"No one believes anything the president says anymore" [View All]

Tonight the talking heads on Jim Lehrer NewsHour were saying what needs to be said. Plenty of good one liners-- one of my favorites (after hearing CBS' Bob Shaeffer begin the nooz with "On this First Day of the Fourth Year of the War in Iraq") was: "The fact that it's three years speaks for itself." As the nation drowns in spin, the facts have GOT to speak for themselves, eh? How is it that W. spent today talking about preventing Iraq from becoming a haven and staging ground for terrorists, when his administration has CREATED THAT REALITY? :crazy:


ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: We have to get rid of this colonialist mindset that we are there to teach them how to be a country, how to be a democracy, how to avoid a civil war. This is their country. They're quite capable of running it once we're out.


ZB: Well, you know, goals have to be realistic, unless they're just slogans. The notion of us occupying Iraq, creating democracy through an occupation, and then that democracy spreading throughout the Middle East was an illusion from day one.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june06/iraq_3-20.html
Assessment of Iraq war on its anniversary

GWEN IFILL: We just heard the president say there will be no compromise, there must be victory. Before we get to his definitions, what's your assessment, Mr. Brzezinski, first, on where we stand three years in?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, Former National Security Adviser to President Carter: WELL, THE FACT THAT IT'S THREE YEARS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. Obviously, we haven't been very successful. We're facing a war of attrition. And in a war of attrition, if the insurgency that's domestic, that's indigenous is not losing, it is basically winning, because it is fighting against an occupation army.

GWEN IFILL: If it were possible to do a cost-benefit analysis on whether it's been worth it to be in Iraq, as increasingly so many Americans say, "No," what would you say were the costs and what were the benefits?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I think the benefits have been, in fact, very few, beyond the obvious one: the removal of Saddam Hussein. BUT WE HAVE UNDERMINED OUR INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY. THAT'S A VERY HIGH COST TO A SUPERPOWER. We have destroyed our credibility; no one believes anything the president says anymore.

We have tarnished our morality with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. These are phenomenal costs. And there's, of course, blood and money and tens of thousands of Iraqi killed. So, in my view, the time has come to face all of this, to realize that staying for a prolonged period of time until some ephemeral victory is not the solution. It is time to leave.


President Bush grasps "some ephemeral victory."