http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05169/523564.stmA growing tide of developments on the ground in Iraq and in the United States itself may result in irresistible pressure on the Bush administration to end U.S. involvement there, sooner rather than later.
This week has seen a drumfire of U.S. and Iraqi casualties from insurgent attacks that brought the number of Americans killed to 1,715 and counting. Claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that the insurgency is running out of gas are not borne out by the evidence.
On the U.S. military side, this week saw the appearance in Iraq of a phenomenon heretofore associated with a previous unpopular war, Vietnam: an Army staff sergeant is accused of having murdered two of his officers. In Vietnam it was called fragging.
On the home front, Army recruiting in May fell far below goals. The Army originally sought 8,050 recruits for the month. Seeing that it was going to fall short of that target, it lowered the bar to 6,700. It finally achieved about 5,000, even though incentives and the number of recruiters had been increased and standards lowered. The bottom line is that neither potential recruits nor their parents and families want to see them go into the Iraq maelstrom to be maimed or to die, in spite of President Bush's claims that the Iraq war is part of the struggle against terrorism.
Mr. Bush's credibility suffered another blow this week as the so-called Downing Street memo was aired in an informal congressional hearing.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
