Time: Bush's pro-surge advisor says "go for it" and THEN went to the Army to get the facts

[Bucky]

Actually, it was in Newsweek, but I was running out of space in my subject line title and "Time" is a shorter synonym for Newsweek.

Keane told the president: 'Don't you dare let Army and Marine Corps tell you they can't do it.' Soon afterward, Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army, called Keane in and gave him the actual figures on readiness, telling him: 'Look, here's the status of these brigades today. It's not doable'." Keane did not respond to several calls asking for comment, but the senior White House aide denies that the Pentagon is resisting any surge plan. "The military leadership is committed to doing what is required to be successful," he says.

I don't think "stab in the back" is too strong a phrase to describe how Bush has been treating the military. In the finest American tradition, the Army and Marines have been following orders, supporting the civilian leadership, and leaving the political decisions to the politicians. Their reward is to be dropped continually into the meat grinder and treated like pawns by a pampered brat who still thinks all the death and destruction will somehow end up validating his childish world view.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Can Congress stop a surge?

since a surge last year didn't work?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. My presumption s that funds have already been approved

that can be diverted into a "surge."

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. maybe this can be reversed?

to listen to Bush before the elections, everything in Iraq was peachy. So why does he need a surge?

[Bucky]

3. Mrs Pelosi on TV this morning said she needs Bush to justify his budget request

Congress doesn't control troop deployments--that's the president's job. But they do have the power of the purse. Congress is clear they won't cut funding for troops on the ground, but Pelosi said Bush would have to submit his supplemental request for funding the surge deployment for their review. In other words, he can TRY to convince Congress there's logic behind the apparent madness of the troop surge, but right now she ain't gonna pay for it.

I assume a big fight will happen over this shortly. The president can possibly pay for this with some of his discretionary moneys, but I don't think he can pay for all of it and I'm pretty sure our patriotic defense contractors will take an unsecured IOU from the Pentagon.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. Thanks for the info

that'll be interesting!

[Loge23]

6. My biggest wish: Just say no, Military

The idiot is destroying the military. When does it get to the point of resistence!

[Bucky]

7. God help us, never.

Resisting bad policies is our job. The military hasn't failed the system, we have, by not stopping this idiot president sooner. You do not want a military that decides which orders it will or won't follow. Japan had that kind of miliary in the 1930s and 1940s. Chile had that kind of military in the 1970s. It is always dangerous and our generals, thank God, know this.

[truedelphi]

8. Asking ten GI's -Newspaper in Lake County California interviewed

An intrview conducted with the Recorder Bee of Lakeport California asked ten service men their views on the war.

Only two said that the war was not being handled correctly and maybe we should get out.

The other eight said things like, "We need to stay in Iraq UNTIL we get Osama" ?@#$??
Or "we didn't want this war, but 9/11 forced us to go to Iraq."
Etc.

Made me wonder if the soldiers are informed about any of it.

[Bucky]

10. You need to factor in "game face" w/ military interviews

The fact is that soldiers, in order to function well in combat, have to be psyched up, body, mind, and spirit, to win. They have to believe in their cause and the righteousness of it to make the possibility of sacrifice worthwhile. Human psychology depends on it. The natural peer pressure for keeping morale up among the other warriors depends on it.

It's not any other job. Motivation and commitment can save you or get you killed in Iraq. I'm not surprised at all that 8 of ten were gung ho. Try and imagine the circumstances the other two soldiers are gonna face when they return to their units and their fellow servicemen hear that they gave interviews saying it's a pointless cause. It's incredibly brave of them--one out of five--to stand up and say "we're risking it all for our country, knowing that in this war our country is wrong." Imagine what that could do to morale--any officer worth his salt would have to step in an stop that kind of talk, just because it's the kind of talk that can sap commitment and get people killed--troops or civilians.

Those two who spoke up, that's a level of commitment few armies in history could sustain--the morality of a captain going down with his ship. They are literally loving the Constitution more than their own lives. We're lucky to have all of them in uniform serving us. Our job now is to serve them by ending the war.

[truedelphi]

12. That was the kind of kick in the butt clarification

that I needed.

Thank you for taking the time to clue me in, and for being so nice about it.

[SoCalDem]

9. Teenager logic.. (easier to ask forgiveness, than permission)

Kids do this all the time, They leave out important details, knowing that Mom & Dad will say "NO!" if they know the real info, so they carefully omit stuff, and later AFTER they have had their fun (and only IF they get caught), they can claim they "didn't know, or say they are sorry".. Either way they win.. Groveling a few days is an ok trade-off for a killer party that the 'rents would have said "NO to.

We have a teenager-brained loon in charge.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Pawns?

(Our soldiers') reward is to be dropped continually into the meat grinder and treated like pawns by a pampered brat . . . .

Oh, please. I must take offense.

They are treated more like Risk tokens than pawns. A chess player has more concern for a pawn than Bush has for our troops.

[truedelphi]

13. The other thing is that if you look at electro-magnetic weaponry

Our troops should have been able to go home a month or two after the initial
shock and awe campaign.

The weaponry to stymy a population's ability to resist could have been accomplished through simply pulsing certain electro-magnetic frequences off the same towers that allow for cell phone reception.

Electro-magnetic frequencies can cause total apathy in a population, and some of my more activist friends believe it is already in place here in this country. Why else would we be such a nation of sheep? Of course, the electro-magnetic pulsing would have to be programmed to accomplish an even greater level of apathy, but the technology was patented in the 1960's.

Also recently an Air Force General said that other electro-magnetic weaponry, of a type that would cause an individual to feel as though they are on fire, should be tried in this country on peace protesters so it can be determined as to the possible harmful effects before it is used on the battlefield or in a country we are occupying.

Maybe not every place in Iraq has such cell phone towers,but certainly within Baghdad there are many such towers. Or a huge tower array might have been built inside the Green Zone.