Snow in Winter

I wasn't able to spend any time watching or listening to the testimony of General Petraeus today. But I did hear one thing on the way home: He said that he thinks the Army can be back to pre-surge levels by the summer of 2008.

"We'll make a further assessment next Spring." Another Friedman Unit, another 400 or so Americans coming home in coffins. Another 500,000 Iraqis made refugees. Another few hundred billions down the shitter.

How many times are we going to hear this "another six months" bullshit from these lying-ass motherfuckers?

And how many times are the Administration's suck-ups and goofballs in the press going to fall for the line that we are getting "honest assessments" from the same people who planned things? Like they aren't personally invested in this? Do we really expect to see Petraeus or Crocker sit there and say: "We gave it our best shot, but we are well and truly fucked. It's time to leave."

Operation Kick the Can Down the Road is in full swing. Operation Stick the Hard Decisions On the Next President is underway. All so the Baby Chimperor can slink off to his five-book preznitdenshul lie-berry and pretend that none of this was his fault.

"We can bring 30,000 troops home by July." What a load of tripe.

I hope somebody called him on it. It is no secret that the surge cannot be sustained past then, not if the Army is going to keep its current rotation schedule of 15 months of getting shot at and 12 months of not getting shot at.

For General Petraeus to say that the troop levels will be back to pre-surge levels by next summer is to state the obvious.

It is like promising snow in winter.