I notice that Bush is now calling himself 'the decision maker' and no longer 'the decider'. For a naive nominalist I suppose that amounts to an intellectual maturing, a step forward at least. Although, decidedly, 'the decider' had more of a colloquial ring to it and the man does seem to put much faith in the jargon of names he's wont to anoint things with. For a moment I wonder if maybe improved grammar is not a step forward but rather a sign of diminishing confidence - but then you hear Gates refer to the terrorists as 'those folks', a favourite epithet of Bush's, and you realise that if Bush can get a highly educated man like Gates to refer to incarnate evil as 'those folks', well, I guess his universe is still unfolding as he imagines it should.
And on the subject of Gates, in the same 'those folks' presser he confirmed what everyone had always believed and what Bush had frequently denied, that being that officers in Iraq did not feel free to ask for more troops if they felt more were needed. The press ignored this for some reason but I thought it significant as regards imputation of mistakes made towards Casey and Abizaid - note McCain's remarks re Casey as Army chief of staff - and yet the feeling of inhibition amongst the general staff once again points to faults being rooted in the Pentagon. McCain I assume must realise this - so I'd call it a telling sign that he chooses to go after Casey the way he has.
And yet furthermore on Gates: he claimed originally that the surge would proceed cautiously allowing time to see if the Iraqis are to be trusted. This claim was contradicted by Petraeus, who intends on moving quickly whether the Iraqis are ready or not, passing the 'secured' areas off to them with the assumption it seems that things will work out. Gates then contradicted himself and seemed to sign off on that approach.
It all sounds extremely tenuous, with the whole deal riding on a slippery slope of contingencies and assumptions - leaving one to again ask: what the hell's going on here? Is the surge a legitimate military effort or is its main purpose political? Hard not to conclude it's the latter.
