General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Joseph L. Galloway, a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers, "The finest combat correspondent of our generation — a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
"President Bush flatly declared there will be no withdrawal of American troops before noon Jan. 20, 2009."
What?
Capitulating to the enemy and cutting-and-running are NOT appropriate measures to take. I don't care whether this man is considered "The finest combat correspondent" by anyone. Unless he (or those he is representing) articulates a real plan for how to enact a change in Iraq, then he should just STFU.
Yep, nobody in the White House knows anything or can see anything or will listen to anything. Riiiight.
How effective are police forces against militias armed with car bombs, rockets and mortars?
What is it with people named Galloway?
Joseph Galloway has his head up his arse. Sounds just like George Galloway to me.
Man, this guy is brilliant . Just put the terrorists under arrest!--Why couldn't I think of that!?
Wasn't that the basis for the Mel Gibson film 'We Were Soldiers'? Does Mr. Galloway think that the Islamist terrorists will be any more reasonable than the Viet Cong? Should we have just put Ho Chi Minh under arrest?
Sigh...here we actually have an applicable lesson from one war to another and the one guy who wrote something useful about the first goes all clueless about the second.
There's got to be a reason for this.
I've read a number of his columns.
His reputation has gone to his head. Logic has not. He's stuck on Vietnam.
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.
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?"
"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.
"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.
Purely political article, no sincere advice whatsoever.
Obviously he doesn't give a sh*t about his country anymore.
Hey MD, why is it every single one of your posts is the EXACT same propaganda being put out by the DNC about Iraq? How come despite the hundreds of posts refuting every single emotional based opinion stated as fact you put up, you still continually do nothing but post the latest DNC propaganda talking point about Iraq?
Joe is making the same mistake you are. He is NOT looking at the facts, he is reading the propaganda posts of the DNC and reporting them as "Fact". They are not fact. YOUR opinion is AN OPINION, not a FACT. LEARN to tell the difference. This habit of you Leftist of simply tuning out ALL facts that refute your emotion based opinons is really intellectually indefensiable.
Here for about the 5th time is the raw data. IT directly refustes your DNC spew about Iraq. THESE are facts, your posts are the OPINIONS of people who know NOTHING about the facts in Iraq.
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
"The president did admit a certain level of personal frustration with the "violence," a.k.a. civil war, that is raging in Iraq while the democratically elected government we installed stands by and watches a nation shake itself apart."
Since when is a "Civil War" run by insurgents from other countries? This is a tired argument without any merit.
I believe what's needed is overwhelming force--evidenced by such a question as: why is Sadarr and his militia still living? I think we could take out most of them--by air--and still can but we must have the political willingness to do the job once and for all. As far as Iran, the same thing. Use what we have to remove enemies. That way we lose fewer troops in the process and take out more islamofascists at the same time. I think we need to make a decision to win and to win, we have to do far more than police anybody. We apparently haven't decided to win, yet.
(Though the left and democrats have already decided to lose).