Bill Maxwell: White House delivers surge in lies, hypocrisy

[Doondoo]

To surge or not to surge could be a great and honest national debate. It certainly is a needed debate. But we are not having an honest debate.

We are being fed devious semantics about who supports our troops and who does not. To Republicans backing the surge, wanting to bring our troops home and take them out of harm's way is tantamount to being the enemy of our troops.

Think how illogical this position sounds: If you want to save the lives our soldiers, if you do not want to see another limb blown off, if you do not want to see another brain pierced by shrapnel and if you want little children to see their parents return home safely from the battlefield, you do not support the troops.

Instead, you are portrayed as aiding and abetting the terrorists and demoralizing our troops. Listen to Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas: "The enemy wants our men and women in uniform to think that their Congress doesn't care about them ...that they're going to cut the funding and abandon them and their mission."

Unaccountably, at least to me, this kind of hogwash actually works with many Americans. It also works well with some foreign leaders who support Bush's Iraq policies. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, whose nation has fewer than 2,000 troops in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition, is a good example. Last week, Howard suggested that terrorists would dance in the streets and toss candy and flowers if Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama - who opposed the Iraq war from the outset - were elected president. By the way, not one Australian soldier has been killed in combat in Iraq.



http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/18/News/White_House_delivers_.shtml