Surging

The word "surge" keeps cropping up, as if we were fighting the war with electricity and not human beings. --Garrison Keillor

The Bush administration tells us the surge is designed to give cover to the al-Maliki government -- enough cover to allow it to get its act together and take control of the country. But it can't be possible, can it, that anyone actually believes that al-Maliki has the wherewithal to do this? He' s a weak puppet, with Moqtada al-Sadr pulling the strings. How is al-Maliki supposed to "rein in" Shiite death squads when al-Sadar, the leader of the death squads, is more powerful than he? (It's like asking George Bush to rein in Dick Cheney. He can't and wouldn't if he could. )

Maybe in reality the surge is a desperate attempt to bring enough order to Baghdad to allow us to withdraw our troops in a calm and dignified fashion, rather than the fashion of our withdrawal from Saigon, with someone blowing a whistle and crying "Every man for himself!"

"Surge." Why do the closing words of Flann O'Brien's "The Hard Life" keep popping into my mind: "a tidal surge of vomit."