LIE OF THE WEEK: 03-21-2008
President Bush on the 5th anniversary of the War in Iraq:
"War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much."
THE TRUTH: We are no longer considered to be "losing" in Iraq because we are looking at it in relative terms - we cannot win militarily and have only reduced the amount of violence from the horrific levels of the past two years. The political steps needed to actually achieve a victory are extremely slow in coming and may not happen at all. Most importantly, although the American military is by-far the strongest force on the planet, the main factor affecting the war is the turnaround in the Sunni forces who decided that it made more sense to get what they could out of the political system rather than compromising all morality and aligning themselves with the maniacal killers of Al-Qaeda and fighting out a battle they will eventually lose. Thus, we are not losing, but we are also not winning. On the topic of war costs, President Bush should be called out by the media on his administration's complete dishonesty in this regard. They original provided an estimate of $60 billion for the entire war effort and it has already been 10 times that amount in terms of actual costs, without accounting for secondary costs for health issues for veterans, increased spending on failing military recruitment efforts, etc. The war does cost too much, it's hurt the current and future economy (since it's based mostly on unrestrained government borrowing) and was a mistake to begin with. No amount of spin will erase this ultimate example of the legacy of the Bush administration as being all about mistaken idealogical policies.
"War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much."
THE TRUTH: We are no longer considered to be "losing" in Iraq because we are looking at it in relative terms - we cannot win militarily and have only reduced the amount of violence from the horrific levels of the past two years. The political steps needed to actually achieve a victory are extremely slow in coming and may not happen at all. Most importantly, although the American military is by-far the strongest force on the planet, the main factor affecting the war is the turnaround in the Sunni forces who decided that it made more sense to get what they could out of the political system rather than compromising all morality and aligning themselves with the maniacal killers of Al-Qaeda and fighting out a battle they will eventually lose. Thus, we are not losing, but we are also not winning. On the topic of war costs, President Bush should be called out by the media on his administration's complete dishonesty in this regard. They original provided an estimate of $60 billion for the entire war effort and it has already been 10 times that amount in terms of actual costs, without accounting for secondary costs for health issues for veterans, increased spending on failing military recruitment efforts, etc. The war does cost too much, it's hurt the current and future economy (since it's based mostly on unrestrained government borrowing) and was a mistake to begin with. No amount of spin will erase this ultimate example of the legacy of the Bush administration as being all about mistaken idealogical policies.
Labels: Lie of the Week
posted by The Debunker at 9:06 AM
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