Tales Of The Unexpected - Yeah, Right

Sometimes the best kind of surprise is no surprise at all. For example, did anyone really believe that three would be a single objective assessment of the U.S. involvement in Iraq as the September deadline for reportage approaches. From a newly released independent study: Iraq's security forces will be unable to take control of the country in the next eighteen months, and Baghdad's national police force is so rife with corruption it should be scrapped entirely. Again, please raise your hand if any of this news struck you with shock and/or awe.
This review is one of several studies that Congress commissioned in May, when it agreed to fund the war for several more months but demanded that the Pinhead administration and outside groups assess U.S. progress in the four-year war. As yet, none of these reviews could be described as "glowing". On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative and auditing arm, reported that Iraq has failed to meet eleven of its eighteen political and security goals. When a student of mine misses eleven out of eighteen anything, it's time for some serious intervention. I would be sending home different work, and suggesting a limit on that student's free time. The Iraqi Parliament took off the entire month of August. The GAO maintained that only three of those eighteen goals had been met fully. Sounds like a case for remediation, maybe some after-school tutoring.
In spite of this, Pinhead's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year. A good teacher knows that simply making students work harder doesn't fix the problem. If a student doesn't understand multiplication, that student will continue to struggle with division, fractions, and decimals. Democracy requires higher level thinking. Getting the lights turned on and the water running is probably a more current concern. A day without undue carnage would probably be a welcome sign as well.
Still, when the White House report crawls out its drawer and into the daylight next week, will it come as a shock that Pinhead will tell us all to stay the course? Don't be surprised.