I do not usually post twice in one day, not even twice in one week, but this caught my attention and I had to dig into it. I have not been terribly vocal on this site about the war in Iraq; those of you who know me know of my opinions of it, and that is fine.
However, today we get a new chapter in the troop "surge" planned by POTUS Bush and his new Secretary of Defense pal Gates. General George Casey claims that "I think it's probably going to be the summer, late summer, before you get to the point where people in Baghdad feel safe in their neighborhoods." Overall, there is the belief that the "surge" troops could be home by summertime.
Ahem, excuse me? Did you say that these ~20,000 troops would be sticking around for only 5 or 6 months? And then magically everything winds up alright and they get to return to their homes? This smells similarly of former declarations of quick-fix, easy-winnable military operations. We're still in Afghanistan, we're still in Iraq, and I don't see those surging numbers coming home anytime soon. I hope they do, but I feel the administration has tried to give an artificial boost of hope into a situation where it would have been prudent to be pragmatic and realistic.
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