by Mark Silva
"The alternative to war is not peace, in this case," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said today.
The case which Snow speaks of is the current deployment of US forces in Iraq, and the Bush administration's insistence that the military be given more time to prove that the "surge" of forces which the president announced in January and is now fully deployed can work.
The alternative to that deployment, at the moment, Snow suggests, is "cataclysmic" violence.
The White House press secretary also ran into a buzz saw when he was asked today, in the debut of a new press briefing room, if the American people should conclude from this war debate and defection of Republicans that the White House is isolated.
"No more than I look at you," Snow told the reporter from CBS News who had asked the question, "and think that people think you're focused on defeat."
Reporters protested that it's a growing number of Republicans in Congress who see the war policy as failing, not the press. Snow said he was suggesting that any perception of his isolation is "no more'" correct than any impression that reporters see defeat.
Undeterred by defections of Republican members of Congress such as Sens. Olympia Snowe and Gordon Smith - now demanding withdrawal of combat forces by next spring - the White House insists that the military needs time to show that the "surge" of forces first announced in January but only recently fully deployed can succeed.
"What's going to force a change in course is victory," said Snow - with the administration defining victory as the building of an Iraqi military force capable of defending the nation, with the US playing a supporting role.
"Ultimately, we're not going to win - the Iraqis are," Snow said.
Congress, which only reluctantly funded the continuing military mission in Iraq after Bush vetoed a bill demanding timelines for troop withdrawal, has insisted on a progress report by Sunday - and another one in September. Snow says the White House will deliver the initial report before the end of business this week - tomorrow or Friday - but that it will provide only an initial "snapshot" of how things are going two weeks into the full new deployment of forces. He declined, however, to say how hopeful the president is of seeing a report from his generals in September that will bring the US much closer to the vision of success in Iraq, as he defines it.
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Comments
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
The 2008 Republican Party Platform
Posted by: Tony | July 11, 2007 1:25 PM
"The Troop Surge Has Just Reached Full Strength"
-Geroge W. Bush-
I see the White House has developed a "new" talking point to explain away their disasterous Iraq civil war failure.
The troop "surge" started back in Jan, everyone and anyone that commented on it at the time said that it was a stupid move, it wouldn't work and it FLEW IN THE FACE OF WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NOW WANT DONE IN IRAQ.
Forgive me if I don't buy your spin anymore, Mr. President.
Posted by: John E | July 11, 2007 1:41 PM
"'Ultimately, we're not going to win - the Iraqis are," Snow said.'"
Finally--the truth! Only I doubt Mr. Snow and I are thinking of the same Iraqis.
Posted by: Cheryl | July 11, 2007 1:53 PM
How far removed from reality must this administration go before the American people start waking up?
Our democracy is being auctioned off by an administration who believes in "commutism"
Posted by: Brian | July 11, 2007 2:06 PM
I've got to put Tolstoy's "War and Cataclysm (In This Case)" on my summer reading list -- or maybe not, come to think of it.
Posted by: Kenny Bunkport | July 11, 2007 2:08 PM
"Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia."
Orwell was only off by a few years.
Posted by: weinerdog43 | July 11, 2007 2:57 PM
Surrender in a war has consequences. In this case, the consequences will be Mideast bloodbaths.
The upcoming massacres by the terrorists should be named the Reid-Pelosi Massacres.
Posted by: Air America | July 11, 2007 5:13 PM
As some of you dumbnuts noted, I challenged the Loony Left to provide some of their own solutions. Needless to say and to no surprise, you folks could not even come up with one! The Decider, I think, tried to come up with something, but as usual it was quite lame.
The Loony Left has nothing to add to this country or to the world. There is not one positive contribution to society you ding dongs can provide.
What a sorry-a$$ed bunch you folks are!
Posted by: John D | July 11, 2007 8:13 PM
Surrender in a war has consequences. In this case, the consequences will be Mideast bloodbaths.
The upcoming massacres by the terrorists should be named the Reid-Pelosi Massacres.
Posted by: Air America | July 11, 2007 5:13 PM
Air America you are warped. You would rather see more American blood spilled over a failed strategy. Their blood is on the hands of people like you who mindlessly follow the Bush Whitehouse propaganda.
Posted by: Logic Prisoner | July 11, 2007 8:45 PM
"As some of you dumbnuts noted, I challenged the Loony Left to provide some of their own solutions. Needless to say and to no surprise, you folks could not even come up with one! "
Oh dear. Good ole Johnny Torture lying again. Johnny I provided you with a link to the Iraq Studt Group recommendations for Iraq. You know, the one Bush ignored 6 months ago, and thhe ones that even the Republicans in the Senate are now supporting.
Posted by: Tony | July 11, 2007 10:08 PM
Newspeak is alive and well in some of these postings from "1984." Nice to see people actually reading Orwell's condemnation of socialism. Tell Hillary and Obama.
Posted by: Smidgen | July 11, 2007 10:14 PM
well johnd, I suggested to the democrats many years ago that they should go to iraq and start indiscriminatly killing folks, then call them alqueada. Your right john, if they would have listened to me, it would have been the dems. who were responsible for killing 100,000 innocent Iraqis. Boy are they stooopid.
Posted by: Barry | July 11, 2007 11:13 PM
Smidgen, I am a firefighter, am I part of your socialist problem?
Posted by: Barry | July 11, 2007 11:18 PM
Smidgen:
FYI - Orwell wasn't condemning socialism in his book "1984." Orwell was, himself, a socialist. He had fought on the side of the socialists in the Spanish Civil War.
1984 was, instead, an allegorical condemnation of totalitarian Communism, and the system implemented by Stalin in particular. Orwell believed that a society could be governed by socialist principles without falling into anarchy, facism or communisim - as long as the society otherwise remained open, free and democratic.
Of course, Orwell was no economist. Others, such as F.A. Hayek, have rather carefully documented how socialism inevitably leads to some form of totalitarian state because enforcement of central planning - needed for socialism - requires a single, strong enforcer. Hillary, Edwards and to a much lesser degree Obama should read Hayek's book, "The Road to Serfdom."
Posted by: John W. | July 11, 2007 11:48 PM
Tony boy, I asked for you folks to come up with something ON YOUR OWN! Anyway, some of the points from the ISG have been implemented or are being implemented. But I asked for your own thoughts, not someone else's!
Posted by: John D | July 12, 2007 12:16 AM
Oh please Johnny Torture, give us all a break. The ISG recommendations have not been followed to any large degree, that's why even Republicans are lining up behind a bill to make them leaglly binding on the President.
Why should we have to come up with completely new ideas when there are perfectly good proposals from people of great experience that haven't been tried ?
And where are your own, new, completely original thoughts, Johnny Torture? All we get from you is "Follow the Decider over the cliff like a lemming!"
Posted by: Tony | July 12, 2007 8:55 AM
Nice to see people actually reading Orwell's condemnation of socialism. Tell Hillary and Obama.
Posted by: Smidgen | July 11, 2007 10:14 PM
It was a condemnation of totalitarianism. Maybe Bush and Cheney should read it. You know Big Brother is watching us.
Posted by: Catherine | July 12, 2007 3:36 PM
"The Loony Left has nothing to add to this country or to the world. There is not one positive contribution to society you ding dongs can provide.
What a sorry-a$$ed bunch you folks are!
Posted by: John D | July 11, 2007 8:13 PM"
This, from a mad man.
Posted by: C.Morris | July 12, 2007 9:14 PM
Cat,
And Orwell's Animal Farm was a satire of the Russian Revolution, but read it today, as an adult, and just count the ways it applies to....us!
Smidgen's comment is the usual self flattery of the conservative right.
As Ed Abbey said; "The fact that capitalism and communism compete so fiercely has more to do with their similarities that their differences."
Also, John W. also points out correctly that Eric Blair (Orwell) was a socialist.
Posted by: C.Morris | July 12, 2007 9:32 PM