Thursday, January 25, 2007

the 21.5k solution

I was gone from the country for two weeks, from about Christmas to mid January and was astounded by how fast Bush's surge idea has been imposed on the country.

When I left, the talk was all about the Iraq Study Group, and their recommendations and how Georgie was going to deal with them. Two weeks later, the Decider has spoken, and all of that group's suggestions have been swept aside and the surge is a done deal.

I've got a lot of problems with the idea, but am also curious as to where he came up with the number of 21,500 troops.

In the first place, that's kind of small. It almost implies that we're only 20 something thousand soldiers away from winning this thing... like it's been more or less a closely balanced see-saw up until now, and by putting just that tiny little extra weight on the scales, it's going to swing to Victory with a mighty clank.

Secondly, it's such an oddly precise number.

Did someone parse it out so clearly as to decide that 21,000 wouldn't quite be enough to do the job, yet 22,000 would be overkill?

If so, who?