It doesn’t help when a President’s political opponents automatically rubbish every single thing he does, even when they agree with him.
A sincerely heartfelt “thank you” to Col. Peters for writing and publishing what has needed to be said.
If our military leaders decline to educate Americans about warfare — what it means, what it costs and what it can or can’t achieve — who will?
The enemy.
I am surprised in his naivete in trotting out the same old themes for the why-we-invaded Iraq rhetoric.
We did not invade Iraq, we re-invaded to provide an end game to the first Gulf War, and ground occupied that which we already controlled by air. After 9/11, we recognized the enormity and depth of the jihadist movement and realized our critical need for a weapons and surveillance platform smack in the middle of the Muslim world.
Saddam was clearly going to be trouble in some way and saw himself as the next Saladin and Nasser type leader of the Muslims. His treatment of the Iranians, Shia, and Kurds conveniently tailored our cover story for occupation/control of Iraq and hence the entire Middle East.
We couldn't have scripted him better.
Ask yourselves: Does anyone think we would currently occupy Iraq if Saddam hadn't invaded Kuwait?
Exactly.
We knew of the growing Wahhabist/jihadist movement and of it's malignant and protected presence in E Kurdistan and Fallujah/Al Anbar.
9/11 was just the bell for round one.
Iraqi democracy is a fantasy. Iraq will devolve into a three state federation, with each state controlled by a congess of tribal leaders. A federal republic will never exist there as there is no will to create a federal power to arrest or detain Iraqis vis-a-vis our FBI/Justice Department.
Nationalism is nonsense. Tribalism dominates all of their society and always will until enough wealth is created to urbanize enough Iraqis to stop their dependence on tribal sheikhs for safety and income.
Afghanistan is a completely different problem. The Puhktuns are fighting a war of independence with Kabul and Pakistan. Sharia law is simply a tactic to decentralize control back to the tribes who then will federate into Pahktunistan and dissolve the Durand Line.
Note that with all our influence over Karzai, Kabul, etc., Afghanistan still does not legally recognize their border with Pakistan.
We are promoting the interests of Pakistan's ANP party, which is a Pahktun separatist party. We are militarily involved with the FATA's Frontier Constabulary and are becoming well poised to raid and interdict at will. The Durand Line is now considered an open border for tactical operations.
Shaping the battlefield is not our problem, political perception is. Peters is correct in his call to our military command to take on the task of public education of our strategic goals.
If we can just postpone conflict with Iran for two years, al Qaeda will be finished and jihadists will come to understand that we wrote the book on creative, lethal fanatacism in the cause of (mainly) our American freedom.