FLASHBACK: One Year Ago, Gen. Casey Told Bush ‘Less Is Better,’ Pushed Reducing Troops In Iraq

Today, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that top American commanders — including Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. — have “decided to recommend a ’surge’ of fresh American combat forces” in Iraq.

But exactly one year ago, Casey rejected a troop increase in Iraq and recommended to President Bush that the number of U.S. forces should actually drop:

As I’ve said before this is not a conventional war, and in this type of war that we’re fighting, more is not necessarily better. In fact, in Iraq, less coalition at this point in time, is better. Less is better because it doesn’t feed the notion of occupation, it doesn’t work the culture of dependency, it doesn’t lengthen the time for Iraqi forces to be self-reliant, and it doesn’t expose coalition forces to risk when there are Iraqi forces who are capable of standing up and doing it.

Casey has not explained the reason for his sudden turnaround and how an increase in troops in 2007 won’t now “feed the notion of occupation” or increase “the culture of dependency.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously opposed to Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and many military officials believe that Bush has tried to bribe them into supporting his escalation plan by offering a tradeoff of increasing the size of the military.

John in DC, AmericaBlog: I remember a day when our generals actually had balls. Now they're simply pathetic. They objected to sending more troops to Iraq, but because Bush wants it, now they're in favor. They're condemning our men and women to death for a policy they know is a failure. Why? Because they're not man enough to stand up for their own. So Bush will continue to say that he will make policy in Iraq based on what the generals want, and the generals will keep on genuflecting to Bush even when they oppose his policies. That spells disaster. It also spells a lot of unnecessary death and injuries for our troops. Too bad our generals don't seem to care about that fact.

Funny, but when Clinton was considering lifting the ban on gays in the military, all the military was up in arms, and all the top generals - starting at the top with Colin Powell - practically mutinied. But when Bush decides to continue a criminally negligent war that is a disaster, all because he's too arrogant and stupid to change course, our generals sit back and shut up. I guess the deaths of 3,000 of our soldiers aren't nearly as big a deal to the generals as a couple of gay guys wanting to enlist.

Pathetic.