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To: Alberta's Child
You can accuse me of a lot of things, but a "pullout/handcuff" approach is not one of them.

Yes or no: Do you want us to pull our troops out of Iraq?

133 posted on 05/02/2007 8:41:11 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (A pacifist sees no distinction between the arsonist and the fireman--Freeper ccmay)
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To: Mr. Silverback
Yes or no: Do you want us to pull our troops out of Iraq?

If it were up to me, they'd all be packing right now for an immediate shift to U.S. facilities outside populated areas. The U.S. military would then carry out a limited number of functions, including: 1) combat support for Iraqi military/police personnel in roles that Iraqis can't carry out themselves (air support, for example); and 2) protection of Iraqi-led efforts to construct/reconstruct critical infrastructure.

Item #2 would most likely put U.S. troops in harm's way, but I would add an interesting angle to our work there. Once the U.S. oversees a construction project and provides protection for the duration of its development, we're done with it. And I mean DONE. If it gets blown up or sabotaged some other way the following week, then tough sh!t . . . the Iraqis can figure out a way to cope with that problem, or they can live in a sh!t-hole filled with malfunctioning/nonexistent infrastructure.

If the U.S. has to do any more than this, then Iraq isn't even worth saving under any circumstances. And I say that even if it means that "letting nature run its course" would result in the starvation of 30+ million Iraqis.

There was a great article posted here a while back about an Army officer who has had the most success in Iraq with limited casualties, and this was pretty much his approach. A group of tribal leaders came to him and complained that they had no electricity or running water in their village, so he told them that he'd bring in food and water, but only if he could get their assurances that the soldiers in his command wouldn't be attacked.

This worked for a few days, until a couple of his men were wounded or killed in an ambush. He pulled all of the people and equipment providing humanitarian aid out of the village and told them that he'd give them a week to think about it -- and that if anything like that happened again, he'd pull them out for a month. At the time the article was posted, it was indicated that he never had a problem after that.

144 posted on 05/02/2007 2:50:08 PM PDT by Alberta's Child
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