{"id":969,"date":"2006-01-15T20:12:59","date_gmt":"2006-01-15T20:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:32","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:32","slug":"wtf_president_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=969","title":{"rendered":"WTF, President Bush?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I commented<\/a> in passing on the Administration’s apparent disinterest in proving more reconstruction funds for Iraq. I was temperate in my comments in part because I wasn’t sure what, exactly was going on – the budget process is opaque and complex on good days.<\/p>\n

But an article in today’s LA Times<\/a> (yes, I still subscribe) popped a few gaskets.<\/p>\n

After more than 2 1\/2 years of sputtering reconstruction work, the United States’ “Marshall Plan” to rebuild this war-torn country is drawing to a close this year with much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding.<\/p>\n

\nThe $18.6 billion approved by Congress in 2003 will be spent by the end of this year, officials here say. Foreign governments have given only a fraction of the billions they pledged two years ago.<\/p>\n

\nWith the country still a shambles, U.S. officials are promoting a tough-love vision of reconstruction that puts the burden on the Iraqi people.<\/p>\n

\n“The world is a competitive place,” Tom Delare, economics counselor at the U.S. Embassy, said this month during a news briefing. “You have to convince the investor that it is worth his while to put his money in your community.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the past, as Atrios and Yglesias and others have made the claim that the war was a wrong choice because of the ineptitude of the Bush administration, I stepped up and defended the administration as far from perfect, but generally moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n

This decision is a move in such a wrong direction that I’m speechless. Fortunately, I’m typing, not talking.
\nOver and over what I and others have said – and what I have appreciated President Bush as saying – is that “We’re In Until We Win.” Our opponents cannot simply bloody our troops and sit and wait until we get bored with our venture and leave.<\/p>\n

This message – “Oh, we’ll leave our troops in, but sound fiscal policy prevents us for doing anything to reduce the numbers of people shooting at them.<\/i>” – isn’t ‘bizarre’ as I characterized it before; it’s delusional. And I don’t use a profane adjective here only because I’m turning this post into an email and sending it to the White House (at comments@whitehouse.gov and Vice_President@whitehouse.gov), and I’m going to ask each of you to send your own email excoriating this decision as well.<\/p>\n

It is a delusional decision because it damages the ability of the Iraqis who have -literally – put their lives in our hands to trust us to complete the job; it is a delusional decision because it sends a clear message to those who we are fighting that we are only half-serious about this effort; it is a delusional decision because it tells our troops, who sit in harm’s way in Iraq that we are not serious about winning this conflict.<\/p>\n

If there was a way I could sputter with outrage in type, I’d be doing it now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal is outraged that the Bush Administration is serious about cutting off reconstruction aid to Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}