Posted on 01/12/2007 10:50:23 AM PST by Graybeard58
Whether by plan or happenstance, President Bush managed to presage his announcement Wednesday of increased troop levels in Iraq with two victories: an attack that killed several al-Qaida members in Somalia on Monday, and a gun battle Tuesday on Baghdad's notorious Haifa Street in which 50 insurgents were killed. The message leading up to his speech seemed to be: If we have enough men with enough firepower and good intelligence, we can win.
From their high school history lessons, Americans know a conflict that seems doomed can turn around in short order. In 1864, President Lincoln was in danger of losing his re-election bid, and public opinion had turned against the Civil War. The Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House was mere months away.
What America has forgotten about that period is victory required ruthlessness. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant succeeded where others had failed because he was unafraid to take and inflict mass casualties, and Gen. William T. Sherman won by slashing a path of death and destruction through Georgia. One scarcely can imagine anyone embracing either strategy in today's political climate.
President Bush nodded to Gen. Grant by acknowledging escalated violence will accompany his latest approach: adding 21,500 U.S. troops; embedding most of them with Iraqi units stationed throughout Baghdad and heightening their visibility; insisting the Iraqi government do its part to quell sectarian violence. But it seems doubtful in the extreme he'll unleash a Sherman on Sadr City or Ramadi, even though there may be no other way to achieve the immediate objectives of this increasingly bitter conflict.
Difficult though it is to retain a sense of optimism about Iraq amid the torrent of negative coverage and commentary -- "failed" has been flogged to exhaustion -- his new approach has the virtue of just being new. Its greatest asset may be it's an escalation, however modest, rather than the withdrawal that President Bush's political adversaries have been demanding.
Al-Qaida leaders, insurgents, Iranian and Syrian agents, and sectarian killers may not be unduly discouraged by the new strategy, given their unwitting allies among congressional Democrats. But there can be little doubt they would have been far more pleased by an admission of failure followed by the first troop withdrawals. It's something they're unlikely to see for at least two more years, and indeed may not live to see.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
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How could it be a surrender? There's no army or organisation to surrender to...it would be a withdrawal from a police action.
"From their high school history lessons, Americans know a conflict that seems doomed can turn around in short order."
The author is obviously unaware of the state of public education in this country!
In 1864 our military was allowed to shoot before being shot at too. We need to take the restrictions off of our troops. Seems like when our military goes to that region, they are controlled by others. Such as the first Iraq war.....our troops couldn't wear the American flag on their uniforms...........stupid and we should thumb our noses at them.
Wasn't it a little different back then? I mean if you ran across a group of armed men, in enemy uniforms, with enemy flags, it was a pretty good guess they were the enemy. How do you compare that to anything in an Iraqi city?
But we know the uniform of the terrorist. It's just a d@mn shame that so many other Iraqi's willingly wear the same uniform, regardless of danger.
Perhaps a public demostration of how dangerous it is for a civilian to wear the garb of a terrorist will have them stop doing so?
:-P
That would be a tremendous start.
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