What The Hell Is A “General Time Horizon”?
That is the phrase that pays for the Bush administrtion’s latest stance on Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki and President Bush spoke by videoconference on Thursday.
The two leaders agreed that improvements in security should allow for the negotiations “to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals, such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq,” the White House said.
The next time your boss asks you to complete a job, tell him or her that you’ll have it done within “a general time horizon.” Orwell would be proud.
Friday’s White House statement was intentionally vague and did not specify what kind of timelines were envisioned. That allows Iraqi officials, who are facing elections in the fall, to argue they are not beholden to Washington or willing to tolerate a permanent military presence in Iraq. For Bush, it points the way toward a legal framework for keeping American troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires on Dec. 31.
Oh, I see. It’s not about the security of the troops. It’s about politics.
So if they change a word its not backtracking. Typical Bush Administration bullshit…
July 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Note that in typical Bush administration fashion the announcement came on a Friday in an attempt to attract less media attention. Expect McCain to agree soon, probably about the same time Obama is drawing rock-star crowds in Europe.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
This is purple finger thinking at its best! Not only will the usa face more casualties,Iraq gets to prove once again it does not/can not defend its self against the anti Democracy wolves that suround iraq.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
“What The Hell Is A “General Time Horizon”?”
Evidence that the administration is running scared.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Ask Steven Hawkins.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
“The next time your boss asks you to complete a job, tell him or her that you’ll have it done within “a general time horizon.”
LOL LOL LOL LOL
I think that the Bush Administration has been getting communication and spin tips from the DILBERT comic strip.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
A general time horizon? What we have is a new political catch phrase. I laugh everytime I here a politician emphasize a word or phrase. Something stinks when they do. Transparency was a good word, remember?
July 19th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
the biggest flip flopper in the world is the shrub and his twin mcsane. they have been proven wrong time and again. and when it gets to the point that they cannot continue on their stubborn path of denying the truth, they adopt obama’s position and call them their own. all the while attacking obama for flip flopping when in reality he has not. it’s just too bad the american public is too stupid to see the truth. you can never underestimate the intelligence of americans.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The Bush administration is so fucked up that they wont even use a phrase or word, that they dubbed as unpatriotic. So instead they make up off the wall shit like this.
Classic Bush White House.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Better yet, ask Sherman Williams.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
From The Huffington Post:
Iraq War Slogan Timeline — past, present, and, yes, future:
2001:
GATHERING THREAT
2002:
AXIS OF EVIL
2003:
SLAM DUNK
SHOCK AND AWE
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
2004:
FIGHT ‘EM THERE, NOT HERE
2005:
LAST THROES
ADAPT TO WIN
STAY THE COURSE
2006:
NEW WAY FORWARD
2007:
THE NEW NEW WAY FORWARD
STAY THE NEW NEW WAY FORWARD
2008:
A NEW WAY BACKWARD
A FASTER NEW WAY BACKWARD
HOLY SHIT, LET’S GET OUT OF HERE
2009:
A NEW WAY OF FORGETTING THAT EVER HAPPENED
2010:
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
2011:
THE NEW GATHERING THREAT
July 19th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
The general time horizon is also “aspirational”.
That was more of the quote I read this morning.
Quite a gift with words, ol’ muck-mouth has when he has to pull something out for public display.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
What the HELL lies in Lenin’s tomb?
About 200 lbs. of pure unadulteraited SHIT !
July 19th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
“general time horizon” sounds like a made for tv flick on the Sci-Fi network!! Plz…lets call it what it is…a timetable, and just because there is no specific date mentioned…let’s not use the fuzzy words and call it “time horizon”…LOL
July 19th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Heh, nice timetable OldLefty (except maybe you should leave out the “shock’N'awe,” because I’ve been hearing there really was no shock’N'awe in the originating ense of the phrase).
July 20th, 2008 at 1:24 am
A “GTH” is code for “Get The Hell Out!” We were not greated as Liberators and we will not be welcomed as Occupiers. What will the price of oil drop to if we put Iraq’s oil back on the market? We supported this war with the higher gas prices we all paid. Only the poor paid the premium price because the rich had stock.
July 20th, 2008 at 4:16 am
We can’t get out yet. We have to keep Iraq safe for corporate mercenaries making billions and billions every single week.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:33 am
This country is doomed. If you Liberals had been around in 1941, we would be saluting a swatika or the Rising sun. We will regret these times, as England did after Chamberlain pronounced Peace in our time. Bush has mangled this, but taking the fight to them there is lots preferable to fighting Islamofacists here. But putting the right people in the right place has worked there in Iraq. You Liberals know it. We can and should leave someday, but not on a published time table. Leave too early, and we will be back. Most assuradly, we will be back and it will be a lot messier than now.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:28 am
It was the Liberals who fought and won WW11.
If Bush and his neo con pals were in the whithouse when Pearl Harbor was bombed…they would have blamed it on Iraq, and started a war there.
Remember, Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush helped to build Hitler’s war machine, until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:36 am
neocons are liberals. you contradict yourself.
I’m trying to understand the relevance of Prescott Bush to what was said. Are you using corruption of blood?
Fascinating how the Left holds generations of people responsible for the acts that, they claim, have been done by their ancesters.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
The Neocons are FORMER liberals.
They sprang forth from the philosophy of Leo Strauss, who said, ”
“A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat “. . . .
Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured”
Sound familiar?
Irving Kristol,(William’s father), was one of the greatest devotees.
He stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were “a pious fraud”.
As for Prescot Bush…that’s why Kevin Phillips called them “The Bush Dynasty”.
They are a family who built their fortune from the oil and arms industry, and they are STILL doing it today.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Neocons are former LEFTISTS. They’re still liberals.
I did a little digging on your quotes… it semes the only people on earth aware of them are whackjob paranoid conspiracy theorist on the Left and the 9/11 Truth / Alex Jones / Ron Paul nuts on the Right.
That just confirms to me where you’re coming from.. and it’s not a place of truth or rationality.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Re:
Straussians, Neocons AND PNACers…
You can read;
- Leo Strauss on Plato’s Symposium
by Leo Strauss, Seth Benardete –
- The problem of the Enlightenment: Strauss, Jacobi, and the Pantheism controversy.(Leo Strauss, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi)-
- Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity
by Leo Strauss
- Faith and Political Philosophy
by Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Peter Emberley, Barry Cooper
PNAC was founded by William Kristol, Co-founder and Chairman, and Robert Kagan.
THEY have dimantled their website,recently, I printed out their paper,
‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’, and their open letter to President Clinton on Iraq, asking him to invade.
From 2002, I( and everyone else who read this paper believed they were going to lie about Iraq.
From pp 51 of Rebuilding America’s Defenses:
“the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”)
EVERY major news organization, covered this, LATER, although very briefly, ( like on pp 20.)…No where near the coverage given to Paris Hilton or the latest missing white girl.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
oh God now you’re bringing up the PNAC.. What’s next Haliburton? LOL
I better get my “‘Debate’ with a Leftist” BINGO card out.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
If your running mate was a PNACer, and you pack the pentagon with PNACers, and you carry out the PNAC plan to a T….
Of COURSE I bring up PNAC!
You can’t discuss Bush foreign policy without takling about PNAC, for crying out loud!
July 20th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Actually, you can’t discuss McCain foreign policy without talking about the PNAC … for crying out loud.
You thought they went away? No. They just moved along to the next host politician.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
“…taking the fight to them there…” supplies them over there with a convenient rallying point, from which they can recruit people to come bomb us over here, and since Bush keeps telling us about all the plots he’s circumvented they must be trying to bomb us over here.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
It will all come down the pipe one day, laid bare for the world to see. Judgment will be swift.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
It’s all smoke and mirrors. What happened to the constitution they were going to write for the Iraqi people after about three months into the invasion?
The American people better get their brains out of their ass.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:21 am
Now I’m wondering how much the first invasion into Iraq cost us with Sir Herbert Walker Bush? Remember, the other invasion we all have conveniently forgot! Dessert Storm? BS!
July 21st, 2008 at 1:28 am
Because the democrats are never vague and never play politics to get better numbers at the polls. Oh please. Give it up already. Both sides play games so stop trying to make one side look better than the other. They are both just as bad when it comes to game play.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
A “general time horizon” is whatever you want it to be (iow, nothing).
The “horizon” is basically an optical illusion. It’s that line off in the distance where the earth appears to meet the sky. But as you walk towards it, it stays just as far away as it was when you started. You can run even. You never get there.
But that “horizon” is still far too specific. The illusion of possibly getting there is still too realistic. So we need to make it still more vague: a “general” horizon.
(Watch out for flying shrapnel, i believe Orwell just exploded in his grave)
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm