Playing games with life and death

It seems that President Bush will announce his “new” strategy for Iraq next week. This strategy, however spun, will include as a key component a “surge” of troops into Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to provide security and quell the insurgency. Abizaid, Casey, and the other top generals in Iraq do not think that a surge of troops — that is, a short-term troop increase — will “add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq,” in Abizaid’s recent words to Congress. But no matter. Bush and his allies have consistently placed political considerations above military ones (just read Woodward), and NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski is reporting that an administration official has “admitted… that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one”. Which is entirely in keeping with how this disastrous war has been waged.

In the end — and we may almost be there — this war is all about the politics of George W. Bush. Explain that to the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq.

Think Progress has the video and transcript here.