[Vision2020] Once More Into The Breach

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

Kudos to Bill London for writing such a cogent and concise letter on Iraq as another Vietnam.  Here is a similar view with Shakespearean references.

Once more unto the breach
by Simon Tisdall

Bush's revised Iraq strategy is short on new ideas. If it fails he will be more a dead duck than a lame one.

Wednesday January 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

In the manner of Henry V, with terrible aspect of eye, George Bush will tonight invite the American people to follow him once more unto the Iraqi breach. But with his leadership in unprecedented doubt, with Baghdad's daily mayhem unabated and 20,000 additional soldiers heading into harm's way, the public is evidently alarmed that their president will instead close the wall up with American dead. Agincourt it ain't.

Mr Bush's revised strategy can hardly be called "new". Many key elements have been tried before, without much success. What is different now is the high level of presidential commitment to the plan, and the extent to which Mr Bush's personal prestige and his White House legacy are riding on its outcome.

Republican supporters profess to admire his "not-for-turning" Thatcheresque grit. But for critics such as columnist Paul Krugman, Mr Bush's Iraq bungling has created a "a quagmire of the vanities - a place where America is spending blood and treasure to protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong".

Rest of column deleted.

Nick Gier