Today’s #5 story on Countdown resembled Keith Olbermann’s many Special Comments as he tore apart President Bush, his lies and cruel treatment of our soldiers by fact-checking his speech about Iraq this afternoon.




So much for pressuring the Iraqis to stand up for their own country. In case it wasn’t obvious already — it was — Bush made perfectly clear that troop levels will not dip below the pre-surge level of 140,000 for the remainder of his presidency.

The “debate” over the surge has always perplexed me. We can all acknowledge that violence has mainly decreased. One doesn’t need a masters degree in foreign affairs to know that flooding more troops in would help cause that. The real issue is whether (a) the levels are sustainable — they’re not — and (b) whether the “surge” has achieved the intended result of providing the Iraqi government the breathing room needed to make the essential political progress — it hasn’t. Furthermore, the relative decrease in violence has just as much to do with troop levels as it does with ethnic cleansing, physical separation of varying sects, millions of Iraqi refugees, and millions of dollars in bribe money being doled out. By every meaningful measure, the surge has been a failure, providing breathing room only to President Bush so that he can pass along the disaster he started to the next President. Then again, that was probably the goal all along.

President Bush has decided to put a hold on troop withdrawals, but tries to give the appearance that he’s actually reducing troop levels. He also reduced tours of duty for our soldiers from 15 months to 12, but with a cruel caveat — it doesn’t apply to any troops currently in Iraq or those deploying before August.

Olbermann rips Bush for saying troop morale would plummet if we were to lose in Iraq by not fulfilling HIS goals, pointing out that some 120 soldiers committed suicide last year alone, and for them, the war is already over.

 Quote:
” Last year he escalated the war in Iraq, today he announced that there would be deescalation beyond July, yet somehow stood there with a straight face and lied about how he was withdrawing troops. Now, that was hardly the lone instance of dissembling, tortured logic, sophistry and outright dishonesty in Mr. Bush’s latest sugar-coating of the undeniable and unforgivable fact that he is continuing to arrange for the needless deaths of American heroes.”


Bush belongs in the deepest pit of hell.