National Guard Deployment

The story of four National Guard combat brigades--one from Ohio--being called up for Iraq clusterfuck duty starting early next year should put to rest any hopes that the Bush administration, on its own, will bring the troops home before the end of Bush's second term. Because if these troops are going for a year, and they are leaving in the first couple of months of 2008, then they will be there when the next president is sworn in.

I haven't actually heard this point made on the tv. The story is framed around the politics of the supplemental and congressional deadlines, so the fact that what the president is actually doing, and plans to be doing for the rest of his term, is opposed by clear majorities of the American people is not the story. Hardly as important as the cold weather and the latest episode of American Idol.

I'm also really concerned that these troops are being sent into a meat grinder. Casualties in Baghdad have doubled in Baghdad during the so-called "surge." As John Kerry once asked, How do you ask a man (or woman) to be the last one to die for a mistake? The answer: You don't. Ask, that is. You order them to be the last one.