Ollie PING!
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Oliver North ping list...
Posted on 01/11/2007 8:56:10 PM PST by jazusamo
So he didn't take my advice. Despite recommendations to the contrary in this column last week, President Bush announced Wednesday night that he's "committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq." That's the headline. But there's a lot more to the story. It's rife with risk -- and great opportunity.
First, the good news: The most important statement of the speech was an accurate description of the present situation. Said Bush: "The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time." The president went on to acknowledge that "only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people," and that "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." He's dead right on all counts.
His new strategy for using U.S. forces in Baghdad follows a model now being effectively employed in Al Anbar Province. There, as we reported last month from Ramadi for FOX News, Sunni police officers, Shia Army troops and U.S. military personnel have been building police stations and driving Al Qaeda terrorists out of the provincial capital one neighborhood at a time. The administration's "New Way Forward" also concedes the need for the Maliki government to apply the rule of law equally, the necessity for provincial elections and recognition that local leaders -- like Sheikh Abdel Sattar -- are crucial to rallying the minority Sunni population in defending Iraq from foreign intervention.
Bush promised more "embedded" advisers to accelerate training Iraqi police and Army units, less onerous "restrictions" on U.S. troops and a desperately needed emphasis on Provincial Reconstruction Teams to improve economic resuscitation and new laws ensuring equitable distribution of Iraq's vast oil wealth. And though the masters of the mainstream media and our professional punditry generally ignored the point, instead of coddling Iran and Syria, as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, the president is choosing to confront them, promising to "destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
In a clear signal to Iraq's neighbors who have been reading U.S. public opinion polls and listening to anti-war activists like Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the commander in chief announced the dispatch of "an additional carrier strike group to the region," and promised our allies -- read Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia -- additional Patriot ballistic missile defense systems. And in a straightforward appeal to Congress to relieve the very real stress on our weary military, Bush urged an increase in "the size of the active Army and Marine Corps so that America has the armed forces we need for the 21st century."
If all of these changes, not just more U.S. troops in Iraq, materialize as Bush described them on Wednesday evening, they could well help to ensure "the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life." Unfortunately, many of the ingredients for success are not in his hands. And therein are the great risks in his "New Way Forward."
There is no assurance that Congress will actually authorize or fund essential increases in our Army and Marine Corps. While Bush called for "talented American civilians" to deploy overseas to "build democratic institutions," he did not place the rest of the U.S. government on a war footing. Even now, the only Americans fighting this war are soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines.
Though he called on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states to recognize how threatened they are by an American defeat in Iraq, there is no indication that these governments are willing to accept reality. Dispatching Condoleezza Rice to the region may help, but only if our "diplomats" refrain from tying success in Iraq to resolving "the Arab-Israeli dispute." Instead of sending our Secretary of State to the Mid-East, it might have been more fruitful for her to visit some of our new NATO allies with an appeal for more troops, and ordering most of the State Department to serve in Iraq.
But the greatest vulnerabilities to Bush's strategy reside in Baghdad and Washington. By endorsing "Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November," Bush has defined a timeline and created political expectations here at home that the Maliki administration may be unwilling or unable to fulfill.
Though I have documented the bravery of Iraqi police and soldiers defending their own streets from terrorists, their courage has not been matched by elected officials in Baghdad. If Maliki fails to deliver on promises to crack down on the militias, equitably distribute oil wealth, reform his ministries, pay his soldiers and police and "create new jobs" in the next 10 months, the plan will collapse -- no matter how many U.S. troops we send to Iraq. At that point the new leaders in Congress will likely launch an effort -- as they did in 1974 with Vietnam -- to cut off funding, and thereby ensure disaster.
Finally, Bush noted that the days ahead "will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve." That's undoubtedly true. Hopefully, the "author of liberty" to whom he appealed will grant at least patience and resolve to those in Congress who have forgotten the words to that great old hymn.
Let's hope for the best.
Bush needs to (and I hope he has) change the Rules of Engagement.
Find a terrorist, Kill a terrorist.
We find and arrest them, then the Maliki team release them if they are Shia. These are men who attempted and failed to kill our guys. Something is wrong with this picture and as Bush said, he is reponsible.
If he has corrected his ROE orders, then we will know soon.
He should immediately pardon the Marine 8 or order their release and restoration to service without blemish!
You're right, that's what lights there fire. He listens to them and then does what he thinks is best for the country.
Agree. And I think we'll known pretty soon, as you say.
You've been very outspoken in your criticism here toward anyone who thinks that continuing our course in Iraq is a mistake, to the extent that you have questioned their loyalty to the United States. Oliver North has apparently spent time there, and doesn't agree with President Bush's plan to increase our troop level. Are you now going to question Col. North's loyalty too, or will you give him a pass because he is called "Colonel"?
Pssssssssst, even the President and Colonel North agree with that, which is why the President is taking a different course.
Do me a favor...find someone else to play with. I'm not interested.
Wrong. There are plenty of USG civilians involved in this effort, including many involved with reconstruction projects around the country. Iraq now has the largest US Embassy in the world.
Ever been stationed at Kelly Barracks, Darmstadt?
Correct and Colonel North is well aware of that. I don't know but I think he must have been referring to our civilians in government. It just isn't clear to me what point he was trying to make.
"Bush noted that the days ahead "will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve."
War bonds?
Tax surcharge?
Cut domestic programs?
The draft?
What sacrifice? Rhetoric, as I see it.
Once I got back and retired the wife and I started doing volunteer work at Ft. Lewis with the troops deploying and their families (amazing the details they have to take care of).
We've also working with some of the wounded troops at Madigan Army Hospital and when necessary the families of troopers who were killed.
A few months back we moved from the area but those years of working with those wonderful men, women and children meant a lot to us.
What we saw wasn't rhetoric.
Well-said. If we're not, we might as well withdraw into fetal position like the left has been urging since 9/11, and let the rest of the world collapse into darkness.
Look at Europe. France, England and Spain ruled most of the world not that far back. Now they're pretty much toothless shells of what they once were trying, but failing, to be relevent in the modern world.
We surrender this war and we will be no different.
What was your first clue?
Thanks!
The Dems are setting us up again! The surge is the correct course of action, but the anti-war left is so pervasive in the party that the good of the nation comes last in the good of their agenda.
Ollie was right when he said that the Iraqis have to get tough. Other people on this thread have said that he disagrees with the surge. That is not the case.
We must start the fight against the Dems for the sake of Iraq, the region, and America.
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Oliver North ping list...
An excellent question...and one which I fear the answer!!
Remember Lt. Col. West getting punished for discharging his Beretta 9mm next to the ear of a terrorist they were interogating about a planned terrorist hit on his unit? This happened mid 2004 or so.
He got the info - prevented the attack....and was dishonorably discharged for unauthorized use of his weapon.
You just can't fight a war that way!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1016491/posts
..............We surrender this war and we will be no different....................
An Amen!
I just don't understand why the average Joe and Jane sixpack American don't comprehend the stakes.
Is it because Bush is a poor communicator? Or, is it that the average American is isolated from the world??
Truly scary, that a sewer dweller, on up to a Senator, can be so misdirected!
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