Philippines Tell Bush to--You Know

President Arroyo Cheneyed the Coalition-of-one-less-Willing according to this Bloomberg article. As a result, Angelo de la Cruz, the truck driver being held hostage by insurgents, will apparently be allowed to go home.

It won't surprise me if Team Bush spins this as bad news, i.e., Arroyo calling home a whopping 51-soldier contingent in order to save the life of one person--and, if they do spin it that way, perhaps we can talk about their lack of respect "for individual human life."

In related news, ten Filipino truck drivers, caught in an ambush while attempting to drive back to Saudi Arabia as part of a US supply convoy, have been repatriated to their country's Iraq embassy. It's expected they'll eventually return to Saudi Arabia, where they'd previously been employed.

While it's patently obvious that such a small number of soldiers has no bearing whatsoever on the ground situation, the withdrawal underscores the quandry Bush finds himself in: Iraq has become a black hole for the administration, sucking up resources at an astounding rate--with no prospect at all for any sort of meaningful return--while simultaneously ruining the reputation of the US as a leader with ANY sort of moral standing. A couple of days ago, Joe Wilson nicely summed up what Bush has bestowed upon the nation:

“Everything they have put into play since Sept. 11 has come up horse turds.” (link to Wilson's remarks via Today in Iraq).

On the bright side, however: Black Holes might not be "so terminally destructive after all," according to this article in Reuters.