Alaa, writing about the election in The Mesopotamian, has a realistic look at how the election is likely to play out and what it means – and doesn’t.
He finishes with something I think we all need to keep in mind:
Moreover, no one should expect that the security situation and strife would somehow improve after the elections; it is more likely to intensify. This is an unfinished war; the Saddamists and their allies have fully regrouped and rearmed and are being very well financed and supported. The brave American people have given President Bush the mandate to finish this war despite the painful sacrifices and material cost. The Iraqi people are up in arms through the political groupings, new army, N.G. and various security forces and are suffering the greater part of the sacrifice. Despite all the snags and faltering, these forces are getting bigger and stronger and should be supported and nurtured until they can bear the full responsibility; this is the only viable “exit strategy” available. In fact, we do not like this phrase, for what is required is a “victory strategy”. This war must be fought to the bitter end, and there is only one outcome acceptable both to us and to you: Total and Complete Victory. Anything else is completely unthinkable.
Salaam
And Wa alaikumus salaam to you, Alaa…good luck and all our support.
Aabsoluuutly! Backing off from the insurgents would be exactly like turning over the street to drug and prostitution gangs. Cities that have tried that have ended up as junkyards.
This war must be fought to the bitter end, and there is only one outcome acceptable both to us and to you: Total and Complete Victory. Anything else is completely unthinkable. Salaam
If the editors believe this to be true, and if, as we’ve been told over the last few weeks, the Army, Guard, and Reserve are near the breaking point, perhaps one might ask when this Republic’s President might be expected to elucidate the costs for Complete Victory to the citizenry. Will there be a war tax to pay for the next hundred billion? Will there be a draft to relieve the soldiers on their second or third tour?
To ask such questions is not to be a defeatist, it is merely to dip one’s toe into that sea named REALITY.
What is the sea of reality. What really pisses me off is the lousy coverage by the media and the terrible US propoganda effort to combat the lousy coverage.
There is a problem when our own media feel it is their duty to report every single bad thing they can find and even make some things up, or spread the truth, on bad news days.
There are problems, but, if you are to beleive some Blogs, they are nowhere near as bad as is made out in the press.
We did lose the war to the North Vietnamese in large part because of the media coverage followed by the despicable acts of the US Congress refusing promised aid at a crucial time.
The media has to realize that telling it like it is must include the bits they do not like such as the good things that are being done. To only include the bad is the worst kind of the propoganda they try to avoid. Only this propoganda is good for the enemy.
PS: Stickler:
If, as the pundits have been saying, the military is at a breaking point, are problems are much larger than Iraq.
The tooth to tail ratio must be appalling. 135,000 troops in Iraq. I thought the US army total strength including NG and Reserve is over one million.
How could such a military even defend the US at its own borders.
It is my understanding that the biggest problem with the US army is the make up of the force (the RA is still configured for cold war assumptions as opposed to regional less armor heavy conflicts) not the total numbers.
Good Rhetoric. Little meaning in terms of making that actionable and practical policy somehow.
In a week or two, the Iraqis and the World will see what happens. All I can say is: Let it be a steping towards freedom, peace and stability. It would be foolish of me to say – let alone predict – about anything else.
Australia’s view is that regardless of suggestions to the contrary, even from the best of friends, we’ll leave when we’re good and ready.
This is not the time to set a schedule to skedaddle.
Compared to others, our contribution is very, very small. Yet again and again since 10 September 2001, when something came up that required one correct decision, and all the other options were wrong, we’ve done the right thing. That’s why I’m happy.
Yesterday I would have considered this an acceptable Good News Saturday post.
And the Iranian nuclear clock just keeps on ticking….
I’ll second that emotion.
The term “exit strategy” implies “a plan for cutting and running.” I much prefer the expression “end state,” because it describes the conditions under which our mission is complete and withdrawal can begin.
One of my biggest problems with Sen. Kerry is that his Iraq plan (if one truly existed) hinged on arbitrary calendar deadlines for withdrawing US forces. It sounded good to anti-war voters (who were willing to ignore Kerry’s role in approving this war) but it had no logic behind it. If anybody asks for an exit strategy, we should enunciate one that ties troop reductions to specific events, like the establishment of a new constitution, manning and training milestones with the Iraqi army, and a steep decline in enemy attacks.
Davod,
I’m sorry, but when you have something like 12 large car bombings a week going on in Iraq along with a steady drumbeat of low- and high-profile assasinations, there is something seriously wrong. Winning a war requires the will to stare headlong into the problem in order to come up with a workable solution.
Should the U.S. media have simply covered it’s collective ears last summer when Samarra, Fallujah, Tal Afar, and a host of smaller towns slipped out of control of the Iraqi interim government?
If you take the, “Just act as though everything’s okay; anything else gives the terrorists a propaganda victory” approach, you’re just sowing the seeds for a bloody mess in the future.
What we see the left calling “reality”, reminds us why they belong to a blood stained egalitarian religion that has mass murdered 174 Million people.
Unwilling to stand up to evil, leaves the alternative of becoming part of it, and so they man the machine guns at the execution trenches. rather than become gunned filler for the fresh ditch.
There is no other way to look at the defeatist left.
And that is reality
From post WWII Germany Japan to Algeria, to todays Iraq this business has never been easy.
The leftist media and leftists in general, support the enemy, carping as energetically as they can, without actually picking up a gun and pointing it at us themselves.
Why isnt najaf in the news ? or the other cities that have fallen down the memeory hole of the left after the remaining resitance was defused or defeated ?
When the last city has been pacified, and that will be perhaps another year, but after that, what will the left find for their childish infantile 24/7 ankle biting ?
They will find something, and continue long after the things they carp about get trivial and silly.
“If you take the, “Just act as though everything’s okay; anything else gives the terrorists a propaganda victory” approach, you’re just sowing the seeds for a bloody mess in the future.”
No one is doing that. It just seems that way to you because you hear all the negative news from the mass media and don’t hear the positive news. We are optimistic because in addition to the negative news, we read the Iraqi blogs, the milblogs, the news items hidden away on pg 18A, etc.
The constant car bombings are bad news. The will of the Iraqi people to vote anyway, and to continue to join their new police and armed forces in record numbers, and the improved conditions and high regard for the coalition outside the Sunni Triangle are the good news.
Stickler, back in the late Seventies, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs pushed force restructuring which was approved by Congress.
The result is that key specialties needed for support, including mechanics, drivers, medics, military police, etc were put into the National Guard from the active duty force. Thinking being that no President would commit the military to a war without broad popular support including dead National Guard reservists. It also let the Regular Army concentrate on “sexy” thinks like armor and artillery (blowing stuff up).
So, the National Guard and the reserves *ARE* near the breaking point, some units have been called up three times and are at the two year limit of being activated.
I suppose we could just cut and run. I guarantee that would signal to Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia that there would be little/no consequences from aiding Al Qaeda, including giving them nukes to play with in an American city.
Which city are you prepared to lose?
Jim Rockford:
Perhaps you might explain what penalty Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are suffering for supporting Al Qaeda right now. And if you believe that Iran is on the verge of getting the bomb, what shall we do about it now that our 135,000 men are waist deep in Big Muddy? Shall we bomb them back to the Stone Age and hope that democracy springs up from the ashes?
Not one person here has yet addressed the simple question regarding cost. Our soldiers don’t live on love, they depend on salaries, logistical support, and fuel — all of which have to be purchased and provided. For now, the Communist Party of China has paid for this, with some help from the Bank of Japan. How long do you all think this can continue? We may be doing God’s own work in Iraq, but there is a limit to our resources and our power. Spain found this out, as did Britain.
If George W. Bush was even half-serious about “staying the course,” let alone bringing democracy to the entire Middle East, then he would have already proposed a war tax and a draft to provide the treasure and warm bodies such a mission would require. He has not done so. Does nobody here find this disturbing?
Total and Complete Victory! That does sound good. Our current strategy and policy however, move us further from this goal daily.
Our 150,000 or so troops are acting like magnets, making real what Bush claimed was true before the war. Iraq as a hotbed of terror.
Why spend lives to prop up boarders drawn by the old empires? Creaking and tottering Iraq was terror and oppression waiting to happen from the beginning of Great Britain’s lines in the sand.
Let’s let the pieces go their seperate ways. The Kurds are more deserving of a country than almost anyone in the world.
A Shiistan and Sunnistan would surely be more at ease than they are today.
Stickler,
I’ll set the sticky budget problems to one side; suffice to say that perhaps some new tax (or, better, spending cuts) may be in order.
But a draft is insane. Nobody–not the Pentagon (staffed with generals who were captains in Vietnam), not our field-grade officers, not the senior seargents, and not even the buck privates–wants a draft. Nor does Congress. Nobody who has though seriously about the issue wants it. It’s stupid to even bring it up.
Now, that’s not to say we couldn’t use at least a couple new divisions, and a restructuring to bring more support troops into the active duty forces. That’ll cost bucks, and hence a tax/spending cut program may be required. Let’s see someone float a serious proposal.
But forget about a draft. Ain’t gonna happen, would be a disaster for effectivness if it did.
Detroit