More Pollin' Woes
..For the Bush team.
From CNN/USA Today/Gallup comes the revelation that Americans have seen through the Bushiganda, and think that Bush's plans for 'victory' in Iraq aren't plausible.
I'm not going to lead you astray. A large percentage of those polled hadn't yet heard, or read about Bush's speech of yesterday. Perhaps later polls will show different results.
My personal feeling is that when Bush spoke of "complete victory" in Iraq, we will see the administration move the goalposts on this bit of semantic swagger as well.
The way I see this developing - while all the time in continuous denial for the facts on the ground is this:
1) Continually redefining "complete victory"
2) Redefining "complete"
3) Redefining "victory"(remember: "Mission Accomplished" how hollow those words ring)
Bush is not living in the real world. We now know that in excess of 90% of the Anti-occupation forces in Iraq(according to Rummy, you best not call them insurgents) are made up of newly militarized Iraqis.
Let's do some simple math:
Approximately 160,000 US troops in Iraq.
Approximately 26,000,000 Iraqis in the same area. If 20% of those Iraqis are male and of fighting age, that gives us 5,200,000 potential fighters.
If even 10% of those take up arms, that's 520,000.
If Bush pulls troops as the Iraqis are better able to provide for their own defense, the numbers will tip toward the anti-US fighters.
My numbers are likely to be conservative, UNLESS the US can demonstrate immediately that we will deliver on all the promises we made prior to, during, and post-invasion.
I'm not going to include foreign fighters(other than the US) in this equation, as the numbers are small. That's not to say that these fighters are an insignificant force, but I want to keep the math simple.
Again, the LA Times has the goods on Bush's latest plan.
Useless observation: If the Pentagon and the Bush Administration had listened to the field generals prior to the invasion regarding troop numbers, this entry would likely never have been made.
That Bush had to bring up the thoroughly discounted nexus between 9/11 and Iraq is beyond irresponsible. Okay, he said(paraphrasing) that the "9/11 terrorists and the Iraqi fighters share the same ideology." Where is the evidence for this?
A more accurate statement would have been that the anti-US forces in Iraq share a common ideology with The French resistance of WWII. As I've penned many times, why don't we understand anything about nationalistic/religious pride other than our own?
Since the Bush speech of yesterday was but part one of a four part pontification ABC mini-series, we'll have to see where things move over the next three installments.
From CNN/USA Today/Gallup comes the revelation that Americans have seen through the Bushiganda, and think that Bush's plans for 'victory' in Iraq aren't plausible.
I'm not going to lead you astray. A large percentage of those polled hadn't yet heard, or read about Bush's speech of yesterday. Perhaps later polls will show different results.
My personal feeling is that when Bush spoke of "complete victory" in Iraq, we will see the administration move the goalposts on this bit of semantic swagger as well.
The way I see this developing - while all the time in continuous denial for the facts on the ground is this:
1) Continually redefining "complete victory"
2) Redefining "complete"
3) Redefining "victory"(remember: "Mission Accomplished" how hollow those words ring)
Bush is not living in the real world. We now know that in excess of 90% of the Anti-occupation forces in Iraq(according to Rummy, you best not call them insurgents) are made up of newly militarized Iraqis.
Let's do some simple math:
Approximately 160,000 US troops in Iraq.
Approximately 26,000,000 Iraqis in the same area. If 20% of those Iraqis are male and of fighting age, that gives us 5,200,000 potential fighters.
If even 10% of those take up arms, that's 520,000.
If Bush pulls troops as the Iraqis are better able to provide for their own defense, the numbers will tip toward the anti-US fighters.
My numbers are likely to be conservative, UNLESS the US can demonstrate immediately that we will deliver on all the promises we made prior to, during, and post-invasion.
I'm not going to include foreign fighters(other than the US) in this equation, as the numbers are small. That's not to say that these fighters are an insignificant force, but I want to keep the math simple.
Again, the LA Times has the goods on Bush's latest plan.
Useless observation: If the Pentagon and the Bush Administration had listened to the field generals prior to the invasion regarding troop numbers, this entry would likely never have been made.
That Bush had to bring up the thoroughly discounted nexus between 9/11 and Iraq is beyond irresponsible. Okay, he said(paraphrasing) that the "9/11 terrorists and the Iraqi fighters share the same ideology." Where is the evidence for this?
A more accurate statement would have been that the anti-US forces in Iraq share a common ideology with The French resistance of WWII. As I've penned many times, why don't we understand anything about nationalistic/religious pride other than our own?
Since the Bush speech of yesterday was but part one of a four part pontification ABC mini-series, we'll have to see where things move over the next three installments.
No comments :
Post a Comment