The political topic de jour is “the surge”. Yes, Mr. President, like your advisors, you want to boost troop levels the same way you passed 'the middle-class tax cut' in 2001: by forwarding service personal that they would ordinarily hire later. So, we’re talking about adding up to 30,000 more soldiers for the Iraq Conflict and for what? So that we can produce a “surge” that would certainly overwhelm the insurgency and the civil war will instantly stop, peace would break out throughout the Middle East and trees would produce chocolate chip cookies.
And what happens when this (like everything else) doesn’t work? John McCain and Colin Powell have asked for years now for a boost in troop levels, but they are talking about 100,000 or more. They first were talking about big, overwhelming numbers to crush the spirit of any insurgency that may develop. Well, we came in with few troops and the insurgency showed up. Big surprise. That MO now, cannot possibly work, because we aren’t invading again.
And has anyone explained to you George, that this morass is not ‘winnable’? There is no win-win. There isn’t even a win-lose scenario. There is only lose-lose. The U.S. will not save face in this. Democracy will likely not hold, let alone spread. None of our stated objectives (including the updated ones) will be achieved. As for the Iraqis, their country is in ruins, is impoverished, and desperate. They are not likely to come out of this kind of devastation for decades at the earliest. It will remain a breeding ground for discontent, because that is what poverty does. We have turned Baghdad into Detroit.
The U.S. has no stated opponent and according to military definitions isn’t at war in Iraq. I have stated this before, and I’m going to suggest it again. Bush, your only option is to proclaim Mission Accomplished (again) and move the U.S. out of Iraq. Since this is a war of perception more than bombs, anyway, why don't you take control of the message? We all know you're a liar, so what is one more white lie? The people will eat it up, desperate to hear that we didn’t waste time, energy, money, and human lives in an Iraq invasion. This isn’t cutting-and-running since we will declare that we have defeated the enemy. The Iraqi people can finally try to stand up, and whether they do or not isn’t really a problem—look at the response we gave Afghanistan at the 2004 Olympics—“our newest democracy” we said—all the while, the country is in shambles, is devastated, and is under the control of warlords. Now that sounds like some tasty democracy!
So George, declare victory already! What are you waiting for? The sooner you get the media out of Iraq, the more of your face is saved. Some media sources are sniffing around the Iraq Study Group’s report that says that over 1,000 attacks occur daily, while we hear about fewer than 10% in our news. People are starting to realize that the figure of Iraqi deaths from last month topping 600,000 isn’t actually off—if anything it’s low. You don’t want people to know how bad this mistake is. Pull us out, cover it up, and encourage us to move on already so you can save your presidency. Then we’ll listen when you unveil No Child Left Behind II: the Reckoning.
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