Just a snip from yet another smart article from Adam Yoshida.
Lando 
Posted on 04/07/2004 6:55:28 AM PDT by Lando Lincoln
In the next few days we’re going to hear a lot from both war opponents and a variety of nervous twits who are ostensibly on our side about how we’re “losing” Iraq. This will be patent nonsense, of course, but it will get very good play in the media. “Iraq is in chaos,” various correspondents will intone to the very concerned and proper nods of the anchor back in New York or Atlanta. The timid among the Congress (meaning: about eighty members of the Senate) will all suddenly become convinced of their own strategic genius, along with all of the various “military experts” invited to talk on every network. When this is all over it will be quickly forgotten and the bizarre predictions made during this time will be washed away by a willingly forgetful mainstream media acting in alliance with a confused and bored American public.
We need to understand the truth of what is going on in Iraq: a combined group of Baa’thist and al-Qaeda hold-outs have stumbled into a desperate battle against US forces while, at the same time, a rag-tag militia assembled by a petulant and radical Mullah who is upset that he was excluded from the government is attempting a minor and, militarily, largely aimless uprising. This is not a fight in which “the Iraqi people” are joining. How do I know this? Simple: if this “uprising” were generalized, thousands or tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians would have died today. They didn’t. The average Iraqi in the affected areas is huddled up in his home. He isn’t joining the mob, he’s waiting for the Americans to come and shoot down the mob or, in the worst case, he’s staying away from them because he knows that the Americans are going to shoot them down.
Some people are treating this like it’s the fall of 1950 and the Chinese are pouring across the Yalu. Most reports suggest that Al-Sadr’s forces consist of little more than a few thousand irregular, Iranian-armed, militia. In fact, by the standards of what the Coalition has already faced, they’re not much of a long-term challenge at all. If these people were smart, they’d have opened their “offensive” with a series of suicide bombings and other, similar, attacks. That they didn’t suggest that they lack the skills to do so (or they’re taken with some insane notion that they can beat American forces in open battle). In any case, the odds are very high that most of them will have fled (or be dead) within a week, along with a large number of terrorists in Fallujah.
I do not mean to say that the United States has not made mistakes in the occupation of Iraq: this is to be expected in war. The creation of a new and effective Iraqi Army has been far slower than it ought to have been. More importantly, the United States has hesitated to take tough measures in too many cases for fear of being accused of treating Iraq as a colony (which, at the present time, is exactly what it essentially is). In particular, the United States has been too reluctant to crack down upon the political annoyances which have sprung up in post-war Iraq and too slow to resort to force when force is called for. In their colonial administrations the British knew well enough to, for much of the time, “let the Wogs alone,” (as any of a number of Victorian soldiers might have put it) but they also knew when to remind them that, “whatever happens we have got the Maxim gun, and (you) have not.”
There are things which could be improved in Iraq, but I’ll tell you two things that shouldn’t be: the number of troops and the date of the transfer of sovereignty. The people making the arguments for modifications in both of these aren’t really all that serious; they’re simply looking for a way to criticize the Administration on Iraq without seeming weak on terror.
The transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi provisional government is an almost entirely symbolic exercise: it is merely another step on the road to Iraq’s recovery. The sooner some sort of sovereign Iraqi government is up and going, the sooner we’ll have a relatively legitimate Iraqi President and Foreign Minister to make our case for us on Larry King Live. Beyond that, the only other compelling reason for a transfer of sovereignty is to change the terms of debate. Starting on June 30th the US Government should object to any reference to the American “occupation” effort in Iraq and instead speak in the language of “securing the freedoms of our Iraqi allies against terror.” Do that for a little while and, eventually, the use of the negative-sounding (to many) word “occupation” will cease in the mainstream American media.
I don’t understand what rational reason exists for demanding a change in the date of the transfer of sovereignty: there’s going to be a surge of attacks around that date, whatever it is, as the holdouts, the terrorists, and those left-out make a last push. Why should we desire to put that off? The faster we have a new Iraqi government to parade about the better. Those arguing for a change of date now are merely playing a childish game of “gotcha!” with the Bush Administration, seeking to publicly force them to change their stand on the issue as a way of shifting political momentum.
As for the “more troops” mantra, once more we have a case of a called-for measure which is never intended to be seriously enacted, but rather to make the person making the call sound tougher on terror than they are. First of all, substantial numbers of additional troops (unless you want to send the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions to Iraq) won’t be able to arrive in-theatre for a few weeks or months, long after they could have been of any use in combating this “uprising.”
John Kerry says he’d like to deploy another 40,000 troops (or about two Divisions) to Iraq. For what purpose? I ask him: for what purpose? Does Senator Kerry really believe that we’re going to need additional heavy forces to face down the T-80’s and Hind Attack Helicopters which will soon be magically gifted to Sadr’s mob? There are already enough regular forces in the theatre to deal with any conceivable military threat.
It would be useful to have a few extra troops in theatre during the next week or so, simply for the sake of caution, but that’s already being accomplished through the Pentagon’s strategy of delaying the exit of troops that are due to be rotated out. By the time any other plausibly available units are sent to Iraq the present need for them will have evaporated.
In the long term, the presence of a large number of additional US troops on “occupation duty” in Iraq would be, if anything, injurious to the American cause. Think about it for a second. What is the primary cause of US casualties in Iraq? The answer is obvious: terrorist action, notably in the form of roadside bombs and other similar devices. More US troops in Iraq means more convoys to attack, more helicopters to crash or be shot down, and more soldiers to kill in sniper attacks. No one is arguing that the US lacks sufficient combat power to hunt down and kill the enemy in Iraq. What we are primarily lacking is intelligence information and patience. Additional regular US forces in Iraq would simply mean more targets for the terrorists, especially if dispatched on the scale being advocated by Senator Kerry and other faux “tough on terror” Democrats (and, I am very sorry to say, a few Republicans as well).
We’re not losing Iraq: we’re steadily winning it in spite of the efforts of our opponents to undermine our confidence and despite the hysteria of a chicken-little media and Washington establishment who, to meet the demands of a twenty-four hour news cycle, spend much of their time inventing and managing largely-fictional crises.
In fact, I think we’re winning far more than we know about. Behind the scenes, unknown to all but a select few, a shadow war is being waged. Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that the Iranian-backed Sadr has chosen to rise now in an effort to take American pressure off his masters in Tehran. We now know that American Special Forces operated in Iraq for some time before the war while the world remained, on the whole, blissfully unaware. I wouldn’t be at all shocked to find that the serious upheavals going on in both Iran and Syria were partially the work of hard-edged Green Berets. The same, I suspect, is true of insurgency-era Iraq as well.
We are not losing. We, in fact, cannot lose: not unless we beat ourselves. This must be remembered. There is only one way to dishonour the ultimate sacrifice of more than six hundred Americans, there is only one way to ensure the revival of terror, there is only one way to take the pressure of the regimes in Damascus and Tehran, and there is only one way to doom the Iraqi people to a future of misery and despair: the election of John Kerry. So long as President George W. Bush is in the White House, we can rest assured that the War on Terrorism will be carried through to a successful conclusion. The Democrats know this. The terrorists know this. The Mullahs in Iran know this. Hamas knows this. The media knows this. That is why, for the rest of the year, these disagreeable and often discordant groups will be on the same side. And it is also why the ultimate victory in this war depends on the triumph of George Bush this November. Every dollar sent to John Kerry and every ballot cast for him is the functional equivalent of a dollar to al-Qaeda and a bullet fired at an American GI.
Just a snip from yet another smart article from Adam Yoshida.
Lando
O'Reilly was puking up that line of drivel on The Factor last night. I thought he was smarter than that.
Lando
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Man, I like this guy ! Thanks, Lando ! ;^)The transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi provisional government is an almost entirely symbolic exercise: it is merely another step on the road to Iraq’s recovery. The sooner some sort of sovereign Iraqi government is up and going, the sooner we’ll have a relatively legitimate Iraqi President and Foreign Minister to make our case for us on Larry King Live. Beyond that, the only other compelling reason for a transfer of sovereignty is to change the terms of debate. Starting on June 30th the US Government should object to any reference to the American “occupation” effort in Iraq and instead speak in the language of “securing the freedoms of our Iraqi allies against terror.” Do that for a little while and, eventually, the use of the negative-sounding (to many) word “occupation” will cease in the mainstream American media.
Helen Thomas was the first one out of the gate this morning.
The old nag.
Becki
hahahahaha !
Excellent observation. Kerry is on the enemy's side once again.
Kerry-Khamenei 2004
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