Do you have any proof for your assertion that it is "backfiring badly?"
I seem to recall reading something here recently from a Marine in the area who believes differently.
"Do you have any proof for your assertion that it is "backfiring badly?"
I seem to recall reading something here recently from a Marine in the area who believes differently."
If we had the internet during 1968, you would have read the same thing from that marine if he was "in country" at the time. Oblivious to what was happening here, during that election year, for the obvious reasons.
Proof? Sure. Many people like myself don't see the viability of leaving al Sadr to run around the countryside preaching "Death to America", don't see the viability of allowing Fallujah to be a "city state" for any terrorist scumbag that needs "safe haven" between ambushes.
You can dispute my viewpoint on this by citing any statistic you want, to be sure. But at the end of the day, the monsters that killed the four contractors haven't been caught, let alone punished. Remember them? Killed, butchered, burned, hung up from overpasses.
Leaving al Sadr alive, leaving Fallujah as it is, is a scaled down verision of what we did in the wake of the Gulf War, when we left Saddam in power, when we failed to support the Kurdish led uprising in the North, and those various religious leaders that rose up in the south of Iraq.
Like I said, I support President Bush, and I'll add I'm going to be voting for him again come November.
That said, I will continue to point out what I think is the single biggest mistake he's made in regards to Iraq. Failing to crush the "insurgents" failing to kill al Sadr, failing to retake Fallujah is a mistake thats only now beginning to be realized by the Administration in my opinion. There will not be a "silver lining" when all is said and done on this topic, again in my opinion.
This specific "policy" in this regard transmits a signal of weakness, a lack of resolve to our enemies, in my opinion.
Which is exactly what the Carter Administration did in 1979, where this all really began, again in my opinion. The Arab world scoffs at this type of action in response to acts of aggression.