Brooks says some bone-headed things sometimes, but he's definitely not a "far-right extremist". He's pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage. He has also been one of the few conservative that's been questioning Bush's Iraq policy for years. Don't get me wrong - I watch the newshour every friday night, and nearly always find myself agreeing with Mark. But, compare him to Paul Gigot (whom he replaced), for instance, and he's much more centrist. In fact, IIRC, he used to be a registered democrat.

The Newshour on PBS has much better coverage of this, but is not siftable.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/carmona_07-10.html
http://pbs-newshour.onstreammedia.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user=pbs-newshour&squery=%2BClipID%3A4+%2BVideoAsset%3Apbsnh071007&template=player.html&inputFi
eld=%20&ccstart=2004218&ccend=2521887&videoId=pbsn

agreed legacy... Moore tends to be highly vitriolic, enough so that I don't want him being a spokesperson for my views.

enzoblue - even if for-profit companies were completely removed from the healthcare equation, it would not remove the need for cost control. Every socialized medical system in the world has some kind of cost controls.

If we really wanted to reduce healthcare costs in this country, we would do things like banning cigarettes outright, require comprehensive physical and sex education in schools, have much stronger food labeling laws, increase funding for local health clinics (so poor folk don't have to go to the emergency room to see a doctor), etc., etc. But I doubt any of these things are going to happen.

On a side note... Newshour on PBS last night had a good piece on political pressure being put on the Surgeon General: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/carmona_07-10.html
(there's video also available, but the link is like 300 characters long - just go to recent programs).

"There is no clear plan for the deployment of the extra 21,000 troops. Most will be stationed in Iraq and the Anbar province. There is no additional task given to these other then blanket security operations which would only mean exposing the troops to more hostile fire."

Yes, it will expose more soldiers to hostile fire. The fact remains however that casualties throughout the Iraq War have been remarkably light given the nature and length of operations we have been conducting there. Over 3,000 deaths and 20,000+ wounded looks horrible on paper, and is certainly tragic, but the reality is that the casualty rates are not yet high enough to have any significant impact on combat effectiveness. If a given Rifle company loses 7 men and has about 25 wounded over the course of a one year tour (these were the casualties sustained in a cavalry company commanded by a friend of mine), there will be very little impact on the overall combat effectiveness of said company. Yes, casualties are bad but so long as they do not significantly impact combat effectiveness they have no tactical or operational impact upon the conduct of a war. They do however further sour public opinion, but at this stage of the game I think the people who will only support a war below a certain casualty threshold have long since stopped supporting the Iraq war.

"At the same time you are dropping an influx of troops into a country where 70% of the population looks upon your forces as occupiers. All that would do is unify the resistance and insurgency against coalition forces even more."

Certainly true, but at the same time the Iraqis are absolutely desperate for some kind of security and increasingly do not care who provides it:

"Now, it's one thing to say that polls show -- American commanders say it -- that most Iraqis, 80 percent of them, do not like being occupied, true. But if you ask any individual Iraqi in any of these areas whether he would rather see more of American troops, they almost invariably say, "Yes," unless they're members of the Mahdi army or one of the militias, because that's what brings calm to the area." -John Burns, New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/baghdad_01-10.html

"It is best I do not use her name. Any Iraqi known to have contact with foreigners is at risk. And security is the only issue that matters now, she says. "Everything depends on it. I am not worrying about democracy, about the economy. The security comes first, and we've lost that." ' -Andrew North, BBC Correspondent, Baghdad

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6192815.stm

The point is that it really does not seem like the Iraqis really care who provides security, at this point, so long as they don't need to be constantly afraid of getting kidnapped or killed by a carbomb. We can talk about cultural differences and national pride etc. but I know that if I had been living in such conditions for several years, I'd be willing to be under "foreign occupation" if it meant I could stop being constantly afraid for myself and my family. Based upon what the above two, and other correspondents are reporting I'd say that the average Iraqi is in a similar state of mind.

"Either way, what will that force increase do without a clear working plan? Are US forces going to be used to actively suppress the Sunni or Shi'a militias?"

That's my understanding. Due to a lack of US and Iraqi National troops a security vacuum was created in Iraq. The Sunni insurgency was able to take such firm root because of said vacuum. The Sunni insurgency eventually began targeting Shiites, which prompted the Shiites to form militias for their own protection. Reprisal killings sparked reprisal killings and the result is a Sunni-Shi'a civil war on top of the original Sunni insurgency. The idea behind the surge is to provide sufficient US forces to establish joint security sites in the key neighborhoods of Baghdad that will take the place of the various militias. If you can get a (relatively) impartial third party providing security in lieu of sectarian militias, you have a possibility of slowing down or even stopping the escalation of reprisal killings.