The S.P.E.E.C.H.

I listened to it tonight. George Bush's speech. About the surge. It is very exhausting to even write about it, except in tiny, tiny sentences. But there is no new strategy for Iraq, really, except that more than 20,000 more troops will be sent to Baghdad. So that the sectarian violence can be quelled. For a few weeks, anyway.

The Iraqis are also supposed to shape up and start bearing responsibility for the military and the police which were destroyed by the Americans. And the Iraqi military and police are supposed to patrol Baghdad, too, and stop all sectarian violence. Except, of course, for the fact that many of the Iraqi military and police are part of the sects which are fighting each other, and some of the forces that are perhaps going to be employed are Kurds which are yet in another tribal group.

It would be wonderful if all this worked. It would also be wonderful if the reconstruction that Bush also advocated would work. I'm scratching my head a little here, as I thought we had already paid billions for reconstruction? Where did all that money go? Are we allowed to know before we spend even more billions? And will some Iraqis get water and electricity soon?

Bush said nothing about getting the countries in the area together under some sort of a diplomatic umbrella. It seemed to me that instead of that he was making war moves against Iran.

And how does all this relate to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group? You can guess. George pretty much decided to pick the opposite of any major recommendations of the commission. Perhaps just to show that he can?
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Here is Keith Olbermann.