Apotheosis of War by Vasily V Vereshchagin

Cut and Run or Bleed and Pay

Like cutting the Gordian Knot, finding the root of complex problems is often simple. Police Chief Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department was asked why LA has all those wild speed chases on the freeways. He replied that we just have a lot of crazy people here...

Anybody but a fanatic, born again, Bible thumping Christian has to ask why the Bush administration has to keep jumping from the the frying pan into the the fire. Howard Dean says that the Administration simply does not know what it is doing. Dean certainly has a point when it comes to the wars, the deficit, balance of payments, energy problems, illegal immigration, Katrina, Iran, North Korea, China and Latin America — Dean's problem is that his Democrats have not come to a consensus on what to do about it — at least Dean was right about Iraq from the very beginning.

Last week Ron Suskind published a book called THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE . If his thesis is true, it is a real eye opener into the bizarre, sick minds of the Bush national security apparatus — Cheney, buttressed by Neocon support, came up with a theoretic underpinning to make war on anybody at anytime. This doctrine dictates that if there is one percent chance of a terrorist attack, the US must attack even if the evidence and analysis is incomplete — the doctrine argues that certainty is not as important as a response; this is a page straight out of the Israeli paranoid playbook that often results in dead Palestinian children on the beach in Gaza. And, its mindless application will bring the US the same international opprobrium applied to Israeli — that certainly will make the Israeli Lobby delighted; misery loves company.

The war in Iraq is going badly. Like sweet lemons, Bush wants to embrace its failure as badge of honor for the oncoming national elections — it is obvious the longer the war goes on the more the US military forces suffer, not only in terms of escalating casualties, but in deterioration in discipline and morale — equipment inventories are burnt out — the Army has announced that it will now accept 42 year old enlistees — sailors and airmen are now assigned to ground forces in Iraq — wisdom of Bush's stay the course is suspect as he daily looses his ability to control events in Iraq...

At the same time, military public Information officers are also losing control of military information management as the self righteous lawyers and desperate relatives of those servicemen accused of killing Iraq civilians, make their case publicly on the TV news and talk shows. Recent media circus over the two tortured and killed soldiers drives the horror of war into the living rooms of America. A stay the course policy wilts in the face of all this emotion and sympathy, and is not sustainable in the long term. In this case, the definition of long term is: as long as GWBush remains in office.

The US Ambassador to Baghdad recently sent a report to the State Department that seriously undercuts Bush's recent optimistic views on Iraq — it was all gloom and doom — appears it is a Pontius Pilate report — symbolically washing his hands of the mess.

Bush says he does not want to let the Iraqis down. What Iraqis? Kurds want the US to stay forever. For the rest of the 70 percent of of the Iraqis, it is: Yankee go home now! As far as the carpet baggers like Chalabi from London, they are on the first plane out of Iraq with their now fat London bank accounts and paid up flats. As far as the 25,000 mercenary contractors — there is always bloody work — Afghanistan is their new land of opportunity.

Bush has given the choice of stay the course and bleed and pay — the other choice is get out soonest, cut and run. As Bush is kicked out, he will try to keep troops in Kuwait and Kurd lands — so at this stage, it is only cut, but not running. Based on polls, the American majority want out of Iraq, but Congress does not... One thing for certain is that Congress does not know what’s best, otherwise, it never would have foolishly voted to go to war in Iraq.

Howard Dean is right. The Bush Administration does not know what it is doing governing the US, but to Dean's consternation, it sure does know how to win elections... Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET