Feb 2, 2007

Seven outs

Mickey Kaus asks "What if the surge works?" He sees seven outs for Senators voting for the anti-surge resolution.
1) 'I wanted more troops than the 21,500!' I strongly believe we shouldn't risk troops unless we have an overwhelming force advantage;' 2) 'We were trying to get the attention of this president, to change course. I didn't agree with all the provisions in the resolution.' Oh wait. Hillary's already said that. 3) I just wanted the president to consider all options and alternatives;' 4) Under my alternative plan, we could have acheived the same result without putting that many extra American soldiers at risk (e.g., 'We could have done the job with 20,500 troops!'); 5) Gen. Petraeus is a genius; he took a flawed policy and somehow made it work; 6) 'The plan they actually implemented wasn't the plan we condemned--in the wake of the resolution, I think you'll see they modified the plan, which made it work much better; 7) 'The resolution itself was what scared the Iraqi government and made the plan work, so I actually take some credit for its success.' ...

In other words, the resolution is a completely empty gesture. Pointless pageantry.

No comments: