Political (Iraq) Potpourri

So Bush gets another FU from Congress now. No, it means Freidmann Unit. Shame on you. A Freidmann Unit means six more months of carnage in Iraq because a man of that name keeps famously saying that’s how long we need to turn the tide.

Coalition of the, um, Whatever

Bush keeps bragging about his Coalition of 36 Nations that’s pursuing the good cause in Iraq. What he fails to tell us is that it’s actually 25 nations, including such stalwarts as Moldavia (remember The Mouse That Roared?) with twelve (12) soldiers. Not sure if that overwhelming force is functioning in a combat role or not.

Hot off the press, it turns out that New Zealand wins the "pallid support award." They are providing one (1) troop. I wonder if he gets lonely.

Anbar Reads Minds

Bush also is thrilled pink (whoops not pink, maybe orange) with the fact that “as a result” of the extra Marines that the surge inserted into Anbar the local Sheiks signed up with us to fight against al Queda. They did that four months before the surge began, however, so maybe they were reading Bush’s mind? Um, wait.

Return on Success, or whatever

The 25,000 troops coming home are doing so because of the great success they have achieved. Let’s see. Everybody knows that if something is working you should stop doing it as soon as possible. Since 135,000 were not succeeding, let’s go back to having 135,000 as quickly as we can. Good move.

Why Petraeus agrees to drawdown

Saint David bristled at the suggestion that his “drawdown” of 25,000 was disingenuous because they were scheduled home anyway. He said that he could have requested they be replaced or he could have extended them and that he did neither of those two things. He could also have pissed on the table and claimed it was raining.

Requesting replacements would have been futile, since there are no replacements to send, and he could not have extended them because his boss’ boss, Chief of Staff of the Army has categorically ruled out extending tours beyond 15 months.

Clearing cities in Iraq

Bush declared that, ”Today, Baquba is cleared.” Interesting the way we clear cities. Last week in Baquba a house was bombed by our planes and eleven civilians killed. I cannot comment of the right or wrong of that, but it does not sound like a “cleared” city to me. In Baghdad we continue to build walls to enclose enclaves within the city. Does that resonate with Bush’s statement that ”ordinary life is beginning to return” there?

Certainty in prognostication

When you ask any of these experts how long it will take to achieve positive results in Iraq or how that will be achieved they have no answers. They don’t know, they say, but they know that it is vital, blah, blah, blah.

But when you ask what will happen if we leave they can give you a list of about twenty very specific and hugely disastrous things that will happen. They know with certainty that those very specific things will occur, and when.

Just like they knew what would happen when, and after, we invaded the benighted country to begin with.