Posted on 09/01/2006 10:41:50 AM PDT by meandog
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
The president's news conference this week was as close to a declaration of policy bankruptcy as anything seen so far in his stewardship of the 3 1/2-year war in Iraq.
With his poll numbers still down around his ankles and even some key Republicans questioning the wisdom of staying the course in Iraq, President Bush flatly declared there will be no withdrawal of American troops before noon Jan. 20, 2009.
I believe it was Will Rogers who said when you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is quit digging. The president knows he's in a hole and he's still digging furiously and promising he won't quit digging. Ever.
What kind of sense does this make?
(Excerpt) Read more at realcities.com ...
Oh, please, what is his email address. I'd like to give him my position on his lame a** stupidity.
Purely political article, no sincere advice whatsoever.
Obviously he doesn't give a sh*t about his country anymore.
Hey MD, why is it every single one of your posts is the EXACT same propaganda being put out by the DNC about Iraq? How come despite the hundreds of posts refuting every single emotional based opinion stated as fact you put up, you still continually do nothing but post the latest DNC propaganda talking point about Iraq?
Joe is making the same mistake you are. He is NOT looking at the facts, he is reading the propaganda posts of the DNC and reporting them as "Fact". They are not fact. YOUR opinion is AN OPINION, not a FACT. LEARN to tell the difference. This habit of you Leftist of simply tuning out ALL facts that refute your emotion based opinons is really intellectually indefensiable.
Here for about the 5th time is the raw data. IT directly refustes your DNC spew about Iraq. THESE are facts, your posts are the OPINIONS of people who know NOTHING about the facts in Iraq.
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
"The president did admit a certain level of personal frustration with the "violence," a.k.a. civil war, that is raging in Iraq while the democratically elected government we installed stands by and watches a nation shake itself apart."
Since when is a "Civil War" run by insurgents from other countries? This is a tired argument without any merit.
"What's needed, and has been desperately needed since the summer of 2003, is a strong counter-insurgency program. And a viable counter-insurgency campaign is police work, not the work of regular Army and Marine troops with Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, artillery and air strikes."
I've read the entire article. I find no merit in your or his position. Using "cops" to oppose a well organized militia force with command and control from other nations is not a "PLAN". Scorched Earth is the way to deal with people who are quite willing to kill women and children with Iranian manufactured bombs.
Suggesting mistakes have been made is not a problem. Saying that we need to turn this over to "cops" is a problem. Let my son and his fellow soldiers do the job they were trained for.
You're too nice.
I believe what's needed is overwhelming force--evidenced by such a question as: why is Sadarr and his militia still living? I think we could take out most of them--by air--and still can but we must have the political willingness to do the job once and for all. As far as Iran, the same thing. Use what we have to remove enemies. That way we lose fewer troops in the process and take out more islamofascists at the same time. I think we need to make a decision to win and to win, we have to do far more than police anybody. We apparently haven't decided to win, yet.
(Though the left and democrats have already decided to lose).
Because Counter Insurgency is not Total War. It would be wise for the Arm Chair Generals to learn the difference
I think the difference here is that the war is still being fought, and that there is still time to alter our strategy in a way that makes up for past mistakes. That strategy doesn't involve withdrawal at all (a disasterouss move and an insult to the Iraqi people), but it does involved a drastic reassessment of the resources we're willing to deploy.
The war is not being lost, but isn't being won either. It's just goin on... and on... and on... Tours are going twice, three times in some cases... Patton said he didn't like paying for the same real estate twice, and yet due to Rumsfeld completely underestimating the troop strength required to maintain stability in postwar Iraq (despite the warnings of his uniformed staff), US forces are paying for the same real estate several times in the same week! They sweep an area clean of insurgents, but have barely moved the Bradley's out before the jihadists are right back in there again (the IDF knows exactly how that feels; not terribly good for morale). It's brutally inefficient, but it isn't changing.
After much huffing and puffing, the Pentagon finally agrees to send an extra 20,000 men (frankly, it should have been 200,000, and it should have been two years ago). Of course, increasing troop levels now is arguably a too little too late. They should have done it when popular opinion was still vastly pro-occupation. But people are getting tired and restelss about the whole endeavor. Especially now that the President has gone on record to say that there are no WMDs in Iraq, AND contradicted his own VP by stating that there was never any evidence that Iraq was behind 9/11 either. For good or ill, a lot of people were for the Iraq war precisely for one of these two reasons (few were in it for humanitarian reasons; humanitarian reasons usually associated with the questionable foreign policies of Clinton).
Soldiers on their second and third rotation are also starting to get sick of it. They can't win on the ground because at any one moment the best they can do is police the ground that their walking on.
IMHO, Bush should have accepted Rumsfeld's resignation the last time rounds. Rumsfeld spoke about having 'to go to war with the army you have' - quite right - so why did he choose to go to war with half the army he had? I don't think he's provided a satisfactory explanation for that.
WOW.. We are dealing with people who are willing to die for a cause. They are willing to do so because they believe that giving their life will result in their instant admitance to heaven.... 72 virgins and all.
Cops deter crime because criminals fear being caught and punished. Cops are trained to find people who committ crimes and then have prosecutors file charges.
We tried that after the first World Trade Center bombing .... we know how well that worked.
Try to control an islamic insurgency with cops will not work unless the cops are infact a police state. Regular cops are only trained to solve crimes. They prevent them by their presence. They catch criminals and punish them. That only works if you are alive to be punished.
But a police state on the other hand can and will work. And if that is what you want the solution is simple. Why don't you reccomend that we bring SADDAM back. He ran a hell of a police state. Democrats say going into Iraq was wrong. So just restore Saddam and get it over with.
Military are trained to kill the enemy before they kill us. Cops are trained to catch the enemy after they kill us. And you prefer the latter... figures or you want a police state.
Police states worked well for Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam. One does not have to committ a crime in a police state.. the cops just have to think you might. That sounds like your kind of cop.
Cops prevent crime because criminals fear being caught and punished. Anything else is a police state. And in a police state... there is no more freedom than under Saddam. Why don't you call your solution what is is... the Saddam solution. Perhaps we could just bring Saddam back. I understand he would like the job. And if going into Iraq was a mistake, why don't you just call for his restoration.
I got his email from the end of the article and gave him a lashing.
Since I am not in the decision making circle of those who are deciding what the needs are in Iraq at any given point in time, I cannot speak to whether they have miscalculated during any point in the war. It is easy to sit here where we are comfortable and critizise what has gone on over there. I would hope that people in the states would consider that the media and the Ill-Liberal politicians have done their abject best to vilify the President and this war from the very beginning. Our Military has had a difficult time in recruitment as a result of the constant battering in the media on a daily basis from shortly after 9/11/01 to today. If this were the case during WWI or WWII we would have lost both. I agree that the battlefield requires constantly changing tactics. And, from what I hear from those over there, this is what is constantly happening. One of the biggest problems we face is that the enemy hears and sees all the negative media on the war and they believe that they can continue until we "give up". We are fighting an ideology rather than a nation state. In the minds of the enemies we face, they do not care how long this takes for their victory when they believe we will CUT-AND-RUN from Iraq. If we were completely united without all of this partisan bickering from the Ill-Liberals (who hate this President and want go regain power) the enemies wouldn't have such faith that we will eventually quit. Yes, I know there have been Republicans who have also "bitched" about this war. many of these are facing very tough re-election and want to appear to be above the debate. The others are Rhino's.
Change is needed. The first and most important is an end to the bullsh*t comments flying around here in the states.
"Part of the problem was/is you had the guys that were good at #1 trying to run #2. Nobody was doing #3 except to "train local police". Doing 1, 2 & 3 well is what the National discussion should be. Not, how fast can we leave."
How many dems have their fingers in defense appropriations. This strategy makes it very profitable. Everytime they scream about (fill in the blank) I look them right in the eye, because they're covering something up. All the screaming about Haliburton makes me wonder. Especially when one realizes how murtha's fat piggies are deep in the pork barrel.
You are thinking of Somalia, I believe.
He must have become senile in the intervening years.
He is apparently clueless to the fact that this has been a major task worked upon from the beginning. Another yapping idiot who needs to STFU.
Now the Chicago Police maybe.
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