Posted on 10/13/2006 10:50:20 AM PDT by Blackrain4xmas
The 1990-2006 War in Iraq might soon be over. The head of the British Army is calling for the removal of his nation’s troops. Other members of the Coalition of the Willing are preparing to leave this year as well. The Iraq Studies Group headed by former Secretary of State Baker is putting together a report to be released in December, and it will either suggest pulling American forces out of the fight and positioning them along the border of Iraq or pulling out all together. Even the Iraqi government is working to divide the nation politically along ethnic lines in preparation for the chaos to follow.
How did it come to this? Since the May 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech declared an end to fighting with Saddam’s forces. That speech also warned of a long fight against holdouts, dead-enders, terrorists, and other forms of insurgents. Since then General Casey and other military leaders have testified before Congress several times. In their testimony the generals often said that the military had done all it could and that victory or defeat would be determined by diplomacy and politics. Make no mistake about it, the lack of victory and the likely defeat of American forces will be the result of failed diplomacy and politics.
The war in Iraq is an awful thing to watch, and incalculably worse if one is fighting it or has friends and family doing so. While there has been a clear anti-war movement since June 02, there is no pro-war movement. Instead, there are people who simply don’t want to abandon Iraqis again and then drag the war out for another 16years or more. No one WANTS this war, but some understand that whether the ship sails straight or not in the fog, at least it’s moving forward, not sitting still, and not moving backwards.
American and other Coalition forces have never lost a battle in Iraq. They never even lost a fight! So if they come home in 2006 or 2007, they will be yet another generation of Americans who were never defeated in the field, but lost yet another war. They will have lost a war to insurgent forces that were outnumbered 10:1, outgunned at least 10,000:1, and (again) they will have lost to insurgent forces that who defeated them in battle.
If the Coalition of the Willing was never defeated in battle, then how did they lose the war?
It will end with the stroke of a pen, and the click of a single mouse button. Somewhere, sometime a pen will sign an order to redeploy US forces to the periphery of Iraq where they can serve as geopolitical deterrents to Iran and Syria while being much less susceptible to insurgent attacks. Then, the order will be typed up into an email, and sent with the click of a mouse. That’s it.
It will not be a defeated American general sitting at an enemy’s surrender table who orders the removal of American troops at the demands of an insurgent leader. Instead, it will be an American politician who writes the order, and an American general who carries it out. In effect, the pullout will not be due to a defeat in the field, but due to the political decision of an American politician-President Bush or Congress.
Many will read this and recoil by saying, “Oh come on! Bush will NEVER pull out US troops from Iraq!”
He will. President Bush is an elected leader and while he is Commander in Chief of American forces he is not omnipotent. He’s accountable to a chain of command. American generals get their orders from the President, and the President will be forced to make his decision by the will and demands of Congress and the American people.
Most people “support the troops.” More than 60% of the nation no longer supports the mission. Instead polls suggest that they support the removal and/or redeployment of US forces from Iraq’s combat zones. Since that is the same objective as the insurgents, they are supporting the insurgents’ mission while “supporting the troops,” and this is where the great national divide becomes emotional to everyone.
On the one hand those who “support the troops” by supporting the insurgents’ mission goals are not bad people, but they’ve become convinced that the loss of American blood and treasure in Iraq just isn’t worth the vaguely defined victory as presented by the President. For those people victory is: an end to the loss of blood and treasure, it’s an end to the ugly scenes on their TVs every night, it’s an end to the yellow ribbons on trees in their neighborhoods, it’s an end to flag covered coffins of 20yr old men and their 18yr old widows.
The mission or objective of those who do not support the war (who support the pullout of U.S. forces and effectively support the same objective as the insurgents) is not to support the killing of Americans, but to just end it regardless of cost since they no longer see the bad effects of a redeployment or retreat. They just don’t see the point of the war anymore (if they ever did).
”Stay the course” is not a strategy if people don’t understand or see that course. It’s like sending a ship into the fog without a compass and then saying go straight. People don’t see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel because even though everyone knows what light looks like, there are those who can’t help asking, “Are we there yet?!” After fighting with, in, and over Iraq for 16years…that’s not at ALL unreasonable! “Stay the course” should be replaced with “We broke it, we bought it, and let’s not leave it in a way that makes it so our kids and grandkids have to come back yet again.”
Opposite of the “Stay the Course” theme is the “Bring the troops home” idea. It’s an idea that calls for an insurgent victory because it’s just like saying, “Let the insurgents win.” Just as “Stay the course” is a flawed sound bite, so too should “Bring the troops home” be replaced by a more accurate, “Let’s get the hell outta there, let the insurgents win, abandon Iraq to chaos, and leave the problem for the next generation to face.”
President Bush Sr. could have removed Saddam in 1991. He was afraid to do so for fear of its results. When he made that decision, the soldiers and Marines currently fighting and dying in Iraq were only 2 years old. Now, they’re 18 years old and fighting a war that should have been fought and ended 16 years ago. Back then, President Bush Sr. followed the post-Vietnam American populist strategy, “Let’s get the hell outta there, let the insurgents win, abandon Iraq to chaos, and leave the problem for the next generation to face.”
Congress and the President get their orders from me-either through my vote or through polling. If I say, “Let’s get the hell outta there, let the insurgents win, abandon Iraq to chaos, and leave the problem for the next generation to face” then Congress and/or the President will do so and accomplish the insurgents’ mission of removing U.S. forces from Iraq. If I say, “We broke it, we bought it, and let’s not leave it in a way that makes it so our kids and grandkids have to come back yet again.” Then I am supporting the American forces and supporting their mission; their efforts to bring freedom, democracy, and security to a place where-if there are none of those things-will certainly be calling my 2 year old son to don beige and brown, to carry a rifle, and to return in 16 or so years.
Some will say that the mission just can’t be accomplished-that Iraq can’t be left in a condition where the US will have to come back and fight again. I submit that 150,000 American forces have faced far tougher enemies than 20,000 Iraqi insurgents, but then again the defeat, retreat, redeployment, or cut-and-run from Iraq won’t be the result of a battlefield defeat at the hands of 20,000 insurgents. It will be at the stroke of a pen, and the click of a mouse button both of which follow my will, and your will, and the will of the American people in general. It is WE who will order the defeat of American soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen. Does our resolve for the ugliness of black ribbons on trees match that of Marines dug in and fighting in Ramadi as you read this?
“Let’s get the hell outta there, let the insurgents win, abandon Iraq to chaos, and leave the problem for the next generation to face” OR “We broke it, we bought it, and let’s not leave it in a way that makes it so our kids and grandkids have to come back yet again.”
That’s our choice.
“Now, more than ever, with our soldiers in harm's way, we must stand together and succeed in Iraq and win the war on terror.” -Senator John Kerry 11/3/04
When their mission involves nothing more than "nation-building," "making Iraq safe for democracy," "winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," and serving as targets for IEDs in a simmering civil war, that's exactly what they are.
Didn't want anyone else making the mistake of reading the article before commenting.
Efficiency you know?
Good Lord.
Everyone knows he was busy planning Hurricane Katrina at the time.
While not willing to take the time to read the article, why would somebody post an article without comment? Posting articles without comment is a useless exercise since anybody can read the article whether it is posted or not. The point is discussion, but an initial comment might start discussion of the topic rather than reading techniques.
The mission was to set up a central government that was capable of ruling the country and not hostile to the Uniuted States AND, not incidentally, to provide us with a base larger than Kuwait. The problem was, imho, opinion, a state department that has no clue and which has had a veto in affairs since the beginning.
For anyone who doesn't want to read the article, here is the author's point.
Maintaining public opinion is vital for prosecuting a war in our republic. The best weapons and the toughest training can't propel the military to victory, when the public gives up.
That might look like where the blame stops, but it's just the beginning. The majority of American people aren't anti-war, by any means. Most people understand history, and recognize that violence can solve problems. If the average American is losing confidence that this is one of those situations, then those concerns will end the war.
It's a VANITY.
It's like standing in a park
talking to yourself . . .
Had Nixon done that, the North surely would have set that trip wire betting that America did not possess the resolve to send hundreds of thousands of troops back into Southeast Asia after withdrawing them. And if that happened, what signal would that send to our enemies regarding the Peninsula and Western Europe?
The appointment of long-time advocates of U.S. military intervention in Iraq to these posts (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, etc.) was very telling. None of these people had any real expertise in public or private life other than their incessant calls throughout the 1990s for the U.S. to invade Iraq. There wasn't a single expert in U.S.-Chinese relations among them, or a single expert in U.S.-Russian affairs, or even any indication that any of these people knew what al-Qaeda was before 9/11.
P.S. Iraq had a government that wasn't hostile to the United States -- before 1990.
The folks at NPR are scratching their collective cone heads today as to how the British commander could back pedal, as if he might have been pressured by Blair. It doesn't occur to them that perhaps the commander was misquoted in the first place. I reckon that's a matter they'd rather not look into.
correct.
and what the administration never understood was - that 43% of americans were always going to turn against this war, there was never any hope that the american left would stay on board. write them off.
holding the other 57% - requires fighting to win, they want victory. but instead, we pursued a PC approach to try and placate the first group that was never going to stay on board anyway, and thereby lost a portion of the group we needed to hold to maintain a strong majority in support of it.
That's ok, as far as the Left is concerned, because they will blame Bush for it.
"Oh, if only we had left Saddam alone."
That's because the Left has never met an anti-American, totalitarian tyrant it didn't like.
.
It would have set the stage for massive bombing of North Vietnam. It would have been justified as necessary for the defence of US troops.
This is not a terribly complicated business but it isn't exactly straightforward, and it is complicated by the fact that persons with a vested interest in doing so will proclaim it a defeat no matter what we do. Iraq partitioning itself is not a defeat if it's the choice of that government. Victory does not consist in our getting everything we want or establishing a utopia. Neither is possible.
"If they think the TV is ugly to watch now...just imagine watching Baghdad turn into 1980's Beirut. Imagine watching tens or even hundreds of thousands of people dying. Imagine watching hundreds of thousands or millions fleeing. And imagine trying people trying to convince themselves that abandoning the Iraqi people to terrorist insurgents was a good thing to do.
That's ok, as far as the Left is concerned, because they will blame Bush for it.
"Oh, if only we had left Saddam alone."
That's because the Left has never met an anti-American, totalitarian tyrant it didn't like. "
Westbrook,
That's an excellent point*****
Read a few more paragraphs and you'll see where the author is going.
Thanks.
FYI, I wrote it.
I had to title it that way and write it in this fashion in order to draw in readers who-let's just say haven't looked two steps forward to the consequences of their votes.
I really and truly hope people will send this to their friends, family, etc not to boost Bush or anything like that, but so that people can realize the war can be won or lost, and it's not going to be won or lost by the military, but by the politics. That is to say either one is politically behind the idea of staying in Iraq until today's 2yr olds don't have to go there and die, OR they're ready to call for the removal of US troops, the abandonment of millions of Iraqis with purple fingers and a hope for Democracy. It's not a case of 20000 insurgents driving out 150,000 US troops. It's a case of the people deciding whether or not they prefer to watch the war on tv as it is today, or if they prefer to watch the slaughter that would occur if America abandoned it's ally.
Anyone wonder what UBL and AQ want? Remember, they admit to having lost at least 4000 fighters in Iraq. Does it serve them to withdraw US forces?
Look, things might be bad over there, but they really can be a lot lot worse, and while some may have lost faith in seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, few believe that if America left, then everything would just be snuggle buggle.
http://www.investors.com/images/editimg/ramirez/toon092806.gif
Go to the page:
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/10/army_strong.html
Click on the video. Watch it.
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