Bush Wants to Expand Military

You and what army?

Bush said he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to develop a plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps, heeding warnings from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the armed forces toward the breaking point.

…[T]he president said he interpreted the Democratic election victories six weeks ago not as a mandate to bring the U.S. involvement in Iraq to an end but as a call to find new ways to make the mission there succeed.

Of course he did. Because he is Teh Crazy. Teh Crazy not only believes that the American people want him to send more troops, but that more troops can be found. Teh Crazy also believes we are neither winning nor losing.

"An interesting construct that General Pace uses is, 'We're not winning, we're not losing'," Bush said, referring to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the Joint Chiefs chairman, who was spotted near the Oval Office before the interview. "There's been some very positive developments. . . . [But] obviously the real problem we face is the sectarian violence that needs to be dealt with."

Asked yesterday about his "absolutely, we're winning" comment at an Oct. 25 news conference, the president recast it as a prediction rather than an assessment. "Yes, that was an indication of my belief we're going to win," he said.

Sometimes Teh Crazy lies, too, because he is desperate and drowning in his own cesspool of incompetence.

Teh Crazy's plan to expand the military is going to cost a lot of money:

…A force structure expansion would accelerate the already-rising costs of war. The administration is drafting a supplemental request for more than $100 billion in additional funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the $70 billion already approved for this fiscal year, according to U.S. officials. That would be over 50 percent more than originally projected for fiscal 2007, making it by far the costliest year since the 2003 invasion.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for terrorism-related operations elsewhere. An additional $100 billion would bring overall expenditures to $600 billion, exceeding those for the Vietnam War, which, adjusted for inflation, cost $549 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Teh Crazy must be stopped. That's the mandate of the Democratic election victories six weeks ago, and the Democrats had better stop him, because he has lost. the. plot.

(Digby makes an important point about the costs of this harebrained idea, too.)