Julian Barnes for the LA Times reports: Top U.S. military commanders in Iraq have decided to recommend a "surge" of fresh American combat forces, eliminating one of the last remaining hurdles to proposals being considered by President Bush for a troop increase, a defense official familiar with the plan said Friday. This, despite the November election results, the Iraq Study Group report, and the Joint Chiefs expressing unanimous opposition to the idea a mere four days ago. Those skeptical about the efficacy of an increase argue that any new troops must be given clear instructions. However, defense officials say the U.S. commanders in Iraq have not settled on what that mission should be, although they are expected to decide before calling up new units. They don't have a fucking clue what they're doing, but they "know" that sacrificing more dead Americans is necessary somehow.
Sadly, albeit perhaps understandably Kevin Drum has thrown in the towel:Conservatives long ago convinced themselves against all evidence that we could have won in Vietnam if we'd only added more troops or used more napalm or nuked Hanoi or whatever, and they're going to do the same thing in Iraq unless we allow them to play this out the way they want. If they don't get to play the game their way, they'll spend the next couple of decades trying to persuade the American public that there was nothing wrong with the idea of invading Iraq at all. We just never put the necessary resources into it.
Well, screw that. There's nothing we can do to stop them anyway, so give 'em the resources they want. Let 'em fight the war the way they want. If it works -- and after all, stranger things have happened -- then I'll eat some crow. But if it doesn't, there's a chance that the country will actually learn something from this. Tragically, Conservatives won't learn a thing from their apocalyptic mistakes, and will - of course - inevitably blame someone else when even they are no longer able to avoid admitting the colossality of their failure.
The only thing that will stop this administration is removal from office. Bush and Cheney simultaneously. And the only way that Democrats can initiate impeachment proceedings, given the range of political implications, is if the public - as measured by poll data and newspaper and TV editorial demands and perhaps mass demonstrations - insists upon it. Which is not very hard to imagine, actually.
However, impeachment cannot be seen to be a Democratic agenda item. It must be indisputably a broad public supported endeavor. Democrats can assist, by a variety of means, including the passage of legislation which compells Republicans to choose between opposing Bush or supporting Bush and losing their seats in 08. But the call for impeachment has to plainly be a mass public-instigated effort to stop Bush's needless sacrifice of American lives, for no other reason than to assuage his megalomaniac ego. And it will have to be reported daily in the news as such.
Given the public mood, it is not at all unimaginable.
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