Bush’s strategy is stupid and cruel and the Democrats won’t stop it, writes alexander cockburn |
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Amake-or-break speech by a beleaguered US President is usually preceded by a demonstration of American might somewhere on the planet, and the run-up to Bush's address last night was no exception.
The AC-130 gunship that massacred a convoy of fleeing Islamists on Somalia's southwestern border, apparently along with dozens of nomads, their families and livestock, was deployed on Sunday to make timely newspaper headlines indicative of Bush's determination to strike at terror wherever it may lurk.
Moral to nomads: when the US President schedules a speech, don't herd, don't go to wedding parties, head for the nearest cave.
President Bush stuck to his expected script last night and said he plans to boost US forces in Iraq by 4,000 Marines to Anbar province and five combat brigades - 17,500 |
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| The US response to a sniper attack will be to level the block and, if necessary, the surrounding neighbourhood |
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troops - to Baghdad, in a new scheme to regain control of the city. Past strategies to do this had failed, Bush explained, because of insufficient numbers. He added ominously: "Also, there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have."
In other words, the gloves will now be off in the impending onslaught on the areas of Baghdad controlled by Muktada al Sadr and his al-Mahdi army.
In urban counter-insurgency – the specialty of the politically agile and ambitious new US commander, General David Petraeus – the unrestricted US response to a sniper attack or a street-corner ambush will be to level the block and, if necessary, the entire neighbourhood.
But Baghdad is a vast city, and the actual fighting component of the beefed-up US force in the whole of Iraq won't be more than 30,000, so it's hard to see the new plan as anything other than stupid and cruel, destined only to deepen sectarian hatreds, and to kill, wound and render homeless very large numbers of Iraqis crammed in the
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