Iraq: It's a fool's errand

Retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who in 2003 was among the first to call public attention to the relatively small size of the U.S. invasion force, said that the new operation shows how outnumbered U.S. troops remain. "Why would we think that a temporary presence of 30,000 additional combat troops in a giant city would change the dynamics of a bitter civil war?" he said in an interview yesterday. "It's a fool's errand." (Emphasis added.)

Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size
by Thomas E. Ricks
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Washington Post

Back on April 27 Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central on the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Access the archived Bill Moyers program here: Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007, and here's an excerpt it with a clip from the Daily Show with jon Stewart:

CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: Bush had come mainly to discuss the war spending bill, recently passed by the Democratic Congress which gives the president all the funding he desires for the troop surge, but ties the funding to a definite date for withdrawal of the troops. And you won't believe what the president thinks of that idea.

GEORGE W. BUSH: �pushing legislation that would undercut our troops just as we're beginning to make progress in Baghdad.

JON STEWART: Oooh. We're just beginning to make it ohh they just pulled the rug to d'oh, it's just happening now! You know, I seem to remember, we've been making progress for quite some time now.

GEORGE W. BUSH: That's progress. And it's important progress, and it's an important part of our strategy to win in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Iraq has made incredible political progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: The Iraqis are making inspiring progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Iraq is making incredible political progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I believe we're making really good progress in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making steady progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

JON STEWART: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what's wrong with what we've done in Iraq. We've been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.

END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

Another excerpt:

JON STEWART: But war that hasn't affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that's why they're so really — here's the disconnect. It's sort of this odd and I've always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, "We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. "And, so what I'm going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children's children all suffer. So, what I'm gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad."

So, there's a disconnect there between — you're telling me this is fight of our generation, and you're going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that's gonna do it. I'm sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can't, because he doesn't have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country's not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we're doing and really examine how it is that they've been waging this.

Iraq ... it's a fool's errand.