Benchmarks

Steve Inskeep continues the series about training US troops in Fort Riley, Kansas for missions in Iraq. How apropos that Inskeep opens the piece by noting that Fort Riley was one of the centers for the US wars against American Indians.

The training at Fort Riley is to make US troops into better "trainers" of Iraqi forces. It is, Inskeep tells us, "a job that may have to succeed before American troops leave Iraq." Sounds like "standing up and standing down"; there's a new concept! No mention that the US troops might leave Iraq because the American voters want them out, the Iraqis want them out, or that the original "mission" was a farce and a disaster.

I have to say that one of the saddest aspects to NPRs coverage of the Iraq War is how often the troops they interview are well-meaning, decent, intelligent (and often idealistic) people. And yet there is never a sense conveyed of how grossly these people are being wasted and exploited by the politicians they serve (starting from the top with the Doofus-in-Chief and working down to the members of Congress who abdicate their Constitutional responsibilities of declaring and or funding wars).