My name is Serge.

Now that the President has introduced his glorious surge escalation punt plan I'd like to go on the record for the umpeenth-millionth time as saying we should get our troops the hell out of there and out of middle of the civil war Bush's ignorant stupidity facilitated.

I share the worries expressed by some that the subtext of Bush's speech last night is that we will shortly be attacking Iran, Syria or both via airstrikes. The veiled threats towards those countries and the promise of patriot missile batteries (useless against an insurgency of which mortars and IEDs pretty much top off their list of technological weapons) make it pretty clear that Bush has more than increased troop levels planned. The insurgents don't have an airplanes or missiles. The Iranians and Syrians do.

What we'll probably be seeing is a series of airstrikes against Iran and a military move against Sadr in Iraq. More of the whack-a-mole strategy this administration is so good at. I'm sure the Shiite majority in Iraq will be happy to just sit back and let this happen. Not only will we be sending more troops into Iraq, we'll be taking action to make sure their tour is infinetly more dangerous.

After watching the not-so-bright neighborhood boy repeatedly poking the beehive with a stick only to be swarmed and stung one reaches a certain point where you take that stick away.