Bush On The Defensive

03/27/2008

Our military leaders are telling Bush in no uncertain terms that extending the combat tours of our troops this summer is bad for troop morale and is bad for military families. Bush plans to extend them anyhow.

America is anxious to rid ourselves of Bush.

About six months after his 2004 re-election the American people began to catch on to his manipulation of the war and they turned against it. Many opposed the surge but he did it anyhow. He lucked out and al Sadr declared a cease-fire. He could then claim pacification caused by the surge forces. Most knowledgeable people attribute pacification to the cease-fire not the surge. Now that the attacks in Basra are happening the cease fire is ending and the pace of the war is picking up. After all, if it doesn’t how can anyone really justify our troops staying on longer in Iraq?

Congress is right to observe that the time period bought by the cease-fire has been squandered. They are right to point to the diplomatic failures in Iraq and Iran. They are right to point to the poor performance by the Iraqi government on moving forward to bring civil peace. The Basra campaign is being fought by the Iraqi Army and is to be a test of their capability. We wil have to see how that turns out.

I wish there was a way for Congress to relieve Mr. Bush of his position and Commander and Chief for he is not doing well by Iraq, the troops, or our nation as he pours more and more money into Iraq and keeps everything topsy-turvy. In the meantime we are losing in Afghanistan as the Taliban mounts their spring offensive and the NATO forces want to pull out and go home. We have few troops there ourselves, about 44,000, and the rest are all NATO troops. If they leave then we’ll have to do the same since we lack the manpower to go it alone in Afghanistan.

If you want to support our troops then help them get shorter combat tours in Iraq and better yet – work to bring them home. Then see if you can figure out why we are battling the Taliban in Afghanistan and what would be different if they threw down their arms and surrendered to us. I doubt much would change in Afghanistan at all. Six days after America quit Afghanistan the Taliban would be right back at imposing Islamic Law with strict interpretation and Mr. Karzi would be dead.