The Surge

CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE 9/11/07



In 1980 Ronald Reagan famously asked the question “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Today, six years after the attack on the US, much the same question should be asked.

Are we better off? Are we safer? What has changed?

Well, let’s talk first about the things that have changed. We have lost some of our liberties. Wiretapping our phones with little or no cause is now sometimes OK. People can, and are, being held in prison with no charges and no trials. Airline travel is much more difficult and time consuming.

And, oh yeah, we are in a war against global terrorism. For some yet to be determined reason our leaders chose to fight the major battles in the global war on terrorism in a country that was not, until our invasion, participating in global terrorism. The rightfully discredited former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld once asked if we were creating more terrorist than we were killing. The answer is clearly yes. There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before our ill conceived invasion of that country. Al-Qaeda was a fairly small ragtag bunch headed by a rich Saudi operating out of Afghanistan with the protection of the Taliban that had taken over that country. We rightfully attacked them and drove the Taliban out. At least out of the capitol. We set up a puppet government in Afghanistan that had full control of several parts of the city of Kabul, but never anything else.

Then we got distracted. It was like our leaders had ADD or something. The job was about half done and we decided it would be more interesting to do something else. “Let’s invade Iraq. How hard can it be?” We forgot to get the lead terrorist. Remember him, Osama bin Laden? If you have forgotten he released a second recent video today to remind you. He does this periodically just to thumb his nose at us. We also forgot to get the leader of the Taliban. Do you even remember his name? Don’t worry if you have forgotten it, you will be hearing it again soon enough. The Taliban is making a dramatic comeback while we’re not looking.

And where is the lead terrorist today? Well, it appears that he is hanging out in yet another country that is about to become unstable. He is in the mountains of Pakistan. The president (we can’t call him the dictator because he is ostensibly an ally) Pervez Musharraf is facing a crisis as two former Prime Ministers are trying to re-enter the country to challenge him. We have not gone after Bin Laden in Pakistan because we did not want to violate the sovereignty of an independent nation. Yeah, that is so like us!

Now it looks like the lead terrorist will be sitting in a country as it collapses into disarray and a possible civil war. Not to worry, what’s the worst that could actually happen? Well, I guess the worst that could happen is he could buy or steal weapons of mass destruction. Remember WMD’s? Well Pakistan really and truly has them. They are a nuclear power.

What can we do about the situation in Pakistan? Not a damned thing. See we’re busy with “The Surge.” So good luck to Musharraf and anyone within range of their nuclear missiles.

Now to the war that we created. Yesterday General Petraeus informed us that “The Surge” is working. It is working so well that he is prepared to begin to withdraw troops from Iraq. It has been such a success that he thinks that by July ’08 he will be able to withdraw so many troops that we will only have the number of troops left over there that we had before “The Surge.” What? How can that possibly be classified a success? Even in Washingtonspeak or militaryspeak that has got to make one stop and wonder. We had 130,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. Not enough according to the President, we needed “The Surge.” So 30,000 more troops were added to the battle. That has been so successful that in another ten months we should have everything stabilized enough to be back where we were six months ago. What?

Read this part slowly so it sinks in. According to Gen. Petraeus “The Surge” is working in reducing violence. And therefore he is going to be willing to draw down the troops to 130,000 by July ’08. That is how many we had there in March ’07. That ain’t success, that is the status quo. Well, the status quo minus a few hundred more American lives, untold thousands of Iraqi deaths and $12 billion a month down the drain.

To hell with it. Let’s get back to the important stuff. Didn’t you think Brittney looked fat at the MTV awards?