Surge Equals No Political Progress

Now that a bunch of Americans and Iraqis have died for the American "surge" we have exactly not one iota of the political progress that it was "intended" to foster. You may have noticed that when it comes to spending American blood and treasure like it was water the BushCo has no problem, but when it comes to Iraqis doing something to put their country back together all bets are off. Somehow George II can sell the idea that Americans need to die and be blown to broken shreds to fix an Iraq that has no intention of fixing itself. According to the NYT the BushCo's goals for the Iraqi government are that it pass a budget (??), vote to extend the UN mandate (if not, then what?), and take official action to reverse the effects of de-Baathification, already a quietly done deal. There you go. This is what 974 American lives in the last year buy, the dollar cost and wounded costs I won't bother to play pile on with, just actually dead American soldiers.

When you talk to your neighbor who has lost someone in this adventure of George II, this is the measure of his concern - you had better try to make up for it yourself. Asking someone to die for something is no small matter and it would seem as though the Commander in Chief would take that a little more to heart in some issue other than trampling the Constitution. I won't add anything to do with my absolute lack of respect for his Republican Congressional lackeys and their disregard of the sacrifice. This devaluation of what these troops spent their lives doing is, to me, unacceptable behavior. Despite all previous evidence I had hoped that along with the "surge" the BushCo would carry forward something constructive in Iraq. Ooops.

The Bush dead-enders will call any Congressional push as "not supporting the troops," the unending mantra of those with no coherent argument left. Every attempt of Congress to link the war to some practical end has been met with the same phrase, if Congress tries to make the President responsible for the results of spending American blood and treasure the answer is "not supporting the troops." The question that seems beyond the ken of these folks is just exactly how it is supportive of the troops to spend their lives with no result?

Even if you start out from a view point that the Iraq war was somehow justified to begin and then to prosecute for a couple more years on the basis of "you broke it, you bought it," at some point America should see some result of its spending. The election of a non-functioning, corrupt, militia ridden government is not much return for an expense now measure in trillions of dollars, nearly four thousand dead and over twenty thousand broken troops. Is it real clear what BushCo expects back from our investment in that hole? Other than asking us to stay it is pass a budget?