What was the true purpose of the Iraq Study Group? This special task force was supposed to enlighten the President by showing him "new" prospectives and "new" alternatives in an attempt to end the Iraq war. That may have been the stated purpose but I don't see it that way at all. I believe it was designed to show the very malleable US public that President Bush is not inflexible, when in reality he could not be more inflexible than he is at this moment. I began to be very skeptical of this initiative when I found out that it would be lead by James Baker (The same James Baker who is defending Saudi officials who are being brought to court by US citizens) and Lee Hamilton (the same Lee Hamilton who co-chaired another cover up, the 9/11 commission.) After President Bush gives the Iraq Study Group report some limited lip service he goes right ahead and does exactly what the commission doesn't want him to do....which is plan to send even more troops to Iraq. The new catch word is "surge". The deployment of an additional 20,000 will give the puppet government of al-Maliki time to strengthen the Iraqi government troops. The newly selected Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Iraq and spoke with "select" troops who told him that they vigorously supported a dramatic increase of US troops in Iraq. Or course it is obvious that they pursued the soldiers who shared Bush and Gates' point of view. The war continues as George Bush continues to give the US public the same old "stay the course" rhetoric even though he no longer literally says "stay the coure" In a few days the do nothing Congress will end and hopefully the new 110th do something Congress will begin. At this time I am really concerned about what Democrats are not saying. Will all major polls showing that the major reasons Republicans were sent packing was because of the war(and not because of corruption that they would have us believe)Democrats are still too timid. Democrats are still afraid of disturbing Republican sensibilities instead just saying "NO MORE WAR" by stopping the funding. The one exception in Dennis Kucinich who has said that if he is elected president the US troops would be out of Iraq in sixty days. This is what the vast majority of US citizens want, yet most Democrats (mainly DLCs but not all)
are afraid of being called "unpatriotic" The money that is being squandered in Iraq could go to hospitals, schools and libraries right here in the United States. The war profiteering that has gone on during the last three years by Halliburton, Bectel, Titan etc. is a shame, billions of dollars intended to help out soldiers went into the pockets of the greedy. The media doesn't want us to know the truth. They are telling us that the Iraqi conquest of Nasaf is a true sign of progress, but Nasaf is only one Iraqi province. There are 18 Iraqi provinces and now the so-called
Coalition forces control 3 of the 18. Whether the media will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the US public remains to be seen. Public relations stunts like the Iraq Study Group is a joke (one that isn't funny).