Surge or Double-down..

After listening (with a large measure of disbelief ) to the President's news conference yesterday, it was clear, absolutely, pathetically, crystal, heartbreakenly, disgustingly ...clear... that Bush is going to find some way, some how to defy the advice of his Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Abazaid (who resigned in disgust) and every other rational, sentient being on this planet (which excludes the 21% or so who still support Bush) and send more troops into the Civil War in Iraq.

He calls is the "Surge Option".

The idea is that we will send additional (not overwhelming, just additional) troops to Iraq to secure Baghdad itself and then...and then... What? Iraq will turn into a flowering Democracy? The Shiia, Sunni and Kurds will join hands and sing Kubahya? Maybe we'll kill a whole bunch of militia, declare victory and pull out?

Others have referred to this strategy with a gambling term: Double Down.

Double down is a way of saying "it's all or nothing".

It implies risk.

So get this straight:

The Surge Option is a huge risk.

Per Colin Powell, we don't have enough troops to make this work without extending tours of the folks who are all ready there AND shortening the rotation time of troops who have been rotated out. Generals have referred to this option as having the potential to BREAK the Army and Marines who are stretched thin as we speak. That alone is dangerous. Too dangerous to risk.

If we commit our military to an "all or nothing" strategy in Iraq, we invite disaster in another way. We invite disaster because we leave ourselves vulnerable to any adventurism or mischief that any of our enemies may want to pursue elsewhere.....say Al Queda may want to start a small "insurrection" in the Phillipines or Indonesia...say Russia wanted to start a little trouble for us in the Balkans...say Iran wanted to "up the ante" in Southern Iraq...say the Taliban (remember them? they're baaaaaaaaccckk and getting stronger) wanted to make a major initiative in Afghanistan...

Say any of those things happened. Would we have the troops to respond to it?

And here's a snarky little question, what allies would come to our aid?

Better yet what allies do we still have?

The "Surge Option" is stupid. We've squandered our military might on a poorly conceived and worse executed personal vendetta (let's not get into the Freudian aspect of Bus 43 vs Bush 41) or perhaps some misguided Neocon utopian wet-dream. Not only can we NOT implement it without risking the demise of our military but it's incredibly dangerous if we do....


e