Saturday, December 16, 2006

When Is It Appropriate To Announce The Truth?

On Tuesday, I identified another of what looked to be another in the long line of lies told by the W, Rove and Co for political gain. When Tony was asked directly about the possibility of troop level boosting in Iraq, he dutifully said:
Q Is it possible that the President does not want to announce the deployment of thousands of more U.S. troops to Iraq before the holidays?

MR. SNOW: No, it has nothing to do with that. Cynical, but false.
Of course, it's not a boldfaced lie. It's one of those morally and ethically slippery slope kinds of positions. Tony doesn't really say much about troop levels, but comments specifically on the idea that the W thinks the American people don't want the truth. The subliminal message is that we can't handle the truth.

But as the news evolves, it looks more and more likely that we are going to be sending more troops into harms way.
Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more. The request indicates that the option of a major “surge” in troop strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review, senior administration officials said Friday.
I don't know why they play these moves so close to the vest and then more and more information gets leaked or discovered. If the press can find out this kind of information, so too can the terrorists. The only ones that suffer are the American people - as they are the last one's to the game, and it certainly looks like the President and his staff are purposefully misleading the public for political rather than logical reasons.

I'd rather know what kind of trouble the W, Rove and Co has gotten or will get us into sooner than the terrorists, and in clearer detail. There's nothing transparent about the W, Rove and Co, now is there? Sure the truth can hurt, but it's the only way to a common solution. It leads to another frustration of mine, those who ask for solutions to complex problems, but don't give all the information so that we can make an informed suggestion.

But I digress - If the truth shall set us free, no wonder the W, Rove and Co are so reluctant to share it with us.

Oh, and in the odd chance you are wondering where the hell the Pentagon is going to come up with said troops, you wouldn't be the only one:
Warning that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations, the nation's top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.
I forget, didn't the W, Rove and Co promise not to draft anyone? What, then, is an "involuntary call-up?"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...


Never!

When Is It Appropriate To Announce The Truth?

A War Bush Wouldn't Pay For

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 15, 2006; Page A35

''Believe it or not, winning the war in Iraq was never the Bush administration's highest priority. Saving its tax cuts was more important. That was once spoken of as a moral problem. Now it's a practical barrier to a successful outcome.

...

''So here we are: Policymakers and politicians will demand more and more from the volunteers who serve our country, but they can't find the gumption to ask shareholders to pay a bit more tax on their dividends or high earners to pay slightly larger levies on their incomes. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, since 2001 we've offered $2 in tax cuts for every $1 we have spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...''