October 24, 2006- Changing Nothing

   A couple of days ago, there was a little weekend pow wow over at the White House, where President Bush invited some of the top Pentagon Generals and assorted brass over on a Saturday, and it was not to watch college football on the White House plasma TV screen either. No, The President had something a little more important than college football on his mind, and besides that, Bush is a major baseball fan, and the World Series game that day was scheduled to be  in the evening, so he was not going to miss what he really wanted to see on TV that day by having these meetings, so they gathered last Saturday to discuss the war in Iraq and how it is going. The press went apeshit over this meeting, making a huge deal out of it being on a Saturday, implying that it was a special session called to have these Pentagon folks answer to bush personally, the White House said that it was not that big of a deal, that Saturday meetings had been held before, and that not much should be read into it. However, that weas made very hard by one of the things that came out of these meetings and ended up at the press, and that was the fact that Bush had said that he now felt that the Iraq plan was not working, and that he wanted to change the plan a bit, and that was why these meetings had been called. Well, the media went even more apeshit over that, saying that this meant that there were significant changes coming soon in the way that the White House wages the war, and the politicians wasted no time at all going on all the TV talk shows over the weekend and weighing in on this. Some said that it meant that Bush had finally seen that his Iraq plan had been a failure and that he was trying to change it before it was too late, but that it was too late already and the ball was already rolling, and others saied that it did not mean that much at all, that it was just normal talk from a Commander-In-Chief during wartime, especialy a war that had been going on for over five years now. Either way, it has been seen as a huge story, especially coming so close to the Elections next month, and everyone is speculating on just what these meetings actually were about. Now, everyone anxiously awaits what the White House is going to do and say on thsi subject, and many wonder whether this represents one of those turning  points in a  war that are talked about by historians and on educatioinal TV shows after the war is over. For years, Bush adamantly said that he was going to change nothing over in Iraq, that he firmly believed in what he was doing, and that if the American people just showed patience with him, they would see that he  was right in the end, whenever that would be, and that was the problem, that he never even hinted at when the end would be, just that it was never right now. Now all of a sudden, he says that he knows that things have to be changed over there because they are just not working out like they were supposed to. That seems like it is a major change in policy for the man, and he never does anything unless he feels tha he has to, and looking at the issue, there are things afoot that make it seem like he has to make changes whether he wants to or not.

   The largest issue is the issue of the American casulaties. This October has been the deadliest month for American soldiers over in Iraq, with 50 or so killed now, and the month still has a week to go. Car bombings, suicide attacks, artillery attacks, all of these have been increasing against the Americans all month long. Baghdad is looking more and more like some kind of hell on earth, a city that no one really governs or controls. The Iraqi puppet government is helpless to do shit, as they are too busy looking over the own shoulders al the time to see who is trying to get them, and besides that, they are mere puppets  anyway, ineffectual by design. So they are of no help whatsover, and they are due to be replaced soon anyway, so count them out. that woule mean that America is supposed to controlling  thimgs there through the military, but Bush admitted that one of the places that the policy has failed the most is in Baghdad, and that America was not properly prepared to face a war like the one they got. That is why there are as many as 12 American soldiers a day dying in Iraq now and how the monthly numbers got as high as they have. These numbers have the American public and media freaking out no end and increasing the demand for Bush to call ther  troops back home. The American people see a double digit number of deaths per day and figure that this is way too high a price to pay for whatever it  was that America went to Iraq for and this is what Bush has finally seen and what he was reacting to Saturday when he had that meeting over at his house. However, if that is what you think, you are mistaken, because while these casualty figures seem high, they are not shit considering the size and scope of the operation. In reality, even a figure like we have this month is not a big deal at all, as it is nothing in terms of wartime casualties. Far more than 10 or 12 dudes would die a day back home from sheer accident and coincidences, they'd get shot in a drive by shooting or get in an auto accident or fall and hit their heads or somtehing and die that way. In actuality, being in the military  over in Iraq is safer for them than being back home in many cases because there are so many others watching out for them. So, having a two digit number of dudes die every day is meaningless in terms of casualty figures, and besides that, there just have to be a certain number  of casulaties in a war, it is war after all, and war is about killing, and if you go out killing, you are certain to get some of your own killed too, that is the nature of that game. there is no such ting as a bloodless war, if there was, no one would be able to know who was winning the war, because that score is kept in deaths and blood and such. because of that , there is a certain section of the military that exists to keep track and deal with the American deaths, and if you have none, that part of the military does not get in on the money train like every other part of it does, and that is not fair to the people that have to make their living off of that part of the military, they deserve to get the money like everyone else does, and for them to get any, there must be casulaties. The miniscule amount of them thus far has not made too many people rich and they have surely let that fact be known, and are now starting to make up for that a little bit.

   The other thing that could make Bush change things in Iraq are the elections that are coming up in less than two weeks. The Republicans are on the run this election season because of Washington's war policy, the Democrats have skillfully politicized the issue and made it a hot button topic. many Republicans are afraid that they are going to lose next month, so many of them in fact, that Republican control of Congress is at stake. They feel that if they do, that the White House's agenda will go no farther, and, most importantly, they know that if they lose, they are out of a job. These dudes cannot go and get jobs  in too many other places, being a politican is all that they know, it is how the feed their family, and they don't want to be unemployed in a couple weeks. So they have been putting an inordinate amount of pressure on the White House as of late, asking them to try  and tone the rhetoric down about the war  and get in touch with the people before it is too late. Many of Bush's closest advisors have been urging him to do that for politics sake and maybe that message has gotten through anfd that was why he had the Generals over last Saturday. No matter how much  Bush believes in his war, he needs political support to wage it, and having his own party in charge of Congress makes that a whole lot easier, if the Democrats were to take control, all that they would do was stomewall  him and fight him and get everything all tangled up and left undone. Since this Administration has had such smooth sailing when it comes to Congress over the years, they might very well want to heed that warning and change things up, and someone might have told Bush that and last Saturday was the first part of that. However, that is also a mistaken assumption, as the elections have zero to do with this at all. the White House might not like the fact that the Republicans might lose control of Congress, but it is not of that great a worry to them because this election is not the one that they are primarily concerned with. The election that they are concerned with is the election in November 2008, because that one is basically the end of the line for them. There will be a new President come January 20, 2009, and that will mean the end of the gravy train for some, the only question is how many. They want to keep as many of themselves in there as possible after 2009, and to do that, they need  to focus on the 2008 election, not this one. It matters not if the Democrats get control this year anyway, because they can stall shit all they want, the war is not going anywhere before January 2009 and the money train shall not be derailed before then, not even by a Democratically controlled Congress. So there is zero reeason to change anything between now and the election, and if a bunch of Republican dudes have to pay for that policy with their jobs, so what, the Administration is due to be gone soon and they would not be dealing with them anymore anyhow, so there is no pressure to do this for the sake of the elections. So Bush is not trying to save anyone's job with these meetings and such, but he obviously has another agenda if he has these high profile meetings on a Saturday and lets everyone know about them, so what might that one be?

   The reality of it is that the agenda that Bush intends to pursue is exactly the one that he has said that he wants to puruse all along, the one where nothing changes. He has zero intention of changing anything in Iraq, because  the reality of it is that the mission is going very well so far and every objective that washington has is being accomplished. Bush intends on changing nothing, but he knows that the American people are sick and tired of hearing that shit, so he is pretending otherwise just for show. He had the Generals over and had meetings, but these meetings were not about making any significant changes in the Iraq policy, but how to make these little insignificant ones that look like major ones so that they can fool the American people again. Bush knows that he does not have to do much to look as if he is making changes, since he has been so intractable all the time, any change looks significant whether it really is or not. Now we know why he has been that way for so long, because that way, he can make cosmetic changes and make them look like they are real ones. Since so many media poeople hate his ass so badly, they'll be so fucking busy saying how they told you so that he was a mistaken idiot that knew not what he was doing, and that this is vindication for their side, Keith Olberman might have a real orgasm on live TV over this, so they'll never get around to seeing that what Bush did was really nothing at all, just a tiny change. Because he only has a little over two years left, Bush can play this game right up to the day he has to leave office and get away with it too. All he has to do is pull a Hugo Chavez and put a contrite look on his face and go before the American media and say he was mistaken after all and wants to change things and then insitiute meaningless changes.It does not matter anymore whether or not Bush takes heat from the American people over what he does, so when the meaningless changes fail, he can go and do this over and over again and not care what anyone says about it. In fact, his detractors would be so busy gloating over what they saw as repeated mistakes that they'd never notice that he was actualy doing nothing and that was why they were always failing, because they were just different variants on the dame thing. By the time they woke up to that, Bush would be gone and everything that he wanted to do would have been accomplished. That was why he had thos emeetings on saturday, and rest assured that they weren't really any more important than a college football game either. American college football goes on a  make believe system where these faceless sportswriters pick which team is the top team and which one is second and so forth, and they also pick which games are for championships and so forth. So American college football actually means nothing, and what they do is all for show. Those meetings at the White House last Saturday were all for show too, and the same will be true of all future meeting on the same subjects. Bush will do nothing except pretend that he is changing his policy in Iraq, and nothing will change, except the fact that he will give us all pious bullshit about why it isn't, saying that he is trying everything that he possibly can. He only has to do that for the next 26 plus months, and then ride off into the sunset, and after the shit that he has pulled since he got into office, that will be a piece of cake for him to do.

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