Bush whips up a storm over 'surge'

By Jim Lobe
Asia Times

"......Bush's remarks, the first in a series of appearances and other administration initiatives designed to rally support for maintaining as many as 170,000 US troops in Iraq well into next year in advance of a critical report to Congress due in mid-September, suggested to supporters and critics alike that the president remains as determined as ever to hold out against pressure, even from his own party, to begin withdrawing troops in the coming months......

But critics argued that Bush fundamentally misunderstood the historical precedents he cited. "Bush is cherry-picking history to support his case for staying the course," said Johns, who was a senior military planner during the Vietnam War. "What I learned in Vietnam is that US forces could not conduct a counterinsurgency operation. The longer we stay there [Iraq], the worse it's going to get."

As for Bush's references to the violence, especially in Cambodia, that followed its withdrawal from Indochina, Simon noted that much of it happened "because the United States left too late, not too early. It was the expansion of the war [into Cambodia] that opened the door to Pol Pot and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The longer you stay the worse it gets." "