On the indisputable fact that George W. Bush hides behind the troops to deflect criticism and deny the failure of his policies, and that the only way we can do anything about it is to change the terms of the debate, Wes Clark saidbest:
We need to stop arguing over the troops or their tactics but raise the debate to the administration’s strategies and policies in this region. Here’s why. We can’t succeed in Iraq with more troops, no matter how good they are, because we can’t succeed in this war just by killing people or intimidating the opposition.
He continues:
The administration doesn’t want to talk about this. They want to talk about troops. They want to say they support our troops, and if we question the numbers of troops or their effectiveness, they want to say we don’t support our troops. That we’re not patriotic, and if we’re not patriotic, then we don’t have a voice.
When we argue about troops, what we’re doing is we’re playing on George Bush’s home court. We’re not going to change the policy by arguing about the troop strength. We’ve done it. We’re on record. We want the troops home, but we must raise the dialogue. Take it away from George Bush’s safe ground of troops and people in uniform and “How dare you question these Generals and these people in uniform that are so patriotic,” and say, “No, we’re not questioning the Generals. Mr. President, we are questioning you.”
The only person who can make a difference is the person who controls the overall strategy in the region. We must make the debate about George Bush and his failure of leadership.
He’s absolutely right. In fact, I think this line in bold is the answer to a good number of recent battles we should have won but did not…