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defining suckcess .....

 

defining suckcess .....

Bush hails success on trip to Iraq

US President George W Bush raised the possibility of a reduction in US troops in Iraq during a flying visit to the war-ravaged nation en route to the APEC conference in Sydney.

But he insisted combat force levels would be decided based on the recommendations of his commanders in Iraq, and not by "nervous" politicians in the Democratic-led US Congress.

Mr Bush commented about a possible reduction after a meeting of his "war council" with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders just days before US commander General David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress on the progress of the 'troop surge' strategy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/04/2023101.htm

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Gus: if we push this thingster into that thingy, turn around three times, dance around a pole, crank up the handle of the stuff up, move this chess piece over-there, jump a puddle to fall into the lake, salute the blue moon, rub a couple of sticks together, kick a loose stone, blow our nose, scratch our head and our fundament, the chance is there we would have a better result... Very commendable for the Bushit to try to solve his mess, but the way he is going about it is like using black paint to cover graffiti on a white wall...

His successor is going to have a hand full to help clean up his garbage heap.

the delusion of the illusionist

The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.

The media have largely followed the Administration’s myopic approach to the war, and there is likely to be intense coverage of the congressional testimony. But the inadequacy of the surge is already clear, if one honestly assesses the daily lives of Iraqis. Though the streets of Baghdad are marginally less lethal than they were during 2006, sixty thousand Iraqis a month continue to leave their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration, joining the two million who have become refugees and the two million others displaced inside Iraq. The militias, which have become less conspicuous as they wait out the surge, are nevertheless growing in strength, as they extend their control over neighborhoods like Ahmed’s. In the backstreets, the local markets, the university classrooms, and other realms beyond the reach of American observers or American troops, there is no rule of law, only the rule of the gun.

Planning for Defeat

in The New Yorker 

strategies of numbers

Military analysts are always talking about strategy. Often they are proposing one that they have just invented and naturally think will be the solution to the nation’s security problems. The present time, filled as it is with the threat of Islamist terrorism and with the debacle of the Iraq War, is especially marked by the proliferation of strategic proposals.

More seasoned analysts know, however, that if any strategy is to prove effective, it must fit social and structural realities, including the state of technology, the economy, and the political system. Less noted is the role of demography.

 One-Child Foreign Policy