Democrats – Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos

Coincidental with Senator Hillary Clinton's declared candidacy for president of the US, was the death of 25 American servicemen killed in Iraq in a 24 hour period... What makes her announcement vexing is that with it is her proposed cap on US forces; it is essentially a stay the course policy. This is especially significant, because the American voters in the 2006 election voted for Democrats to get out of the Bush war in Iraq. Clinton's proposal, like most of the Democrats' moves in Congress, is to support a policy in the center that does not withdraw from Iraq while making meaningless noise against the war. Like the proverb from Western US: When you go for the center of the road you see yellow stripes and dead armadillos. Applied to Democrats, you can argue you find yellow streaks and dead troops. Democrats are all noise and no action on the Iraqi war. They are cravenly frightened out of their wits to cut funds on the war by ghosts of Vietnam. Courage Democrats. Vote for the American people not foreign lobbyists. Do the right thing.

The Democrats did show spine when they selected the junior Senator Jim Webb to rebut Bush's State of the Union speech. He sure did rebut it; hit the ball out of the park and confronted Bush directly on the war and his poor leadership. He made the point that troops will make the sacrifices, but the political leadership better be competent and the Bush administration has not been. Also declared that if Bush cannot end the war, Congress will show the Administration the way.

Weeks ago I wrote that the stark choices in Iraq are "Stand and Die" or "Cut and Run"; no matter how you spin it, there is really no middle ground. Even General Casey, aka "Casey at the Bat”, declared that with a surge, no positive results can be expected until late summer – kicking the can down the road? Remember "Casey at the Bat" struck out for the Mudville Nine; "there was no joy in Mudville". General Casey will join the dubious magic circle of failed leadership in the Bush administration along with Generals Franks, Sanchez and Powell as well as civilians Tenet, Bremer, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

You do not have to be an Army War College graduate to conclude the the insurgents are effectively honing their tactics: roadside bombs are more lethal, coordinated attacks are more sophisticated, snipers are better shots, and there is evidence insurgents are breaking through US helicopter ground fire countermeasures. All this makes staying the course more deadly. There is still Rep. John Murtha's plan of gradual redeployment which makes more sense everyday. As far as more chaos after US departure, my sense is that, except for the Kurds, the wolf closest to the sleigh from the Iraqi standpoint, is the US; once that threat is eliminated, the Sunnis and the Shiites will turn their attention to al Queda in a ruthless, tribal or nationalistic fashion. As far as a unified Iraq, that is over and dead like Saddam. New constellations will form...

Men like Senators McCain and Lieberman are at the vanguard for the Israeli Lobbyists to continue the war permanently. They pathetically do not seem to realize or intentionally ignore that the war is lost. Best realistic hope is for a pro Iranian Shiite government; what is in fact a defeat. So as the saying goes, get out while the getting is good; i.e. before the insurgents crack the Green Zone defenses – when that happens, rooftop helicopter extractions from the US Embassy in Saigon, comparatively, will seem to have been a Sunday school picnic. Maliki's demands for more military equipment and bullets from the US for his Shiite troops scares the hell out of me... this, like the wolf in LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, will give him longer teeth, better for eating us... Political reliability for Iraqi Government troops for the US does not exist long term; this is just more of Bush Inc. faith-based mumbo jumbo. His intelligence officers should have warned him of this years ago.

Bush's surge is at best a cynically specious effort to keep his Iraqi fiasco alive until he leaves office, so someone else will be blamed for his disaster. There is one report that he is now short sightedly drawing US troops from Afghanistan to cover his bets in Iraq. He still has not learned; you never risk the necessary, to gain the superfluous. Fighting terrorism in Afghanistan is clearly more important nationally than chasing oil wells and other countries' regional security interests in Iraq.

Uncertain what bedevils Bush the most. Is it OSAMA, OSAMA, OSAMA or MUQTADA, MUQTADA, MUQTADA; or, with respected Republican Senator Hagel's recent appropriate critical attack on Bush's Iraq policy, is it HAGEL, HAGEL, HAGEL? After Senator's Webb's confrontational rebuttal speech, maybe WEBB, WEBB, WEBB. Bush seems to have an almost blind psychotic hatred of his enemies. In his intensity he reminds me of the Prussian Field Marshal Gerhard Von Blucher who was an arch enemy of Napoleon. After Napoleon wiped the field with Blucher, especially at Auerstadt, he came back to defeat the Emperor of the French at Waterloo. Blucher's dislike of the French was so intense that it led to his insanity. In the end, Blucher believed that he was pregnant with an elephant by a French grenadier. As the President's distress increases, is there a lesson here for Mr. Bush? Perhaps for him a donkey rather than an elephant. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET