Benchmarks???????

Dear editor:

“Benchmarks” is today’s key word in politics and is being used by both parties in Congress as the litmus test for judging whether or not the “troop surge” and “change in tactics” is successful in the Iraq war. The administration and our legislative branches of government keep referring to this goal, but do not define exactly what it means. Of course ambiguity in defining what these “benchmarks” are is useful to those who use the term, as it allows political flip-flopping and squirming when the time comes to judge victory or failure of our Iraqi adventure. But then again, the word “victory” has a constantly changing meaning as it slides down a slope of lowered expectations whenever the president defines our goals in that civil war-torn country.

Of course the ambiguous term “benchmarks,” as applied to the unspecified steps and control that the Iraqi government must take for the U.S. to be successful with its new tactics and surge, offers two possible scenarios for the president and his party’s future.

One possibility for these “benchmarks” would be the prayed for success of these actions that would see the eventual return of our troops to our homeland shores and the ceasing of American loss of life (now almost 3,400) and the end of the bleeding of our national economy, that has drained us of almost a trillion dollars. In addition, Iraq itself would be proven to have the will and ability to govern itself and bring peace to a land that has seen the carnage of war for so many years. Not only would the administration and the Republican Party want to see this result, but all America (including Democrats) would truly be thankful.

But one wonders if the other possibility is what is happening. What if the White House, the executive branch of our government that has told us over and over again about WMDs, Hussein trying to buy “yellow cake” for Uranium in Niger, prewar Iraqi ties to Al-Quida, Mission Accomplished, “Final throes of resistance,” is finally realizing that the war is un-winnable and is setting us up for failure? What if they are now setting the Iraqi government up as the scapegoat for their own incompetence and mistakes? This would allow them to turn to the American public and claim that they did all they could to bring democracy and freedom to those beleaguered people, but it was their own government that caused the loss of the war. This is what we all call “passing the buck,” and politicians of all stripes have been known to do this.

Either scenario is a possibility.