State of the Union Address

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Bush gave his Constitutionally-required annual address last night. Like most SotUs, it was a little under an hour in length, although you could probably do it in half an hour if it wasn't for breaks for applause (even though there are both Dems and Repubs in the audience - including most members of Congress, the Joint Chiefs, and the Supreme Court Justices - it is considered polite to applaud, even if you disagree with the Prez's ideas, so yes, there were many rounds of applause at various times).

I actually was quite amazed at what I heard, and in a good way, not a bad way. While I remain skeptical, and will not fully believe what I heard last night until I see it placed into action, I definitely think some things Bush addressed are steps in the right direction. More money going into the research of alternative fuel sources such as hydrogen-based energy; higher mileage standards on America's fleet of cars that will reduce our oil consumption by 20% in 10 years (it would take 10 years to realize the 20%, as all current vehicles would still remain in service)' tax breaks up to $7,500 for lower income families who do not have health insurance (although you only get the break if you actually use it to buy insurance); immigration reform that would both allow more immigrants to get work permits to come to the US, as well as cracking down on employers who hire illegals; and admitting that global warming is real, and taking steps to move to cleaner fuel sources such as ethanol - these were just some of the things I liked about the speach.

My first question upon hearing some of this was, "Who is this imposter posing as GWB?" Now, it wasn't all great. He still is insistent that the 20,000+ additional troops heading to Iraq will work, and asked Congress to give this "new plan" a chance before they condemn it. That seems like wishful thinking to me. If 140,000 American soldiers can't secure Iraq, I don't see how increasing it to 160,000 is going to do it. I also don't understand how he can do all he laid out given that his set of parameters involved balancing the budget (yes, he said this) and not raising taxes. It seems like the only way you can pay for this stuff while balancing the budget and not increasing taxes would be to cut other programs, or reduce our presence in Iraq, and I didn't hear him address any of that.

Still, since I wasn't expecting any change in Bush's stance on Iraq, and I certainly wasn't expecting a lot of the other things he said, I think there was a lot of positives in what he said - provided they aren't just hot air and he actually intends to put them into action. Given my dislike of this administration, even if Bush only follows through on half this stuff, I'll have to give him credit:

Here's the full text of the SotU. It's actually not that long - like I said, there were many pauses for applause.

 

Do you think his speach writers slipped him an alternative address at the last minute?! or maybe someone brewed coffee first thing.

I spotted the highlights in one of the UK newspapers, and was both surprised and pleased. Not sure why the apparent sudden change in outlook on the environment but I believe it is a good thing.

I would be delighted if an extra 20k troops would change the situation in Iraq, but realistically...

 

The SotU address was not bad as far as those thing go. Many points the President made were actually items that have been on the Democrat's agenda for a while -- I think Bush made a great attempt to walk across the aisle and start the compromise process. I thought the Democratic rebuttal was a bit insubstantial though -- his point about how much CEO's make was great but entirely off the mark. If you want to limit the raping of the corporate world by the top echelon, the legislative branch need to make laws along those lines (why disparage the President for Congress failures). But then again I'm not a fan of Webb. We'll see if both the republicans and democrats can actually follow through or provide reasonable alternatives.

 

The suge will do what it is, IMO, intended to do--provide an excuse to withdraw the bulk, or even all, of American troops from Iraq. Consider what Bush said:

In other words, if the Iraqi gov. doesn't fix things, we might be forced to leave.

The Iraqi government can't fix things; it doesn't have the (trustworthy) manpower or money. We can't fix things; we don't have manpower, we do have the money, but we don't have the will (the army's COIN manual states that 1 combat soldier is required for every civilian to keep order. Iraq's population is 26 million. So we'd need something like 1.25 million combat soldiers to secure the country. We don't have that many, and we won't ever have that many barring a draft. And, as we all know, a draft would be tantamount to political suicide).

Now, maybe the Bush admin is as inept as ever, and just doesn't get it. Wouldn't be surprising. But maybe the surge is an exercise in spin ('well, we did all that we could, but the Iraqis just wouldn't pull their weight. Not our fault, guess they ain't ready for freedom and democracy and truth and justice. Time for us to leave'). Given the admin's talent for spin, that wouldn't be surprising either.

 

I think Bush is becoming better at misdirection. Remember how much lip-service he gave the Iraq Study Group's recommendations? (if you remeber them at all) and then he went off and did the exact opposite? He appears to be at much the same game. He will talk about how he listens to others, which was his ploy back, oohh, 6 years ago, if I remember. And then he will proceed to do exactly what he orginally intended. Ultimately, he will "stay the course."

 

To wit: In response to the committee passage of the Senate's non-binding referendum on troop increases, VP Cheney said something to the effect of "The President has made up his mind and it's going to happen."

I read an interesting bit of commentary in the same paper. I forget the persons' qualifications, but he was of the mind that, since long-term policing of a Middle East cold war is definitely NOT in the best interests of the US, perhaps an abrupt pull out is. He was speculating that the resulting power vacuum in Iraq would attract sufficient attention from the surrounding states that the regional power struggles would distract them from more imperialistic ideals.

 

That was to be expected. Afterall, the resolution was "non-binding". Unfortunately, our system does not have something akin to the British system where Parliament can call for a vote of no confidence on the PM.

 

Political grandstanding at its best. If Congress wants to stop the President from sending more troops over to Iraq all they have to do us not approve the funding, likewise if they really want the troops brought home all they have to do is cut off funding for the war, but the fact is that we are there and to just walk away would leave a vacuum of immense proportions. The non-binding referendum is simply a political tool that will be used to cover the respective asses of those who voted for it. Basically it will just be an "I told you so" without providing any alternatives, and no one will remember that they really could have stopped it if they felt that strongly about it.

The fact is that no one has any idea how expeditiously get out of Iraq without leaving chaos in our wake, and we don't have the fortitude to accept the cost of creating a stable nation, so everyone is squaring off and pointing fingers. Now the issue of blame will be determined in a contest of spin mastery and finger pointing.

I think you left something out of your ratio of soldiers to civilian (you have a 1 to 1 ratio), but I think you have a very good point, and also agree with your analysis that the President is creating an "out" for himself...now to be honest I think the chances of him using it are nil, but I have been wrong.

Changing gears...

This is another one of those "pretty on the surface" solutions that gets ugly when you dig into it. There are a lot of ugly sides to ethanol production that aren't most aren't aware of, plus the law of unexpected consequences popped up last time we tried this.

First, the technology for creating ethanol efficiently doesn't exist currently. It takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol, so basically you end up trading emissions from cars for emissions from power plants.

Second, the production of ethanol creates a de facto cost increase to the poor as currently the most efficient way to create ethanol is to use feed grains. This increases the cost of grain, which is passed on to consumers in higher grocery costs.

Finally waste products from the production of ethanol are still a problem...though from what I have read this may be the easiest hurdle to overcome.

Again the question comes back to "are the American people willing to accept the costs" and the answer IMO is no, we are not.

 

Although alternatives would be great, the War in Iraq is not really a political problem for the Dems. Bush always manages to tie the fate of the GOP more closely to the war, (the SotUA was a fine example), while the Dems just back off. So it is essentially Bush's and the GOP's political problem. But that the Dems are expected to fix what the Repulicans have managed to screw up? I'm sure the GOP would like nothing better than for the Dems to start shouldering the political mess that they have made of things, but the Dems would be fools to embrace the war as their problem.

 

Correct on all points, but the odds of that being used are exceedingly small. You need a 2/3 majority in the Senate to remove a sitting President, and their are easily more than 34 remaining Bush-backers in the Senate.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that no president has ever been removed from office as a result of an impeachment vote. Andrew Johnson came the closest. The impeachment hearings led to a vote, but Johnson survived by a single vote. (If one more Senator had voted against him, he would have been out. I forget the exact breakdown of the vote, because in the 1860s there weren't 50 states, so I don't know how many Senators we had.)

Richard Nixon probably would not only have been impeached, but he probably would not have survived the vote either. However, he resigned before all of that could take place.

Lastly, Bill Clinton got to the impeachment hearing part of the process, but there was never a formal vote to remove him from office (but even if there was, it is highly unlikely that a 2/3 majority would have been obtained).

Basically, the take home message here is that a process does exist in the U.S. for removing a sitting President from office, but in the over 200 year history of Presidents in the U.S., this action has never been taken to its conclusion, and I doubt it ever will be. In the event that impeachment hearings led to a vote, the President would resign if he thought he was going to lose, like Nixon did. Clinton never thought he was in danger of getting removed from office (and he never even got to the vote process), which is why he did not resign.

It looks about 20:1 to me - just pulled out the calculator - it's exactly 20.8:1 if you want to get really specific.

I've got some very mixed messages on ethanol. I have heard that almost half the energy you get from a gallon of ethanol is used in the production of that gallon of ethanol. If true, then it's not a particularly good deal, especially considering if the energy source for the production of ethanol is some type of fossil fuel.

 

But if the Dems get their wish they will have to. They want control of the White House and Congress, at which time they will have to address the issue.

In the mean time, while they are winning as evidenced by the polls, they are still getting beat over the heads with the same thing that they Repubs hurt them with in '04...they keep saying we need to do it "smarter" and "better", but they have no ideas, and they just keep going along with what the Repubs are doing because they don't have any better idea. If Bush can't turn things around in the next 6 months to a year (unlikely), the Repubs are going to turn their backs on him and he will fall on his sword to save the party and improve their chances in '08.

Setting up a platform to be dependent upon US failure is not the proactive, positive message that is going to win Americans over.

 

Aren't we all fools if we don't realize the War is America's problem? All I see is shifting and sliding and maneuvering by politicians on either side of the aisle to protect themselves. What's the cost of a few lives when you have a political career to safeguard?

"I voted for the war before I voted against it" now seems brilliantly prophetic.

 

Oops. Aldeth's on the money; the manual states 1 combat soldier per 20 civilians, keeping in mind that a soldier != a combat soldier. Not in our army, anyway.

Well, I don't really expect him to use it, either, but the alternative is that his admin is still in deep denial, and I'd like to think even they can catch a clue.

 

In other words a rifleman/grunt. Not admin staff, ground control on a carrier or anything like that...

Then again that's only to keep the miscontent in line, not those who are happy with American occupation and what they are trying to do there.

 

No, sorry, my friend, HS. You have always been a gentleman and respectful in just about everyway, especially in the opinions of others. Nevertheless, there were those conservatives and Republicans who were not. At the end of the 2004 election, there was a lot of cheering and jeering about how the GOP mandate on the war in Iraq prevailed against the "spineless flip-floppers" -- the Dems, and John Kerry and other "liberals' -- who opposed the war, as you appear to point out.

It was not very pretty. Yet, I commented (and you can go back and check my posts after the election, if you wish), that if anyone desevred to cleanup the mess he had made, then that individual should be George Bush, and also his cohorts, the neocons who helped drive the 2004 election machine. In other words, this was a Republican agenda and they needed to see this war through, just as they claimed that they would -- they bought it, they owned it.

Now it seems that the "mandate is on the other foot," so to speak. Thusly, the day of reckoning is here, and it appears that after several years of "stay the course" those who claimed this war was a bad idea, have prevailed, not only in reality, but in the public opinion as well.

There was a shining moment in 2005 when the People of Iraq took to the polls and voted for a chance to control their own destinies - we all held our breathes to see if there was any magic there, and we stopped caring about whether it was a result of politics, or something much larger: a true human desire to be free from countless years of tyranny, and a quest for freedom.

But the magic was not there, instead reality reminded us that the Iraqi people were a lot like everyone else, even Americans. They were a divided people and they failed to put their differences aside. This was something that many feared and the resluts are what they are. They will have to settle their differences between themselves -- and there is not a whole lot that anyone on the outside can do about it.

A mandate for change regarding the policy on Iraq is emerging from the American People. That mandate will have to reach substantial proportions for the Dems to rush in and save the day from the Repubilcan failures of the past 6 years. Everyone says "give Bush this last chance to redeem the war." Great, let's give him that chance, if it means that much in the grand scheme of things. We are, as you point out, all Americans, wishing for the same successes for our nation. However, at some point we will still have to find the strength to deal with reality, even if it means "facing the unthinkable" -- that Bush had it wrong all along.

[ January 26, 2007, 07:46: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Not really. For COIN to be sucessful, there must be security. For there to be security, there must be boots on the ground. A lot of them.

As Colonel Kilcullen said, "In a counterinsurgency, the gratitude effect will last until the sun goes down and the insurgents show up and say, ‘You’re on our side, aren’t you? Otherwise, we’re going to kill you.’"

You have to be able to prevent the masked men with guns from showing up on any given citizen's porch. To do that, you must be present, on a constant basis, not rolling through the neighborhood every tuesday at 2:00 sharp.

 

All, regarding this quote

and the interpretation of it

Don't get excited. Bush is not going to do that. That would be admitting failure of his plan to reshape the Middle East. Never. He will leave that to some 'appeasing' successor. Bush is determined to be remembered a great president and he is intent on producing an according 'heritage'. It need not to be a real heritage. For motivation it is sufficient Bush feels so. Bush evidently really believes the US can win. Only this presumtion, as foolish as it is, can explain the current rush to escalation. He's not withdrawing, far from it - he's doubling his bets.

Besides, the threat, "Get your act to gether, or else ... we withdraw" is a ... very optimistic interpretation of US influence in Iraq. It clearly is not going to 'force' the Iraqis into cooperation. The only thing the anti-American forces need to do to turn someone over to their side is to say "Who is going to protect your family after the Americans are gone?" You can count on them to make exactly that argument. This is exactly the strategy which turned many South Vietnamese into spies for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army - appeal to the personal safety of the fighters' families. It is something which will weaken even the most determined fighter. Personal bravery in the battlefield is one thing - being reckless with one's own unprotected family members is quite another. Rather than strengthening the government this threat would fuel the militias.

Rather, the sentence has to be understood as a warning to Maliki that Bush is going to pull the rug under his feet. Maliki, Bush's main 'ally' in Baghdad, in that speech wasn't even mentioned by name. He's fallen from grace. Also, the following sentences are all about how bad the government is. The Bushies are unhappy with Maliki for not cracking down on Sadr, who they have picked as their major enemy among the Shia. Maliki *is* Sadr. Sadr's followers are Malikis base of support. It certainly is a little much to ask from him to crack down on his own allies. No reason for the Bushies not to expect him to. After all, details are schmetails.

The US, at the beginning of the crackdown on Sadr, will take care the Maliki is sacked. His days are numbered. The US will try to form a pro-Bush Shia government. Ridiculous. In the surge, the US will divide Baghdad into squares and comb them for any resistance and rubble anything resembling resistance. It is questionable they will or can ensure it being cleared of civilians first. A bloodbath in the making.

So basically the Bush has decided to now simultaneously fight all three major anti-occupation forces in Iraq: The Sunnis, the Shias and Al Quaeda. Another cakewalk. The US failed to reach a settlement with major Sunni armed resistance organizations, even though they have turned against al-Qaeda. This made the US basically side with the Shia in the Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian conflict, and encouraged the Shi’ite leadership to view Sunnis as the enemy. Instead of reversing that policy decision, Bush is now adding another enemy to the list, despite the fact that the Mahdi army is also violently opposed to al-Qaeda. The logic of escalation at work.

And if things go real bad in the surge, or the US get bloodied badly ... it wasn't because of moronic US decisions, but it was all because of ... ta-dah! ... this vile Iranian influence that the US failed. The Iraqis couldn't have possibly been so good without Iranian help. There already is lots of talk about Iranian 'support', 'involvement', 'meddling'. The careful wording is telling. It also is never specified what exactly that means. Something as 'solid' as Saddam's 'ties to al-Qaeda'? In this reading the Iranians actively undermined US progress and that could be utilised as the 'Tonking Incident' to trigger the long desired bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities. I see an 80% chance of that happening. The forces for the airstrike are already in place, free to operate as they are not required for the operations in Iraq.

There is no limit to insanity.

[ January 26, 2007, 09:52: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Agreed, the Democrats did get a mandate for change in Iraq. So what changes have they proposed? None. All they have done is criticize and nay say. Non-binding resolutions, and speeches in front of the press do nothing to make a change in direction...all it does is embolden the insurgents and give more strength to their arguments of "who is going to protect you when the US is gone" (to borrow from Ragusa). This isn't change, this is political bickering, grandstanding, and to be honest sabotage.

The Democrats hold all the power over the war in Iraq now as they control the purse strings, and yet it looks like they are going to fund the troop surge while passing non-binding resolutions against it. Sorry, but IMO that makes them hypocrites, and it makes them no better then the "neocons".

 

Darkwolf,
I agree on the hypochrisy part, but what I do not buy is that the discussion at home weakens the US overseas. The premise for that argument is that the US can still win, and that weakness at home does make the difference between winning and losing.

I think that belief is mistaken. The war is lost, and it is lost for what Bush does, no matter what the Dems say.

Troop levels required but denied (or unavailable) speak louder than non-binding resolutions. Someone here mentioned troop levels. Excellent point. You need about 1 soldier for every 10 civilians for a successful counter-insurgency campaign. At no time the US were able to provide as many troops. The 'defeatocrats' can 'crow' and 'subvert' all they want, but it simply remains an impossible task, worse, it almost certainly was one right from the start.

[ January 26, 2007, 17:18: Message edited by: Ragusa ]