Level With Americans By BOB HERBERT

[jbfam4]

Level With Americans
By BOB HERBERT

Published: June 7, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/opinion/07HERB.html

It's not too late for President Bush to go on television and level with the American people about what the war in Iraq is costing the nation in human treasure and cold hard cash. Like members of a family, the citizens of a nation beset by tragedy have a need and a right to know the truth about its dimensions and implications.

Last week the Army had to make the embarrassing disclosure that it did not have enough troops available to replenish the forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. So in addition to extending the deployment of many of the troops already in the war zones, the Army announced that it would prevent soldiers from leaving the service — even if their voluntary enlistments were up — if their units were scheduled to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.



The shortage of soldiers was widely recognized by insiders, but the administration never made the problem clear to the public, and never took the steps necessary to deal with it. Senator Reed, a former Army captain, told me in an interview last week that he felt the civilian leadership at the Pentagon "should have recognized very early on that we needed a bigger army and should have moved aggressively" to expand the force.


The stop-loss policy is the latest illustration of both the danger and the fundamental unfairness embedded in the president's "what, me worry?" approach to the war in Iraq. Almost the entire burden of the war has been loaded onto the backs of a brave but tiny segment of the population — the men and women, most of them from working-class families, who enlisted in the armed forces for a variety of reasons, from patriotism to a desire to further their education to the need for a job.

[randr]

1. Sorry Bob, IT IS TOO LATE

for anything but a resignation.

[struggle4progress]

2. These folks are pathological liars. They can't level with anybody.

[nightperson]

3. Thanks for posting this.

I was going to, but I wanted to find a different site in case people weren't registered with the Times. The Smirking Chimp has it posted for the "non-registered". The editorial is unusually tough and memorable ("stop the madness"!) for the Times, reminding its readership how "surreal" it is that for them this has been "the most comfortable war imaginable", while who knows how many disgruntled Tim McVeighs are being created far away. Turn off the TV, put down the martini, and think for a minute, folks! A little empathy might help out with the whole "common sense thing", but who knows? I won't push it ;) .