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As Obama considers McChrystal’s demand for more troops – in fact more troops than we had initially heard (60,000 plus!) one Democratic senator has apparently decided to sign up with the McCain posse to support the McChrystal escalation push.

McChrystal may been shushed by his superiors but the pressure continues with more leaks reporting that he described leaving troop levels where they are as “high risk.” Unmentioned in all this are “new US intelligence reports” that describe the majority of “insurgents” as “ninety percent is a tribal, localized insurgency” who “see themselves as opposing the United States because it is an occupying power.”

Such intelligence does not seem to sway the senator from California who today said on ABC’s This Week:

I don’t know how you put somebody in who was as crackerjack as General McChrystal, who gives the president very solid recommendations, and not take those recommendations if you’re not going to pull out.

Crackerjack Diane? I guess you were real happy with his crackerjack command of Camp Nama – or maybe it is his crackerjack coverup of the Tillman case – or is it his ability to flaunt the chain of command to pressure his commander in chief?

She continued:

If you don’t want to take the recommendations, then you — you — you put your people in such jeopardy, just like the base in Nuristan. We lost eight of our men. We didn’t have the ability to defend them, and now the base is closing, and effectively we’re — we’re retreating away from it. And so I think the decision has to be made sooner, rather than later.

Sen. Feinstein of course wants us all to believe that her prime motivation is her concern for the women of Afghanistan – a concern she followed with a recommendation that we “look for the warlords we can work with.”  Given that Afghan women activists have consistently pointed to those very warlords as the perpetrators of severe abuse of women it’s hard to believe this claim.

Is it too cynical to wonder whether Ms Feinstein is instead motivated by concerns closer to home. Perhaps her husband’s defense contracts are running a tad thin?

Or does she just swoon over a hard jawed man in uniform?