Humble Bumble

"I don't need nobody telling me what the president is going to say before a speech, nor nobody telling me what he did say after a speech," I sez.

In these times, however, I can't watch a presidential pontification. It is too much to bear that our soldiers lives are in the hands of a man that can hardly speak, is self contradictory, and impressed with himself to the point of smirking.

So, I have taken to reading full transcripts which are available on-line. Here is a link provided by the New York Times:

Surge the Loss

I think the worst thing about the president's speech is hearing president Bush repeat what many analysts said would happen as if he were offering us all insight. He doesn't seem to realize he is the only one in the room still 4 years behind in his development.

This following paragraph particularly rankles the hackles because it is a point-for-point warning rejected pre-invasion. It was the verbatim case against invasion! Of course, anyone that offered it as advice to the president was evicted from their office and ridiculed by the likes of vice president "we will be welcomed as liberators" Cheney and Paul "we won't have to spend any of our own money" Wolfowitz:


"The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow — would — would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On Sept. 11, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists [Afghanistan - which we left to the Taliban!] on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq."


Another paragraph reflects the advice of general Eric Shinseki:

"Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents, but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned."

It is worth noting that general Shinseki predicted we'd need 300,000 more troops which makes our surge of 22,000 look inadequate to me.

One thing the president said seems downright foolish. He said those extra troops will "...work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations." I wonder if they will have targets painted on their backs for the embedded insurgents. No wonder general Casey wouldn't stay on.

2007 looks to me like it will unfurl the same tragedy as 2006 unless Congress asserts it's authority.