Six More Months for 100 Years? A Message from MoveOn

An e-mail blast from MoveOn:

No matter what happens in Iraq, the Bush administration and John McCain always have an answer: 6 more months.

When the "surge" began a year ago, they told America things would get better by September. In September, they said we'd know more by spring. And this week, General Petraeus is on Capitol Hill asking for—you guessed it—6 more months. Senator McCain and President Bush couldn't agree more.

They don't have a plan for getting us out of Iraq. So they're trying to sell endless war on an installment plan.

Six more months won't change anything—except the body count and the price tag. It's critical that the news media and voters know that the Bush-McCain strategy in Iraq is to keep us there indefinitely—6 months at a time. So we've put together a video exposing their "6 month" gambit. Please check it out and pass it on:



Yesterday John McCain said the same thing he's been saying for the last 5 years: We have to stay in Iraq, but "success is in reach."

And General Petraeus told the Senate that it would be fall before he could say whether, or when, to draw down troops below the "pre-surge" levels. (Specifically, he recommended a 45-day period for "evaluation" starting in the summer, followed by an open-ended "assessment" process to decide what to do next).1

It all boils down to this: Demand more time and promise that victory is just over the horizon. Unfortunately, according to experts from the Iraq Study Group, the "surge" has gotten us "no closer to being able to leave Iraq than [we were] a year ago."2

More than 4,000 Americans are dead. We've spent almost $500 billion on this war. A year after the "surge" began, Americans are no safer, and there is no end in sight.

With the Bush-McCain wait-and-see strategy, we can expect to hear "6 more months" for years and years to come.

We can't just sit by. We've got to speak out now—please help spread the word.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Justin, Eli, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

P.S. If you had trouble clicking on the video above, try this link:
http://pol.moveon.org/sixmonths/?id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=3
Sources:
1. "Petraeus Calls for Troop Withdrawal Halt," Associated Press, April 8, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3556&id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=4
2. "Report: US No Closer to Iraq Goals," Associated Press, April 6, 2008.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3555&id=12416-9013782-LC_omn&t=5
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