Escalation Already Underway

So Bush isn't asking for permission, he's just letting us know. After the fact, at that.

By the way ABC and the rest of the so called liberal media, stop the "surge" nonsense. It's escalation, period. Stop misleading the American people into accepting this escalation by calling it something way different from what Bush intends it to be.

Escalation was tried twice in the past 4 years and it didn't work. Maliki promised time and again to rein in the militias and he didn't/wouldn't/couldn't. As Dan Froomkin pointed out, this is no "new way forward".

Yet Raw Story obtained excerpts of tonight's Bush escalation speech in which, essentially, he's promising "it's really, really gonna work this time. For reals!".

"Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work... and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated."

"I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promise, they will lose the support of the the American people and they will lose the support of the Iraqi people..."

No, it's not open ended, but apparently for Bush, it's open ended long enough while he's still in office, and his sycophantic followers who fancy themselves the serious thinkers will go along with it.

Image by david horsey via seattlepi.com.

Tags: bush, escalation, iraq, troops, war

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