Five more soldiers were killed in Iraq today, bringing the October’s toll to 96 soldiers lost. The last time we had this many soldiers killed in Iraq in one month was last October, and that number is certain to go higher.
Sidney Blumenthal also has an interesting piece up at Salon regarding Bush and the Iraq Study Group. Blumenthal is predicting that Bush will not follow the recommendations of James Baker:
Bush is engaged in a shadow politics of fending off Baker that he can’t admit and that require new disingenuous explanations for rejection even before receiving Baker’s report. But will consummate political player Baker permit a dynamic in which he is humiliated and join the ranks of the dismissed and discarded, like “good soldier” Colin Powell? If Baker, taking his cue from Bush’s rebuke, simply closes ranks, what would have been his point, except to highlight his failure at an attempted rescue? By undermining Baker, especially beforehand, Bush sends a signal that he is determined to maintain his counterproductive strategies in Iraq and the Middle East. Yet his tightening coil will trigger further attempts among U.S. allies and Arab governments to disentangle themselves.
Sidney could very well be right. When you watch Bush’s press conference from yesterday, you can tell this is a man who will not change. He is not open to new plans or tactics and he responds to every bit of criticism, or even question raising, with a very angry demeanor. This is not reporters he is talking to like this, this is the American people he is yelling at.
Can Bush be frustrated? Sure he can. But he needs to understand that Americans have been frustrated far longer. Bush has not lost anyone close to him in this useless war. Most Americans have. Bush is not telling his children to be safe and staying up night after night worried about them and if they have the gear necessary to keep them safe. Many Americans do that. Add to that the fact that the American people have been lied to and that the administration has tried time and time again to play the American people has fools, you get a country that is fed up with their leader. This is what Bush and his policies have created and this is what he will live with. Bush works for us and he will answer to us.
Of course to get Bush to answer is the trick. The only way is to change control of Congress. If you think the Republicans would hold Bush accountable, just look at this:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the Iraq war.
“The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue,”Frist said in an interview with the Concord Monitor on Tuesday.
Right there the leader of the Senate is saying “don’t talk about Iraq”. The Republicans have put their heads in the sand with this issue, while their robots on the airwaves try to make it sound like everything is the plan of the ultimate boogeyman – “terrorists”. The failed policies of Iraq are what made the insurgents rise to such power. That very same failed policy is what allowed us to take our eyes off of Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to come back to power there. Bush’s thick skinned approach to this war is what has put America in a more dangerous place, while costing us dearly. That is the very failures the Republicans turn their backs to. That is the very reason the Republicans do not deserve to be in control after this year. They haven’t just failed the people of this country – they have neglected their obligations under the Constitution of the United States. A little obligation called “oversight”.