Surgin' Toward September
September has been batted about by everyone as the time in which there will be a serious assessment of the "surge" policy and how best to move forward from there. Sen. Chuck Hagel says that the 11 GOPers who visited President Bush last week only represent a small sampling of the growing concerns in the Republican caucus. Defenders of the administration like Brit Hume and Bill Kristol argue that all this talk of giving the surge until September only shows weakness and invites our enemies to continue or escalate their offensives.
I got news for you guys. They already are. During just the first half of May we've lost nearly 50 soldiers, three of whom are missing and may have been captured by members of Al-Qaeda. Despite the increase in US forces in Baghdad, death squads still run rampant and suicide bombings continue unabated. Yet everyone says that September will be when we can assess how things are going, as if current events weren't enough of a clue.
Besides, anything less than a wholesale defection of Republicans won't make the Bushies sit up and take notice. And even if it came to that, I doubt very much Bush would care. He does not care about the costs of this war, whether in blood and treasure for Americans and Iraqis or the political prospects of his party's future.
The only thing he cares about is being able to hand over the reins to the next President and walk out the back door of the White House secure in his belief that at least the war wasn't "lost" on his watch.
(Filed at State of the Day)
I got news for you guys. They already are. During just the first half of May we've lost nearly 50 soldiers, three of whom are missing and may have been captured by members of Al-Qaeda. Despite the increase in US forces in Baghdad, death squads still run rampant and suicide bombings continue unabated. Yet everyone says that September will be when we can assess how things are going, as if current events weren't enough of a clue.
Besides, anything less than a wholesale defection of Republicans won't make the Bushies sit up and take notice. And even if it came to that, I doubt very much Bush would care. He does not care about the costs of this war, whether in blood and treasure for Americans and Iraqis or the political prospects of his party's future.
The only thing he cares about is being able to hand over the reins to the next President and walk out the back door of the White House secure in his belief that at least the war wasn't "lost" on his watch.
(Filed at State of the Day)
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