The Age (Austrailia): No courage in their convictions

[unhappycamper]

No courage in their convictions
Michael Gawenda
February 5, 2007

THERE is now a consensus in Washington that things are dire and deteriorating in Iraq and that without a major change in strategy by the Bush Administration and some evidence that the Government of Nuri al-Maliki has not only the will but the means to govern outside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq will descend into chaos.

That consensus includes senior Republicans in Congress, Democratic Party congressional leaders, senior officials of the Bush Administration and probably George Bush himself, even if Vice-President Dick Cheney, who will visit Australia next month for talks with Prime Minister John Howard on the war and the war on terror, still insists that things are going OK in Iraq.

Cheney is the lone optimist in the Administration and given that his approval rating is heading towards single digits and that he has virtually no support in Congress, he is not exactly considered credible on Iraq — or any other issue for that matter.

Howard undoubtedly would be aware of all this and would surely take Cheney's views and predictions on Iraq with a very large grain of salt.

A little over a week ago, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, after his visit to California and New York, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying that he was very concerned and surprised about the mood in America, the sense that Americans have given up on winning in Iraq and that he was alarmed by the growing isolationist mood in the country.

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[SutaUvaca]

1. No courage!?

As if being courageously of the conviction that all this warmongering must stop just doesn't count?!

It seems that to some people "isolationist" is what you're accused of being if you'd rather use diplomatic means instead of explosive means to deal with other nations.