What’s the point of all these politicians going on junket tours at taxpayers’ expense other than for boasting rights that they are concerned for our troops. How many boring statements have you heard proudly announcing their third, fifth, eighth, or fourteenth trip simply to tell us it’s going well or badly? Warner returns concluding that a paltry sum of troops should be home for Christmas. Biden comes up with a partition plan and pushing for it time and time again. McCain has had a lovely day shopping at Baghdad’s flea market; oh, and by the way, [between grapes] the surge is working.
Without actually being embedded with a fighting unit, all politicians get to assess the challenges is from the perspective of the Green Zone—comfortably equipped with amenities—and the commanders there, dressed in battle fatigue but never face to face with an enemy.
The only civilians I ever witnessed in the Pacific was Bob Hope [ensemble] and Eleanor Roosevelt, both of whom, needless to say, never suggested a plan to end the war so troops could go home.