“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. — Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the “Declaration of Independence”
It would be very cynical to think that the looming execution of Saddam Hussein would be prior to an announcement by President Gee Dubya on a new Iraq strategy. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the execution itself that would be useful to Bush selling a surge of tens of thousands more troops or whatever it is he might pull out of his ass. But if a swinging Saddam touches off even more violence in Iraq, then the administration could say: “Hey, what’d we tell you. We need more troops and we are always right!”
Maybe it would all come down that way and maybe it wouldn’t. To be a bit Rumsfeldian:
Should Saddam hang? It’s up to others to make that decision. Is Saddam a very bad man? The evidence kind of points in that direction. Did Saddam get a fair trial? Define fair.
Also cynical is the thinking that the Pentagon and commanders in the field will now accept a surge in troops with Bush using the increase of the overall Army and Marine Corps strength as a dangling carrot. After all, the generals were against it before they were for it.
It is indeed a cynical thought but one that apparently is being mulled over.
Cynicism is rarely pleasant. But if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, well it might not be that funny little Aflac duck, but one can damn sure bet it will be a duck of some sort.
