Newscoma

I have had to bust my hiney at work this week to get ready to go out of town today (I would really like have one of those man nannys to take care of the packing, washing clothes thing so I wouldn’t have to do it. I would pay him well to take care of all my needs) so I had to watch Pres. Bush’s speech later and not live.

Now my first reaction fell into this category as the headline over at Tennessean stated.

Being that the 913th Engineering Co. Just got back a couple of months ago and then the National Guard unit from McKenzie (forgive me for not having their unit number floating in my cranium but it’s 4:40 in the A.M. and the coffee is still brewing) I couldn’t help but have an oh shit crap moment.

My first thought was The Guard are going back.  I was a little kid during Vietnam, but I have heard from people older than myself that this war has taken on the same tone.

And I agree with Sharon Cobb here, the American people have been pretty clear we want out of this war. I liked this line the best in one of her latest posts:

• Bush wants us to rebuild Iraq. Oh please. Our government can’t even rebuild Mississippi.

My sentiments exactly. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know anything about strategies regarding military maneuvers. I don’t, but I do think that Bush isn’t listening.

But, and as I say on this blog quite often, we personalize things and my personization of  last night was “Great, he is admitting mistakes are being made but, hey, we are sending 21,000 troops over for the surge.”

In other words, if I say I’m sorry I’ll still get to do what I want to do. And according to a report filed last night at  ABC, the White House is already putting their plan of a surge into action as we speak.

ABC News has learned that the “surge” Bush is expected to announce in a prime time speech tonight has already begun. Ninety advance troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Baghdad Wednesday.

An additional battalion of roughly 800 troops from the same division are expected to arrive in Baghdad Thursday. Eighty percent of the sectarian violence occurs within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad, so that is where most of the additional troops will be concentrated.

It is the first small wave of troops in a new White House strategy that is expected to put more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and likely require new call-ups of the National Guard.

Two years ago, Bush did what he wanted without very much opposition. Now, he’s being questioned about his decisions and he should be. He should have been back then but he wasn’t. He can be as contrite as he wants to with the American people in his press conference, but he keeps being the Decider. I thought this crazy thing that the American people had that right. Speaker Pelosi has already responded with this statement on her website.

“Iraqi political leaders will not take the necessary steps to achieve a political resolution to the sectarian problems in their country until they understand that the U.S. commitment is not open-ended.  Escalating our military involvement in Iraq sends precisely the wrong message and we oppose it.

And now we get to find out what the new Democratic lead Congress will do. This is going to cost nearly seven billion dollars and they have some control over this war’s wallet now.I’m hoping, for once, our government will end this craziness and not increase U.S. forces in Iraq. Bush is expected to hit the road today to sell his new stategy. (Allow me to be snarky, but snake oil salesmen used to sell their wares (uh, war in Bush’s case) this way too

All I know is I’m going to Memphis, but one thing I want to do is go ask those people I know that have just returned to normalcy after spending a year over there if they think they are going to have to go back.

And I think that haunted look I’ve seen will return. And that breaks my heart because I know it will be sitting in their eyes.