Nah, I think the sheer unbelievability of Bush is sufficient to account for "more passion" (though I'd read it as disgust, as in "even HE can't be that obtuse, can he?".)
One big point Keith makes is not right. He says Bush is setting up to make the same mistake with Iran as he did with Iraq. The main thing that was wrong about attacking Iraq was that Iraq was never a real threat to the US. Iran's leadership hates us far more than Iraq's ever did, they really are working as fast as they can to build a nuclear bomb, and every time Ahmedinijad opens his pie hole, I'm closer to believing that they'd actually use it on us as soon as they got it.
Attacking Iran may be the wrong choice, and it's highly likely that Bush would do a bad job of it if he did, but it would not be the fundamental mistake of attacking a country we have no sane reason to attack. In fact, the single most important reason why we need to extract our military from Iraq and put it back into real fighting condition is that we might actually need to go to war in Iran -- and the more obvious it is that we aren't militarily ready to do it the more likely it is that we'll need to.
Yeah...he was wonderful as usual. You might also enjoy Dave Ross' two minute commentary on Ms. Rice's performance yesterday, written like he's reading the children's story, Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. You can listen at http://www.daveross.com/otherfeatures/cbs%2020070112%20RICEIRAQ.mp3
21,000 troops... now let's see... at least one quarter of them are sleeping at any given time... leaving 15,750. At least 20% of those are going to be eating, hitting the john, or on medical recovery or doing maintenance. Leaving 14,700 available troops.
Of those, approximately one third will be assigned to areas other than Bagdhad. Leaving 9,702 troopers available for patrol at any given moment (barring full callout emergencies), in a city that measures 169,235 square miles, populated by an estimated 6 million people.
9,702 troopers, patrolling an area of 169,235 square miles of densely populated urban area with about 6 MILLION people in it. That's ONE soldier for every 17.44 square MILES of area! That's ONE TROOPER per 618.42918985776 Iraqis in Bagdad!
This is a SURGE?!
We have had troop levels in excess of those that this so-called "surge" will bring us up to - less that two years ago, we had over 36,000 MORE troops than we will have AFTER this so-called "surge" happens!
And some of these troops going out there are on their second, third and, some on their FOURTH deployment into Iraq! From a tactical standpoint, this is a non-event or worse, putting tired and mentally exhausted troops in the field - troops in that condition make fatal mistakes that get themselves and their buddies killed to no good purpose - ask any grunt who has been in combat for a prolonged period of time... From a strategic standpoint, this is pissing in the wind - he force size is not enough to be an effective force multiplier, no matter how they are used... From an operational standpoint, this is lambs to the slaughter (for the reasons stated above) or, worse, a political sop to the Iraqis - a political move to keep their people at the top happy and the money, such as it is, flowing to our defense contractors (who are making a killing, pun intended, on selling equipment and poor services to everybody, including US at grossly inflated prices).
Fair generals sweat tactics. Good generals sweat strategy. Better generals seats operations. Great generals sweat logistics. Logistically, strategically, tactically and operationally, this is a nightmare.
And, as a result of this post, I will probably get audited.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 03:29 am (UTC)If he keeps this up, he's a lock for a repeat as Most Annoying Liberal over at whichever wingnut blog named him that :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 03:35 am (UTC)Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 03:42 am (UTC)Re: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 06:15 am (UTC)I'm kinda wondering at this point if he really might be channeling Murrow. Tonight's "Good Night and Goodluck" seemed even more passionate than usual.
Re: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 08:13 am (UTC)Re: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 11:35 am (UTC)I doubt many people didn't recognize that line.
Re: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.
Date: 2007-01-12 03:18 pm (UTC)Iran != Iraq
Date: 2007-01-12 08:34 pm (UTC)Attacking Iran may be the wrong choice, and it's highly likely that Bush would do a bad job of it if he did, but it would not be the fundamental mistake of attacking a country we have no sane reason to attack. In fact, the single most important reason why we need to extract our military from Iraq and put it back into real fighting condition is that we might actually need to go to war in Iran -- and the more obvious it is that we aren't militarily ready to do it the more likely it is that we'll need to.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 12:22 am (UTC)http://www.daveross.com/otherfeatures/cbs%2020070112%20RICEIRAQ.mp3
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 04:14 am (UTC)21,000 troops... now let's see... at least one quarter of them are sleeping at any given time... leaving 15,750. At least 20% of those are going to be eating, hitting the john, or on medical recovery or doing maintenance. Leaving 14,700 available troops.
Of those, approximately one third will be assigned to areas other than Bagdhad. Leaving 9,702 troopers available for patrol at any given moment (barring full callout emergencies), in a city that measures 169,235 square miles, populated by an estimated 6 million people.
9,702 troopers, patrolling an area of 169,235 square miles of densely populated urban area with about 6 MILLION people in it. That's ONE soldier for every 17.44 square MILES of area! That's ONE TROOPER per 618.42918985776 Iraqis in Bagdad!
This is a SURGE?!
We have had troop levels in excess of those that this so-called "surge" will bring us up to - less that two years ago, we had over 36,000 MORE troops than we will have AFTER this so-called "surge" happens!
And some of these troops going out there are on their second, third and, some on their FOURTH deployment into Iraq! From a tactical standpoint, this is a non-event or worse, putting tired and mentally exhausted troops in the field - troops in that condition make fatal mistakes that get themselves and their buddies killed to no good purpose - ask any grunt who has been in combat for a prolonged period of time... From a strategic standpoint, this is pissing in the wind - he force size is not enough to be an effective force multiplier, no matter how they are used... From an operational standpoint, this is lambs to the slaughter (for the reasons stated above) or, worse, a political sop to the Iraqis - a political move to keep their people at the top happy and the money, such as it is, flowing to our defense contractors (who are making a killing, pun intended, on selling equipment and poor services to everybody, including US at grossly inflated prices).
Fair generals sweat tactics. Good generals sweat strategy. Better generals seats operations. Great generals sweat logistics. Logistically, strategically, tactically and operationally, this is a nightmare.
And, as a result of this post, I will probably get audited.
Again.