'Out of touch' Bush wants to boost size of Army

George Bush has announced plans to increase the size of the US army to allow America to take on a "long struggle against radicals and extremists". This must increase speculation that he is going to send even more troops to Iraq in the hope of having some last ditch attempt at success. A move that has been dismissed by US generals on the ground as almost pointless.

With only a third of the electorate now supporting the war and with a Republican Party smarting from a decisive election defeat in which the war featured prominently, Bush is under pressure to find a way to end this disastrous campaign, although he has so far given no indication that he realises just how significantly his position on this conflict has been rejected.

Mr Bush's critics have seized on such a plan as more evidence that the President is out of touch with both the reality in Iraq and the mood of the country. "Bush does not seem to have understood the message of mid-term elections," said Andrew Burgin, spokesman of the Stop the War Coalition. "It's a fantasy to believe that the American people will agree to increased numbers of American troops being killed in Iraq .It's the same with [Tony] Blair and people like Margaret Beckett. The whole political class appears to be out of touch with how this war started, what is happening in Iraq now and what the future holds."

Mr Bush insisted that the US would "win" in Iraq, shifting from his position the previous day when he had said in a newspaper interview that America was neither winning or losing. He said his earlier comments were meant to reflect "that we were going to win, I believe that... My comments yesterday reflected the fact that we're not succeeding nearly as fast as I had wanted."

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a military studies group, said there was no certainty that boosting troops numbers would result in success. "It's called war because you don't know what is going to happen and the enemy has some input," he said.

Bush seems unable to grasp the fact that he has lost this conflict. The Iraq Study Group bent over backwards in an attempt to find a set of circumstances in which he could withdraw and declare victory, but all indications are that Bush is likely to reject the findings of this bipartisan committee.

I know that Nancy Pelosi has ruled out impeachment hearings but, if Bush won't accept the findings of a committee that went out of it's way to find him an exit strategy that saved his face, then I don't see any other option for the US.

American influence is at it's lowest ebb, anti-American sentiment is raging across the globe, and the captain appears to be saying "steady at the wheel".

For the sake of the US as a nation, it is time to remove this man from office.

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tag: Bush, Iraq war, US foreign policy, "Stay the course", troop increase, James T Baker, overstretch, Iraq Survey Group, The Baker Report,