500 Billion Dollars and Nothing to Show for It

There is a mini shit storm going on over at Pam’s place. The comments box is all assed-up over the war and what President Dubya is doing. Here’s my two cents.

This is from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

WASHINGTON - The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified yesterday [Wednesday] as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers, and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander and a leading skeptic of a so-called surge, announced his retirement.
At an end-of-the-year news conference, Bush said he agreed with generals "that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished" before he decides to dispatch an additional 15,000 to 30,000 troops to the war zone. But he declined to repeat his usual formulation that he will heed his commanders when it comes to troop levels.

And…

Bush has traditionally paid public deference to the generals. At a news conference in July, for instance, Bush said he would yield to Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Iraq commander. "Gen. Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there," Bush said. "...I've told him this: I said, 'You decide, General.' "
By yesterday, however, Bush had indicated that he would not necessarily let military leaders decide, ducking a question about whether he would overrule them. "The opinion of my commanders is very important," he said, adding, "I agree with them that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before I agree on that strategy."

So, what have we learned today? We have learned that the president is clueless and that the people he is sending directly into the war zone are under the command of a man who does not listen to people who are better informed than he is.

Wait … did he use the words “mission” and “accomplished” in the same sentence? This time, he was careful not to use them together like he did on May 1, 2003 on board the USS Abraham Lincoln. Nice one, Shrub.

His top commander retired and the Iraq commander gives him advice that he doesn’t take after saying before that he would. Didn’t the Republicans get a lot of mileage out of calling John Kerry a flip-flopper during the 2004 election? Re-read that second Inquirer paragraph, and see if it looks like a flip-flop.

One would think that having top advisors and even his Secretary of Defense leave that he would get the point, but this guy is steadfast in his stupidity. In a strange way, you have to admire that about the guy. He is continually wrong, yet remains committed. It’s a shame that the people he is in charge of committing cannot say no.