I don't usually talk about politics, and I'm going to make this one exception. The President is going to address the nation about a troop "surge". Okay. Let me think about this one.

Let's look at it from the insurgents point of view: "Bush tells me that he's going to send 20,000 more troops to kill me and my friends. Hmmm." The smart insurgent might think "It won't happen overnight, so I'll just hop in my car/truck/sandals and make my way out of the area/country until the troops arrive, let the martyrs fight, and then come back once they leave to fight again." The martyr insurgent might think "Here's my chance to die for my people/religion/tribe. I'll go to the war zone (if I'm not already in it) and just let loose on anything that's not in my group. Body counts don't matter much to my insurgent leadership. In fact, they want me to die fighting. None of them are going to be on the wrong end of a political backlash the way it happens in America. We have no Congress to threaten a funding cut. Its just a free-for-all for us insurgents."

Either way, tipping his hat to the other side is no way to reach his objective, IMO. I mean, why are the insurgents as successfull as they are?: They don't broadcast their plans weeks in advance. If the US wants to hit them hard, do it by suprise.

Maybe I'm way off base thinking this. Someone tell me so if I am. I do support our troops, and every death (ours or theirs) is a failure on both side's.

That is all,
Sheen V