Emboldening The Enemy

Bush Defies Lawmakers To Solve Iraq – washingtonpost.com
Declaring “I’m the decision maker,” President Bush yesterday challenged congressional efforts to formally condemn his Iraq plan, while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that a proposed Senate resolution criticizing the deployment of additional troops would embolden the enemy.

Which enemy would that be, exactly? Would it be the Sunnis who want to control Iraq? Or the Shiites who want to control Iraq? Or would it be the Iranians who’d also like to see the Shiites in control? Or would it be those few who really don’t give a shit whether it’s the Sunnis or the Shiites so long as they can continue to profit from the chaotic state of things in Iraq? Or is Gates talking about any of the variously striped “terrorist groups” around the world who, as long as Iraq remains a fucked up mess, see opportunities for recruiting new members?

Is there anyone outside of the Bush administration who still believes our continued military presence in Iraq is doing anything other than perpetuating the unrest? The trouble is, we’ve made such a mess of things over there that now it’s no simple thing to leave. So what will adding more troops accomplish? We can expand the green zone. Yippee. That leaves more Iraqi civilians living in an American-run police state. It’s not hard to imagine how well that’s going to go over in the long run. What’s the old saying? Better the devil you know than the one you don’t? And do we honestly think strengthening our control over Iraq is going to make the rest of the Muslim world think more kindly of us? Please.

So, Gates claims it “emboldens the enemy” when people criticize Bush’s policies. Isn’t it just typical of a Bush appointee to imply that a demonstration of how democracy really works — free people openly expressing themselves — is somehow a bad thing?