George has a plan. He wrote it himself, in crayon.

[catsidhe]

George has a plan. And Good for him, for coming up with one. The gist of his plan seems to be 5 Battalions, of ~4000 troops each, (totalling about 20,000 troops) to be sent to Iraq post haste.

Well, well, well. What to say?

Well, first, that will bring the number of US troops in Iraq to about 170,000, including the estimated 150,000 that are there now. The number of troops has fluctuated by 20,000 over the last year, with little seeming effect on the ground, so to start with, one has to wonder how effective what difference more troops doing what has already proven to be futility. But that is a whole 13% more futile troops, so they will do something. It's just that they have yet to demonstrate the capability to do anything useful.

That's not the killer, though. The real party-pooper to this wonderful plan is that old enemy of George's (and his handlers') plans in the past: Reality.

Precisely which orifice is he going to pull these 5 battalions out of? Recruitment? Does anyone remember that recruitments, for some reason, are at all time lows? And that the existing reserves corps is being churned without mercy as it is? There are no more reserves, and sure as hell not enough recruits to fill the gaps, even if they could magically be made ready in time.

Oh, maybe he's going to do some re-deployment? Well, the best-guess of troop numbers in Afghanistan is about 18,000, so even if he withdrew completely from Afghanistan (and we all know what a stunning success that pile of rubble is), that still isn't enough to fill the quota.

So that leaves, what, conscription? This time last year I would have believed it. In fact I've been hearing noises about this already. But now that the Dems control the Congress, this is a little less likely. Unless Bush declares a state of emergency or something. I dunno, I've worried about that for a while, but I suspect that if he were to try that stunt, he might just not get away with it.


So. George W. Bush vs Reality: who gets bitchslapped hardest?

Oh, I forgot, Bush defines reality as he goes.

I guess reality doesn't stand a chance, then.

Comments

[sjl.livejournal.com]

And this is the same army, let us not forget, that sent letters to soldiers that had been killed or injured in Iraq, asking them if they'd like to re-enlist for another term of service.

*shakes head* How does a country, with such an incredible industrial, military, and commercial base, stuff things up so badly?

[araquel.livejournal.com]

Disneyland may be the happiest place on Earth, but it has nothing on life on Planet Dubya.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_zombiemonkey/]

I'm not convinced George's plan is an actual plan. There are two options in Iraq as far as most people seem to be concerned - stay or go. He can't pull troops out, because he'd look like he was proving all them godless anti-war hippies right, so his option is to stay. And do what?

I don't know, and the scary thing is, I don't think GWBjr does either. The US are REALLY good at invading and shooting up a whole bunch of stuff, but they're like a dog chasing a car. Once they catch it, they have no idea what to do with it. So why not pull a mythical troop level increase out of yer arse? It frustrates the left, mollifies the right, and best yet it means nothing, and you don't actually have to match the mysthical number with actual troops.

Doublespeak bollocks - its pretty much all we have left in the 21st century as far as intelligent Government level political discourse goes.