground. Ehehehe. Unless they forget to be in agreeness. Ehehehe"

I think I'm going to give up on Iraq now for 2 years. There's just nothing more to see or say or do about it. I'll pick up hope for Iraq when a new US President is elected.

Until then, I'm going to be most interested in who will be the next President and how they will solve global warming.

[Administrator: Todd]

You know, George, I understand your frustration. But I have a confession to make. Even though I am against the war, I have never EVER been to an anti-war protest in my entire life. Yes, Mr. "I'm a UW student progressive" could not get off his lazy ass to get involved. In fact, I used to be one of those individuals who would make fun of the protesters as being so off-the-wall.

But this year, I think we are going to see so many Americans voice their frustration about the war. When the number of protesters in a D.C. march tops 2 million, you will see things change.

Also, now is the LAST time to be giving up on this. Why? The Democrats have control of Congress. Like-minded people like John Murtha will chair committees that can get to the bottom of all the corruption, and encourage more Americans to get involved.

In this era of partisan politics, each party needs support from their political base more than ever. If progressives pressure Democratic lawmakers, they WILL listen, or else suffer the consequences. People like you and me do have the power to impact this war. The power was given to us on November 7th.