Meet the New Boss. Seasoned Vet's take on rearranging the Sundeck Chairs in the Green Zone:

"For you Juan Cole fans... he seems to be enamored with Petrauus and impressed that Petreous authored THE manual on counterinsurgency which Juan apparently has not bother to read. If he had, he would have noted that Petreous espouses the clear-hold-build doctrine and cites Tal Afar as a shining example of a successful counterinsurgency strategy. By the way, it's not a realistic strategy to surround Baghdad with an 8-foot earthen berm, flatten the city using artillery and air bombardment, and then 'vet' the refugees as they return to the rubble that was once a city.

I'm not jumping on the bandwagon, but it is worth noting that this isn't the only place to find those who want to be more critical of Cole's interpretations of the situation in Iraq. More to the point: the Surge plan is a joke, on a lot of levels, and York's observation about what is truly underneath the "strategy" of it is spot on. In the end, incopentents and yes-men and cronies only have two modes in which they operate. The rules apply to domestic chickenhawks pontificating from the safety of their cocktail party bistro tables, and to those in the military willing to casually toss away the lives of their troops for personal career gain:

1) Everything is/will be going great! Trust me! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Or your lying eyes!

2) Bomb them all into the stone age. Dig in, fortify. Enjoy your own personal Heart of Darkness moment. Make sure it's the cooley towel boy at the end of the line to the roof when the helicopters arrive.

Such are the limitations of small minds. Pity them, and their victims.