“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. ”


Steve Chapman, editorial columnist for the Chicago Tribune had this to say this morning...

"President Bush has unveiled a bold new plan for the war in Iraq, which involves clearing and holding urban areas to provide security, offering new economic opportunities to drain support from the insurgency and taking steps to give all Iraqis a stake in a democratic order. No, I'm not talking about his televised speech last night. I'm referring to his 'national strategy for victory in Iraq'--unveiled in November 2005.

"The "new" element this time is pouring more troops into Baghdad to make the city safer. But we've been there and tried that, including one major attempt just a few months ago. The result, admitted National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, was that 'sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience and began to see the militias as their protectors.' Now, it's one thing to sell oats before the horse has eaten them, and another thing to sell them after."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

For the President to openly defy the recommendations of the Task Force report that we openly engage Syria and Iran, instead pointing figures at them and waiving his sword in their faces last night, is just insane. We can't do this alone. Iraq can't do this alone.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said this today during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

"Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. As a matter of fact, I have to say, Madam Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam -- if it's carried out."

An overnight poll showed that less than 30% of Americans support the President's proposal.

Um....What am I missing here?
He's ignoring the Commission, he's going up against SOME leaders of his own party, and he's set benchmarks the Iragis themselves say they can't meet...

All that being said...what do we do? We made this mess...we have a moral obligation to do something to help restore order. But, other than tar and feather the moronic neocons who thought up this fireplaced up war in the first place, what do we do?