The McCaffrey trip report

The Belmont Club ^ | May 03, 2006 | Wretchard

[Cannoneer No. 4]

It's a crying damn shame The Belmont Club has to be posted in Bloggers & Personal where nobody will ever see it.

[Kenny Bunkport]

I expect this to be given major play by CBS/ABC/NBC (not!).

[TLOne]

I'm for bumpping this one up.

[larryjohnson]

save

[zarf]

This is a must read.

Iraq has turned a corner and the bad guys are getting their asses kicked.

In 2 years Iraq will be well on it's way.

On top of that I am convinced Bush will not allow Iran to go nuke.

When he leaves office we will see a mighty different lay of the land.....and his critics will be looking like fools.

[Marine_Uncle]

I appreciate your concern about this report not making it to news/activism. Seems like this should be pinged to a lot of folks. I realize it is now dated, just bumped into it today. But I shall ping a few folks for starters.

[Marine_Uncle]

Ping
How about pinging some other folks I surely missed on this one . Sadly it could not have been posted in news/activism, for surely it warrants the space.

[Enchante]

This is a great piece - I wish it could be read by everyone in the world, and especially by all of the MSM (well of course they won't care about anything that doesn't fit their vision). Yes there are still serious problems, obviously, but tremendous progress has been made in so many ways and this is going to be a real success story that will embarrass the critics (well many of them are beyond embarrassment and beyond caring). Thanks for the ping!!

[ScaniaBoy]

Thanks for the ping!

Very good read.

[Peach]

Excellent article. And by a former detractor. Thanks for the ping.

[Grampa Dave]

FYI and bump/ping lists.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

[SevenMinusOne]

Thanks - I hadn't caught Gen. McCaffrey 2006 comments (clearly those in the MSM don't want many others too either).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the pings....3 to 5 years....now there is a problem....

[Marine_Uncle]

".3 to 5 years....now there is a problem...."
Only a gut estimate based on current conditions. The al Qaeda could literly fold soon. In fact it really does appear they will continue to be only a trouble maker capable of setting of a few attacks for the L/MSM pleasure. If the Mahdi Army and Badr Brigade and other militas are outlawed, and then give up their arms. Again, will settle down considerably.
Radical religious Sunni groups such as Ansar-al-Islam? Who knows. One cannot expect any Muslim country to not have a bunch of goons fighting for some given cause.
So for all we know the insurgency may peter out within a year. A years worth of captured and killed insurgents/terrorist is a lot of people. And as they find no replacements, the remenants will disperse into the population and end hostilities.
So perhaps we really are on schedule for pulling out by the end of 2008, only keeping agreed units in country, command group to interface with the Iraqi Army, spook shops, Airforce personel to get them further along in their future airforce, etc..

[river rat]

I dunno folks.... Sounds like a lot of whistling past the cemetery....
A belligerent Iran, to say nothing of a nuclear Iran -- will act as a force multiplier to whatever number of lunatic Jihadists wish to carry on the fight in Iraq or Afghanistan...

Add to that, extortion by oil by the Arabs or our "friends" in South America -- can continue to play havoc with the world economy..


I've yet to see a rational prediction as to what kind of ally Iraq will be to the West -- once the "insurgency" or "civil war" is concluded.. Are we being asked to believe that Iraq - with an Islamic "constitution" - will be any reliable friend to the U.S. in a confrontation with any other Islamic state?
Perhaps as "good" a friend as was Turkey, when we needed their assistance before the invasion of their "Islamic brother" nation?

To use an couple of old phrases --- Don't count your chickens before they hatch --- and It ain't over until the fat ladies sings ...

The fat ladies in this scenario are the murderous mullahs and President of Iran and the assholes in Syria for starters...

Our war with militant murderous Islam has yet to begin in "earnest"....

Semper Fi

[Prost1]

I just saw the excerpts. But this is the guy who did a good job in GulgWar1 and then became Clinton's DRUG CSAR.

What to make of current commentary by a General who failed for 8 years?

Something to think about...

[Marine_Uncle]

Yo Marine.
Surely those of us that continue to bring out the positive things that are happening harbor similiar thoughts as you brought out. I don't think anyone is wearing rose colored glasses. We appreciate how the Arabs in general operate only to well at this juncture in time.
I will say this however. I am convinced that Iran is behaving the way it is due to the fact a democratically elected sectarian lead government in Iraq is now a reality.
If this government keeps the pledges Malaki has elucidated on in the past two weeks, e.g. insurgency must be put down, all Iraqi must benefit by creating new industries (jobs), the infrastructure must be rebuilt and surpassed from pre-invasion, the oil industry improved on electricity for all etc.. NOTE: He must have a general concensious at this point that these things will be priorities.
Then the ME is going to look at Iraq and start asking, why doesn't our monarchs, elected PMs and presidents treat us in the same way.
We most certainly realize change does not happen quickly. It could take ten years or more for countries like Syria to be allowed to actually elect a representive government for all Syrians.
I believe that a lot of us hear have read a lot of things that have been changing in the Arab world and just don't remember that change for the positive is taking place.
Kuwait for instance has given women more rights, they can now vote. All the main ME countries can be shown to now be working with us in the WOT. And they continue to go after the goons in their countries. They are cracking down on what the religious leaders can get away with. Radical imans are being warned to stop promoting jihad or end up in jail.

Iran obviously is not following suit but going the opposite. They are making the yoke heavier on their people under the guise of Shara law. The Mullahs and their puppet president either consolidate more power and remove more freedom of movement etc., or risk having the people turn against them. They must become even more repressive. But then we see some mullahs may be getting afraid if the US invades, if the Swiss Banks and other's lock all their personal wealth up, they could end up on the short end of the stick.
We don't know just how the 50 mullahs and their associates are reacting to what madman Ahmadinajah is doing of lately.
For all we know they may be getting scared. I had sited one example recently of how Ahmadinajah had basically demanded that the Iranian state bank more all the money into some private accounts in foreign banks, where it supposedly would be safe in case the US decided to unload on them.
Well his demand was meet with a NO. The mullah, forget his name now, in charge of finance refused to do it.
So. Sometimes what may appear to be really black may only be dark grey. All sane minds in Iran realize if we go in they lose big time. Most do not have any Messianic visions that allah is going to protect them. They understand what we can and will do if it comes down to taking out their nuclear facilities and all military elements that attempted to appose the strikes.
And we must always remember most of the Arab countries in the ME secretly hope the US will keep Iran in check. They don't want them to get the bomb let alone perfect long range missiles that can say hit a few dozen oil refineries in Saudi Arabia.
Other then Syria, the rest of the Arab states really do not trust Iran at all, and some consider them a long term enemy based on the Arab/Persian differences.
One thing is for sure. Radical Islamofacist shall always do what ever they can to do harm to whom they want to.
No different then there will always be drug kings running gangs for easy money.
The book on all the Iraqi Pre-Invasion that outlines all the attacks over the years and all the Islamic terroist groups building up their structure, working with one another when required goes way back. The Russians tought Arrafat well as how to perfect the art of terrorism, as well as their gaining much from the Irish.
Perhaps Iraq will not become an ally as you and I would classify it. But then again, perhaps they will given sufficient trade agreements, continued help from western nations in the rebuilding process.
And they are not dopes. They have how many years to look back on and see that every time they came up against either the US or Israel they get their teeth kicked. The Russians failed them miserably.
So who knows. Like the Kuwaitis, and members within the UAE, e.g Barain, Qatar, they may end up becoming allies. Kuwait has done is right. We freed them and help invest in them and now they are living high off the hog.
It could happen in Iraq. And if Iraq is the key as the administration has set forth, which I believe is accurate, we may have a long time partner in the ME to help further stabilize the whole ME eventually. People that go to work every day and bring home a paycheck are less likely to want to run around with a gun for some idiotic cuase. And surely much or the Arab world is seeing how idiotic their causes truely are. They now start to question just how stupid they have been for the past 1000 years plus.
Of course I exclude the real bird brains that only want to kill in the name of the black rock from the above. For them, there is only one solution. And the Muslim countries must as they now are, eliminate those types.

[nopardons]

Thanks for the ping! :-)