Welcome to the Roach Motel Iraq

I bury those cockroaches!
-- Tony Montana, "Scarface"

The President just gave his plan on Iraq in what came across as a sober, grim speech that is being touted for its realism and sincerity. The plan comprises several parts, the most prominent of which is the so-called "surge" of troops to Iraq, specifically Baghdad.

I must admit that Pres. Bush's performance last night was one of the few times I could actually listen to him and not find myself in wonderland. He connected sentences in a way that I think his college rhetoric professor would have found laudable. ...

Unfortunately, the disconnect between the old Bush whose almost aphasic news conferences and this new Bush caused my brain to overheat in paranoiac visions.

As I heard Bush unfold his "strategery" I almost (seriously) said out loud "Roach Motel." I swear the man was describing a vision so absurd and so bizarre that I saw US troops being lured into this large trap and dying slow deaths like roaches stuck in glue.

Those unfamiliar with student housing might not have seen a roach motel. These little devices for killing the pests involves luring them into a rectangular box that has an incredibly sticky glue on all sides. The roaches enter, get stuck, and die over several days. In places where the roaches are bad, these motels can literally fill up the entire space of the box.

Why isn't anyone discussing the dangers of this strategy? Are people seriously unconcerned about buddying up US troops with Iraqis whose loyalties appear to be less than certain--and probably more anti-Us than pro-US?

What are the chances that insurgent strategists are rubbing their hands together with glee at the thought of having US soldiers concentrated in one area, open to encirclement and a war of attrition by booby trap and bushwacking?

On top of this, there's that old nagging feeling that you'll have heavily armed potential traitors behind you as you barge in on their neighbors and relatives to find and kill the guy who was a friend last week.

Welcome to the Roach Motel Iraq--where many a soldier in the next few months will feel like they're going nowhere but into the bogs of hell.