Surge "success" redefined

By Libby

With an interim report due on the surge in a few days and September coming on fast, the administration is moving the goal posts again on how to define the surge strategy. Gone are the confident predictions of a six month sweep to reconcilation among the battling factions of Iraq. Petraeus will point to the few small successes, ignore the huge failures and tell us progress is being made but he needs more time.

We'll be told progress is slower than advertised because, "There are things going on that we never could have foreseen." What a crock. Ten thousand bloggers foresaw this outcome. The Iraq Study Group predicted it. The honest generals in the military told us it was too late. Hell, my 14 year old niece could have predicted the "things that are going on." The only ones lacking such basic foresight are those in The White House and the pundits who depend on the neo-con's good graces to keep their talking head gigs.

We go through this every six months and nothing changes. Worst yet, nothing will change, not even if Congress finds the gumption to defund the war. Bush will find a way to run out the clock so he doesn't have to preside over the undeployment. But as Scarecrow points out, that's probably a good thing. Considering how incompetently this occupation has been waged, our Feckless Leader could only screw up the withdrawal as well.

Meanwhile, the only thing that we can certain of is that a whole lot more people are going to die while we're waiting.