No end in sight
So W. had his big speech last night which was intended to round out a week of 9/11 nostalgia and feel good news about Iraq. A glorious week for White House PR flaks. The best part about this whole deal is W.'s dirty little gets almost another year of life without having to worry about any pesky legislation from Congress calling for major troop reductions. That is, if he can continue to molify his Republican enablers worried about the elections in '08.
All this hogwash about "progress" and the new "Return on Success" may have taken the Democrats aback a bit and confused the media, but it shouldn't be too long before everyone starts to wake up to the fact that this bold new plan leaves us in June of '09 at the same place we were in November of '06.
There were 130,000 US troops there then and at the end of this so called "gradual change in mission" there will still be 130,000 troops. We'll still be spending $3 billion a week on this war and since, as Gen. Petraus says "we're on the offensive," there will be a corresponding number of casualties. According to icasualties.org there have been 773 US deaths since around the time that this new surge began and 4,996 wounded. That's all in 9 months, and W. is asking for another 9 months of the same. You do the math. That's what W. is signing everyone up for. Over five thousand more families grieving there young sons and daughters coming back in flag drapped coffins or without their limbs or more than likely without their minds.
The WaPo reports:
"Army Gen. David H. Petraus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Washington Post reporters and editors yesterday that current U.S. projections anticipate Iraq reaching nationwide 'sustainable security' by June 2009. Administration officials have said that they hope to draw down forces substantially by the time Iraq reaches such a state, transitioning to a more limited mission aimed at supporting Iraqi forces and hunting down al-Qaeda cells."
But isn't his all what they've been claiming they've been doing all along? Didn't Petreaus write in 2004 that, "there are reasons for optimism . . . Iraq's security forces are developing steadily and they are in the fight?" We all know how that's gone, so why is anyone falling for this stuff again?
It really boggles the mind. With the devestating loses the GOP took in Congress in November '06 and the hype about the the Iraq Study Group, it seemed there was no way W. could possibly get away with keeping us in this war a day longer than we needed to be and yet, he went right ahead and sent 30,000 more troops and escalated the conflict.
When will people wake up?
All this hogwash about "progress" and the new "Return on Success" may have taken the Democrats aback a bit and confused the media, but it shouldn't be too long before everyone starts to wake up to the fact that this bold new plan leaves us in June of '09 at the same place we were in November of '06.
There were 130,000 US troops there then and at the end of this so called "gradual change in mission" there will still be 130,000 troops. We'll still be spending $3 billion a week on this war and since, as Gen. Petraus says "we're on the offensive," there will be a corresponding number of casualties. According to icasualties.org there have been 773 US deaths since around the time that this new surge began and 4,996 wounded. That's all in 9 months, and W. is asking for another 9 months of the same. You do the math. That's what W. is signing everyone up for. Over five thousand more families grieving there young sons and daughters coming back in flag drapped coffins or without their limbs or more than likely without their minds.
The WaPo reports:
"Army Gen. David H. Petraus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Washington Post reporters and editors yesterday that current U.S. projections anticipate Iraq reaching nationwide 'sustainable security' by June 2009. Administration officials have said that they hope to draw down forces substantially by the time Iraq reaches such a state, transitioning to a more limited mission aimed at supporting Iraqi forces and hunting down al-Qaeda cells."
But isn't his all what they've been claiming they've been doing all along? Didn't Petreaus write in 2004 that, "there are reasons for optimism . . . Iraq's security forces are developing steadily and they are in the fight?" We all know how that's gone, so why is anyone falling for this stuff again?
It really boggles the mind. With the devestating loses the GOP took in Congress in November '06 and the hype about the the Iraq Study Group, it seemed there was no way W. could possibly get away with keeping us in this war a day longer than we needed to be and yet, he went right ahead and sent 30,000 more troops and escalated the conflict.
When will people wake up?
posted by William Duane at 12:41 PM
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