New American Troops Going to Iraq Without Better Humvees

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that new troops bound for Iraq will be arriving without the more armored transports that are supposedly being made for the Pentagon. So let's see if we have this right: initially Bubble-Boy doesn't send enough troops to do the job. Then he doesn't have body armor for the ones that he sent over. Not only doesn't he have enough body armor, but he also doesn't have appropriately armored transport vehicles. When all this is pointed out to the Pentagon, it promises to develop a better transport vehicle, only its not ready in time to be used by the troops that are being sent as BB escalates the war. If the consequences weren't so terrible for our troops, this would almost sound like a bad joke. (You can read the Sun article by clicking on the title of this entry.)

Gallup Poll Finds Big Majority Opposes Iraq War Escalation

The Gallup organization ran a pre-Bush speech (scheduled for Wednesday) poll on the issue of escalating the Iraqi War and found that a big majority opposes such escalation. (You can get the details by clicking on this entry's title. ) Gallup believes that support for the Bush's plan may increase after he gives the speech, but initially over 60% of the public is opposed to increasing the number of troops in Iraq.

Note that we are avoiding using the term "surge" to describe the planned troop increase. The word "surge" implies a short-term increase in troops, but there is nothing in this administration's recent history to give us confidence that the troop increase will be short-term, no matter what Bush says or doesn't say Wednesday night. We also think that the media is playing into Bush's hands when they allow him and his supporters to decide what language is going to be used to describe their actions.

One of the ways that Bush controls the media is by getting it to accept his language. His supporters use a label and if the media doesn't accept that label, it is accused of "bias" or more specifically, "liberal bias." Apparently the charge of "liberal bias" is so intimidating that grown men and women feel that they have no choice but to give in to the demands of Bush and his radical right-wing supporters.

Here is a news flash for the media: you get to decide what language to use to describe Bush's actions. That's part of your job. You are more than just stenographers blindly reporting what Bush and his supporters say.