I Guess Someone Forgot To Tell The Iraqis That The U.S. Election Was Over

Many moronic statements have been made over the last few years by members of the Bush Regime concerning the Iraq War. Perhaps the most famous words ever uttered with regard to the Iraq Debacle -- yes, even more memorable than "Bring It On" -- were Dick Cheney's words from May 2005, when he said that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its final throes."

One would think that Cheney would choose to keep his mouth shut after his "final throes" prediction completely missed the mark. But Dick really likes to say stupid things apparently. His latest idiotic remark with regard to Iraq was made a couple months ago:

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said that insurgents in Iraq have increased their attacks in order to influence the upcoming US mid-term elections. He blamed a recent rise in violence on al-Qaeda and others trying to "break the will of the American people".

"They're very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled," he said, claiming the militants monitor US public opinion via the internet.

In October US forces in Iraq suffered one of their worst monthly death tolls.

OK, so if Cheney's statement was correct, that must mean that the death toll in Iraq last October was merely a spike brought on by the U.S. mid-term elections and that the situation in Iraq would stabilize once the polls closed in America. Right?

Nope. Wrong again (from a December 31 article in Editor & Publisher):

The U.S. military death toll in Iraq reached 3,000 on Sunday, with the reported deaths of two more Americans. It came on the day after the execution of Saddam Hussein. President Bush, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, mourned the death of the 3,000th U.S. soldier, the White House said.

More Americans have died this month -- at least 110 -- than in any month since November 2004. Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, was killed Thursday by small arms fire in Baghdad, the Defense Department said Sunday, making him the 3000th to die.

There's been a lot of chatter coursing through the tubes of the Internets lately regarding who is going to get the blame for this catastrophe in Iraq, particularly now that Bush is planning to "surge" U.S. troop levels. Kevin Drum wrote this last week:

As regular readers know, I'm unequivocally in favor of withdrawing from Iraq, but this morning I suggested that I'd be secretly happy to see a surge happen since it would deprive conservatives of an excuse to blame the Iraq fiasco on something other than the war itself (i.e., bad execution, liberal perfidy, media bias, etc.). Both Matt Yglesias and Atrios disagree because, they say, conservatives will blame the loss in Iraq on liberals no matter what happens.

Believe me, I've got no argument with that. There's no question that conservatives will try to hang our failure in Iraq around liberal peacenik necks, but that's not what's important. What's important is whether they succeed. Public opinion is key, and if they go ahead and do their surge, and it fails, it's going to make the conservative story a lot harder to tell. The public just isn't going to buy it. * * *

But as DarkSyde over at Kos pointed out last week: "One thing BushCo did and did well was in branding this war an exclusively Republican War and cutting Democrats out of what they thought was going to be the credit for it." That is certainly a correct statement. Indeed, the GOP essentially screwed up just about everything when it came to the Iraq War, but they definitely nailed their "let's shut the Democrats out" strategy. As historian Sean Wilentz wrote last April:

No other president -- Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR in World War II, John F. Kennedy at critical moments of the Cold War -- faced with such a monumental set of military and political circumstances failed to embrace the opposing political party to help wage a truly national struggle. But Bush shut out and even demonized the Democrats. Top military advisers and even members of the president's own Cabinet who expressed any reservations or criticisms of his policies -- including retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- suffered either dismissal, smear attacks from the president's supporters or investigations into their alleged breaches of national security. The wise men who counseled Bush's father, including James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, found their entreaties brusquely ignored by his son. When asked if he ever sought advice from the elder Bush, the president responded, "There is a higher Father that I appeal to."

Maybe Bush should take up Satan worship -- this whole "talking to God" thing clearly isn't working for him.

Although I have no doubt that the Extreme Right will indeed attempt to blame liberals for the Iraq Fiasco -- they've already tried to share the blame with John "I Was For The War Before I Was Against It" Kerry -- the attempt to do so will fail because the fact that this is Bush's disaster is pretty much accepted by a majority of Americans. The Democrats were swept into power based on this perception, and I don't think that even liars as accomplished as those who populate the GOP can change voters' minds on that.