The 'Surge' In Death

President Bush and his sycophants have been touting the surge in troops because of a deluded feeling that Iraq is getting safer. John McCain made a heavily protected appearance yesterday in order to back up that misbegotten belief. Unfortunately, along with the escalation of our troop numbers in Iraq, the death toll for Iraqis continues to climb higher.

From Juan Cole:

For all those journalists and politicians who keep insisting that there are new "glimmers" of "hope" in Iraq because of the new security plan started 6 weeks ago, here is a sobering statistic from the Iraqi government. (I'm looking at you, John McCain. See below for more on McCain).

Iraqis killed in February: 1806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2078 (67/day)

As the wire services report, that is a 15% increase if figured by the month. I provided the figures, above, to show that it is an increase even if figured by the day (4%). (I should have, in the earlier version of this post, highlighted the latter in the exposition rather than getting carried away by the wire service headline, as some readers have kindly or sometimes acerbically insisted.)

The reality on the ground is, as usual, far different from what many Republicans are trying to claim. No matter how many troops we put in harm's way, the killing will continue. Sunnis will terrorize Shias and vice-versa. This civil war is beyond repair for our soldiers to fix. We need to pull out and look for a diplomatic solution. It is not our place to be caught in the crossfire.

The Surge Keeps On Surging

Whatever you may call it, Bush's escalating surge in Iraq is nothing but trouble. First he said an additional 21,500 troops would be sent to Iraq, now it might be somewhere in the ballpark of 30,000 due to the need of support staff (including Afghanistan operations). Sounds like another case of Bush's fuzzy math. Unfortunately it isn't as simple as sending fresh soldiers. The process involves sending less people home to rest and more to go over and fight.

From the Huffington Post:

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — President Bush asked Congress on Saturday for $3.2 billion to pay for 8,200 more U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of the 21,500-troop buildup he announced in January.

Bush wants Congress to fund 3,500 new U.S. troops to expand training of local police and army units in Afghanistan. The money also would pay for the estimated 3,500 existing U.S. troops he already announced would be staying longer in the region to counter an anticipated Taliban offensive in Afghanistan this spring.

In Iraq, most of the additional troops would help with the latest Baghdad security plan, which is getting under way in the capital. The money would pay for 2,400 combat support troops, 2,200 military police forces and 129 troops for reconstruction teams.

Bush took a direct swipe at the Democratic Congress, basically taunting them to cower to his devastating will. The expression on his face shows this whole thing to be a game where he can be the bully and make Democrats do what he says. Unfortunately many Democrats have been divided over what to do and are mainly acquiescing to the Decider's every wish. In some cases they want to spend more money than the Adminstration wants in order to attach 'strings'. These strings do nothing to rein in Bush's wild plans and Bush merely scoffs at them.

What happened to the Democratic backbone? Don't the donkeys understand what the midterm elections meant? The people want a change in Iraq and it is past time to give America what it deserves for her troops serving for a misbegotten war and not being home with their families.

One Out Of Four Ain't Bad

Many of Bush's Generals have either quit or been expelled for criticizing or disagreeing with the President's decision to escalate in Iraq. Now it seems that even one of his biggest fans with the rank of General isn't too excited about the plan he is executing either. David Petraeus, the military's head honcho in Iraq is giving the 'surge' a one in four chance of success.

Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) recently spoke with the General and had this to say:

Smith's public comments on the war have grown increasingly complex and controversial in recent months. The Republican senator made national headlines in December when he gave a speech on the Senate floor, saying Bush's war policy is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

Since then he has strongly opposed President Bush's call for a "surge" of 20,000 troops in Iraq. Smith was one of 14 senators to vote last month against the nomination of Gen. George Casey as U.S. Army chief of staff.

"If you're really going to do a surge, you don't do it with 20,000, you do it with 250,000," he said, noting that Baghdad is a city of nearly 7 million people. But he said the United States cannot afford such a response; instead it has to come from the Iraqi Army.

Smith said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge has only a one in four chance of succeeding.

Of course we all know that there aren't 250,000 troops available and Bush would never even try to commit that amount of troops. The number of 20,000 is hard to defend calling the build-up a mere 'surge.' Increasing that amount by more than ten times would put his poll numbers in the tank, in case you do not consider approval ratings in the low 30s bad enough.