Bush: “We’re not winning, we’re not losing.”
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, WarFive stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
Judging from the quote in the title, Bush is on the third step:
As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has now adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. “We’re not winning, we’re not losing,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, “Absolutely, we’re winning.”
So it’s a tie? A do-over? What’s the status here? We’re in limbo?
Well, what about the military?
In another turnaround, Bush said he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to develop a plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps, heeding warnings from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the armed forces toward the breaking point.“We need to reset our military,” said Bush, whose administration had opposed increasing force levels as recently as this summer. Gates, who was sworn in Monday, arrived in Baghdad this morning for several days of meetings with U.S. military commanders and Iraqi officials.
Sounds good…however…
A substantial military expansion will take years and would not immediately affect the war in Iraq. But it would begin to address the growing alarm among commanders about the state of the armed forces. Although the president offered no specifics, other U.S. officials said the administration is preparing plans to bolster the nation’s permanent active-duty military with as many as 70,000 additional troops.
Yes…it certainly is nice to want things. Let’s hope that Bush finds the fifth stage of grief before more of our men and women have to die needlessly.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 and is filed under Foreign Policy, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 20th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
And where exactly is he going to find these new 70,000 troops? The only way the armed forces is coming anywhere near their recruiting goals even now is by lowering their standards, and that’s just to maintain current levels.
The only way they could come close to that goal is by dropping DADT, by reinstituting the draft, and/or by leaving Iraq (and not shooting ourselves in the ass by immediately invading Iran.)
Speaking of that, frankly I think Bush is so far removed from reality that he thinks that a mild troop increase will somehow make us capable of taking on Iran and North Korea in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan…we seriously need to impeach that moron (and his evil overlord Cheney).