Huh?

The Boston Globe reported today that General Casey, the Army commanding general of US forces in Iraq, failed to reiterate that the US would be drawing down forces by next spring.

What does our destiny depend on now?

Army General George W. Casey said prospects for reducing US troops depend heavily on the readiness and willingness of the new Iraqi government to take more responsibility for security....

Casey, who said in July that ''fairly substantial" troop reductions were in the offing for 2006, was unwilling in his testimony yesterday to predict when large numbers of US forces could come home despite several questions from legislators seeking answers about troop reductions.

Then he went on to tell the Armed Services Committee something that sounds so disingenuous I'm surprised the papers printed it.

Casey also reminded lawmakers that insurgencies usually take a decade to defeat. ''There is no reason that we should believe that the insurgency in Iraq will take any less time to deal with," he said, although he did not say US forces would have to stay that long.

Which insurgency did we defeat in 10 years, general? The Vietnamese? The Chinese? Oh! Maybe he means the Cuban? What about the American Revolution? That was an insurgency, wasn't it? The French Revolution? The Russian Revolution?

Sorry, General Casey. You are bullshitting Congress and you are bullshitting the people of the United States of America.

You know better than any of us that we cannot defeat an insurgency of this magnitude in a country half-way around the world, surrounded by hostile countries, and where we don't even speak the language! Just because the newspapers print it doesn't mean the people are buying it!