No, the surge is not actually working

Gen. David Petraeus has now joined the ranks of the venal George Bush and Dick Cheney. After many accolades about this pillar of straight-shooting integrity, we now find that he is just as big a fraud as the dynamic duo he works for. The so-called 30,000-troop surge has now grown to 38,000. The so called six-month surge is now being funded for 15 months. Bush has no intention of ending this farce in Iraq and simply wants to pass the final debacle along to his successor.

The Sunni tribal militias are being funded by the U.S. against the wishes of the "free and independent duly elected" Iraqi government. While it may be true that their services have been temporarily rented to control the Islamic extremists in Anbar, the reality is that we are deliberately arming the Sunni tribes so that they may defend themselves against the open civil warfare that will occur when we leave, be it tomorrow or 10 years from now.

The only question is how many Americans will be maimed or die while Bush tries to validate an incredibly stupid decision.

How can we possibly place any store in the babbling of a president that asserts that the only mistake we made in Vietnam was that we left too soon? Should there have been 100,000 dead? While he was hiding in Alabama and Texas, some of us were out there doing the dirty work that the likes of him and Cheney were too good for. They were useless then and they are useless now.

James Prescott

Schaumburg