Posted on 09/01/2006 10:41:50 AM PDT by meandog
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
The president's news conference this week was as close to a declaration of policy bankruptcy as anything seen so far in his stewardship of the 3 1/2-year war in Iraq.
With his poll numbers still down around his ankles and even some key Republicans questioning the wisdom of staying the course in Iraq, President Bush flatly declared there will be no withdrawal of American troops before noon Jan. 20, 2009.
I believe it was Will Rogers who said when you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is quit digging. The president knows he's in a hole and he's still digging furiously and promising he won't quit digging. Ever.
What kind of sense does this make?
(Excerpt) Read more at realcities.com ...
From a friend that did 2 tours in Iraq. He says some of the same things.
The fundamental question is "Do we let evil prevail?" If we leave, before the job is done--we let evil win. Have we made mistakes? Absolutely, but almost without exception the mistakes are a result of us not anticipating the level of evil. How do you account for people that will strap on a bomb and walk into the Green Zone Cafe and blow themselves up? You don't at first--not until you see and understand the depth of the depravity--then you adjust. And you keep adjusting until evil is defeated or at least contained. My fear is we are going to leave Iraq before the job is done, that's where the press is on this thing. They act like if we leave things return to how they were. That is not the alternative. However the future Iraq doesn't concern me--our lack of National will does. If we stay the course, Iraq will emerge as a better place. If we leave too soon the autrocities that will occur will take their place in the history books next to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and the Taliban.
We are not the bad guys in Iraq but to listen to the press and the far left you wouldn't know it. They give the murderers in Iraq the same moral equivalency as our soldiers and Marines. That is crazy. But evil prevails by people pretending it doesn't exist. To equate how Abu Ghraib prison was run by the Coalition to how it was run by Saddam is ridiculous. Dog collars vs. wood chippers? Individual depravity vs. State sanctioned torture? Perpetrators arrested vs lionized? That is the difference between good and evil but the press (and the far left) won't recognize it. They give it a moral equivalency. Very frustrating. However...
The formula to win in Iraq is 1) kill or imprison the bad guys; 2) show the opportunists (fence sitters) there is a bettter way by our actions; 3) and protect the innocent. We've done a good job of number 1 (military); we are getting better at #2 with reconstruction (PCO, State Department) but we are not getting it done with #3 (? Iraqi police?). When I was part of the invasion force the whole idea was we would build Iraq similar to the CCC of the 1930's in the U.S. Big public works projects that would be heavy in labor and employee lots of locals. $18B would be seed money with the Iraqi's funding the rest with oil revenues. There was no discussion or planning for insurgency. We obviously did not adjust fast enough when the bad guys started to "vote" on the future they wanted. The solution is not to quit, the solution is to recognize we need to be tenacious and it costs what it costs.
Part of the problem was/is you had the guys that were good at #1 trying to run #2. Nobody was doing #3 except to "train local police". Doing 1, 2 & 3 well is what the National discussion should be. Not, how fast can we leave.
Sorry dmz, I disagree with you on this one.
I read the whole article. This guy is a biased lib, loves McCain, thinks Rove is behind it all.
In my opinion, his approach is not as "nuanced" as he thinks it is. He does have a puffed up opinion of himself, and thinks it is a Sunni insurgency that can be handled by a police force.
There were (and probably still are) more munitions per square mile of landspace in Iraq than in any other country in the world. It was the most militarized country on the face of the earth when we went in there. That means there are enough munitions available and squirreled away to allow any "insurgency" to stand up to nearly any military force, particularly an ill trained and ill prepared one, not to say anything about a police force.
And this does not even mention or take into account Iran's involvement, which is deep, long and entrenched now.
Good letter but I don't think bringing in the NYPD is going to pacify Baghdad.
Sounds like sKerry speak to me.
Anyone that has to quote a republican general about his credentials is telling enough. Only liberals like to play that game. He is slanted in his writing and it is not to the right or even to the center.
Sending out a "professional police force" to take care of Islamo-facist murderers would be like sending in the Boy Scouts to take down those two bank robbers with the automatic weapons from years ago.
No, this man is under the surface supporting those who are talking about "redeploying" our troops outside of Iraq (CUT-AND-RUN), leaving the Iraqi police to deal with thugs from Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc. That would be a dishonor to the men and women who have sacrificed their lives to help the Iraqi citizens. It would also be a slap in the face to my son and the other soldiers who are in Iraq now trying to turn the tide against these Islamo-facist thugs.
You would do well to pay attention to the fact that the Islamo-facists (Al Queda) are trying to establish a new base of operations in Africa. I can't recall the African nation that was recently reported in the news as a new base of operations for them. This is a world wide struggle against a facist ideology which operated along side of the Nazi's in WWII. We had better all come together to battle this, and real soon.
I agree.
Rumsfield is considering a new military command to watch over and deal with the African continent. Smart move and should be done. I just heard about this yesterday or the day before.
This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever read in my life. This stupid idiot thinks attacks using car bombs, rockets, and road side bombs can be handled by Police using hand pistols and billy clubs.
But even more than that who will control Iraq if we leave? Will it likely be the Al Qeada? You betcha.
Has anyone figured out why we have not been attacked since 911? It has nothing to do with secure borders. It has to do with the consequences not being worth the cost. Attacking the USA was not worth Afghanistan and Iraq. They don't know what the cost will be if they hit us again while Bush is president. NUKES for all of ISLAM is not out of the question.
So we are safe... for the time being.
If we pull out in defeat then .. we are open game. This nation will be run by surrender monkeys and all the border fences and port inspections will not be worth a pitcher of spit.
Why don't we replace the US army with the New York police department... That ought to counter that insurgency in no time at all.
How would that go "Can I see your drivers license please?"
If we are to judge this war by whether mistakes have been made, and then decide that we should either not have fought this war or we should leave this war, then I would posit that no war in the history of this nation should have been fought. Not even the Revolutionary War. No war is mistake free. To suggest that a war is wrong or not worth fighting because of mistakes is to lose sight of the reason for defending ourselves in the first place. The mistakes made during WWII almost lost the war for us several times. We persevered because the entire nation was in the fight for the long haul, no matter how long it took. Everyone sacrificed, and the politicians did not bicker and fight over stupid partisan ideology. If we lose this war, it will not be because of mistakes made in the war theatre, but in the stupidity of our people back home in not understanding that we have to finish this no matter what mistakes are made. My son is there now, and he might die. But he understands that fighting them there.is much better than fighting them here. When someone is suggesting placing the responsibility for taking care of the Islamo-facist terrorist on a "professional police force" of Iraqis as opposed to a professional military, I say that is a recipe for CUT-AND-RUN of our troops, and it will spell doom for the Iraqi people who want peace. I want our troops home. But I want them to finish the mission first.
Bully for him. Go Get Em Rummy.
"But when your commander in chief and your civilian overlords in the Pentagon refuse to acknowledge any mistakes, they thwart all that training and shut off any possibility of positive change and adaptation."
Okay, so this guy is privy to all that goes on in the Pentagon regarding war plans and preparations?
"Sen. John McCain is a hawk on Iraq. He doesn't believe an American withdrawal will do anything but encourage our enemies around the world. But McCain, who hopes to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, is a realist."
"Just a day after Bush put his cards on the table - a busted flush - McCain bemoaned the administration's predictions that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be "some kind of day at the beach."
First, noone in the Bush Administration was ever quoted as saying the war in Iraq would be a day at the beach. Quite the contrary, we were told from the start that this would be hard and take a long time. Second, McCain is positioning himself for a run for the Presidency. This will require that he appear Presidential to those loons on the left. He would say anything to try to convince them that he is "fit for command".
This correspondant is spinning, spinning, spinning.
I wonder if we are overlooking one of the key differences between "police style" approaches and "military style" approaches.
The military is trained to kill the bad guys, and has less training in working with population to get them on our side. Police are trained to see the bad guys as exceptions to the population, and discover who they are and deal with them. Sounds like what we need are either military guys with some police training, or police with military weapons. Or better yet, more Special Forces, who do have training in working with the local population. It's clear a pure "kill the bad guys" approach isn't the answer.
"McCain, a Navy fighter pilot who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison, recited a devastating litany of ridiculous quotes from Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the unfolding disaster in Iraq:
"Stuff happens, Mission Accomplished, Last throes, a few dead-enders."
Said the Arizona senator: "It grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."
"Had not. Have not. And will not."
Lie, Lie, Lie. McCain is no longer in Viet Nam. All these quotes that Galloway is using have been taking completely out of context. This is a typical tactic of the left of using subterfuge to confuse the public. This pisses me off because Galloway and his fiends on the left are just further placing my son and his fellow soldiers in more danger than necessary through providing aid and comfort to an enemy who is watching and listening to everything coming out of this country. LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS.
Hear Hear. Everything you said is the truth. Bully for you.
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