Another file for the ol’ “no shit” drawer. In a story I’m sure no one needed to be told, it turns out our Mighty Leader ignored any alternatives for Iraq prior to announcing the “surge”. The first paragraph, on a Nov 30th meeting, starts things off nicely.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a surprise for President Bush when they sat down with their aides in the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Firing up a PowerPoint presentation, Maliki and his national security adviser proposed that U.S. troops withdraw to the outskirts of Baghdad and let Iraqis take over security in the strife-torn capital. Maliki said he did not want any more U.S. troops at all, just more authority.

So that makes the list of people who wanted a withdrawal… pretty much everyone except Bush, Lieberman, McCain, and a few other assorted looney tunes. The military says withdrawal, the people say withdrawal, Iraq says withdrawal. Bush? Well he’s just gonna push along the same course.

A little more light on the situation:

The Bush team concluded that the previous Baghdad security plans had failed for four reasons: The Iraqis never took ownership over security, Maliki placed political constraints on military operations, there were not enough reliable Iraqi and U.S. forces, and there was no serious effort to rebuild areas taken back from insurgents or militias.

Okay, one by one why this argument doesn’t make sense in terms of adding troops.

1. If you can tell me how more US forces in Iraq means the Iraqis are going to start taking ownership, I’d like to hear it.
2. So basically now we’re going to stomp all over the democratically elected Iraqi government and impose OUR will in order to do what WE want done. Add that up. Maliki wants fewer troops in Iraq, Bush responds by not only escalating troop numbers, but removing restrictions the Iraqi PM had put on them.
3. Again, point #1. I’m curious as to how more US forces will lead to more Iraqi forces.
4. Ohhh, we weren’t takin’ it serious. I see. That makes sense. So the past five years you guys were all just dicking around. Good job. Glad to know there’s a real effort to win this thing.

Number 2 is the most infuriating one. This war is being waged by a man who doesn’t care what ANYONE involved wants. After the claims of Iraq’s danger to the United States and/or the world at large fizzled out, the whole mess was turned into a fight for the fate of the poor, oppressed Iraqis.

This was a country held under an iron fist by a ruthless dictator. So we put in a democracy, let them vote with their purple fingers, and now we’re going to let THEM take charge of their own fate. We needed to save these poor people from being ruled by an entity over which they had no control.

So how are we doing that? Well, by ignoring their leader’s wishes, overruling them, and putting even more of our military within their borders. Perfectly logical.