What the Heck was I Thinking!?

Rep. Sylvester Reyes, a Texas Democrat who now chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a position during an interview December 5th.

Then, along comes President Bush last week, saying nearly the same thing. As reported in the Washington Post:

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq,” the story began, Mr. Reyes “said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a ’stepped up effort to dismantle the militias.’ ”

“We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq,” the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, “I would say 20,000 to 30,000.”

Then came President Bush’s expected announcement last week, virtually matching Mr. Reyes’ recommendation and argument word-for-word — albeit the president proposed only 21,500 troops.

Wouldn’t you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable.

“We don’t have the capability to escalate even to this minimum level,” he said.

Oh, really!? Then why would the chairman propose just that solution barely a month ago? Did he not know what he was talking about?

Source: Inside the Beltway - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper

 Captain Ed of Captain’s Quarters blog posted an entry that includes this paragraph:

In the extended areas of the radical Islamic jihad, retreat seems to be the order of the day. AQ-related Islamists in Somalia have fled in a rout and are getting picked off a few at a time as they try to escape to Kenya and points beyond. Abu Sayyaf has lost its leadership and finds itself mostly trapped on one island in the Philippine chain. Even in Baghdad, the AQ elements appear to be redeploying over an event horizon as a reaction to a bigger commitment by the US to smoking out the terrorists.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that life for AQ terrorists isn’t very good. Maybe the West IS winning.

Of course we have the legacy press and Democrats telling us we’re failing. It must be true.

Although, even the AQ in Iraq doesn’t seem to like the idea of a troop surge in Baghdad.

Maybe that’s a better idea than Democrats would have us believe.

Source: Captain’s Quarters