Showdown

The SOTU speech received the usual partisan responses. What could the Pres say under the circumstances? He acknowledged the takeover of the House and Senate by mentioning issues that are agreeable to both Dems and Reps. Then he launched into his defense of the decision to send additional troop to Iraq. In all the rebutals the theme was the unreliability of the Iraqis to show up. Benchmarks are supposed to measure if the Iraqis are living up to our expectations.

After four years of fighting the Pres is still talking about the need to train Iraqi troops to lead the fight against the insurgents. The "surge" is supposed to give the Iraqi government breathing room to do what it was supposed to do in the first place.
Sending our troops in first to see if the Iraqis will "step up" is dumb to begin with. How about the Iraqis showing up in sufficient numbers first, and then bolster their forces to tip the scale if necessary?

Those against the escalation argue that it has little chance of working and if it does where does that leave us? Our presence at this time is ludicrous because it puts us on one side of a civil war. We can't be an impartial referee when we have the aim of bolstering the Shia dominated government. We make demands on this ineffective body as if it could implement them while at the same time claiming that the government is sovereign.

We have been sold a bill of goods concerning the "failure" in Iraq. All sorts of dire consequences are predicted if we withdraw from the civil war. Agreed there are dire times ahead, but this is so regardless of our withdrawal. General involvelment of neighboring countries such as Iran and Syria is already a fact. So, they will continue to exert influence but not cause a conflagration worse then is occuring now.

Finally, the Pres keeps insisting on victory. There is no victory such as he envisions short of exterminating everyone he doesn't like. That is not likely. However if the Shia dominated Iraqi government is consolidated it is most likely to ally with Iran. Then where are we? Bush has opened a can of worms that is beyond recall. 9/11 was a much greater coup for Bin Laden than he could ever have imagined. Bush has played into his hand at every turn and Bin is taking all the tricks. There is a lot to be said for staying in a cave. Now if we could find one for Bush.

What the hell, even the Patriots lost an important game.