Posted on 05/13/2007 11:45:37 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The grandson of Sir Winston Churchill will tell an Ottawa audience tonight that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous for the Middle East and for western nations.
That grandson, also named Winston Churchill, will deliver his address, titled "Democracy and Freedom Under Threat," at the annual forum of Kollel of Ottawa, a centre for advanced Torah study.
"If the Americans admit failure and withdraw soon from Iraq, I see the writing on the wall," Mr. Churchill told the Citizen in a phone call from Britain. "Our friends and allies in the region, as well as nations throughout the western world, including North America, will end up paying a terrible price."
People mistakenly equate a U.S. exit from Iraq with the withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975.
"There is an essential difference that people forget," Mr. Churchill said.
"The United States was able to walk away from Vietnam in the sure knowledge that the Vietnamese were not about to follow them -- but no such knowledge is available to the Americans in this current situation."
He went on to say that the insurgent forces now fighting in Iraq would "establish in that country the base that they've been denied in Afghanistan, with an additional advantage in having access to one of the largest oil reserves in the world, easily able to fund bigger and better acts of terror across the world."
Like his grandfather, Mr. Churchill has been a politician and journalist. For 27 years, he was a British MP, and as a 26-year-old journalist, covered the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel defeated its Arab neighbours, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Though he believes that U.S. forces must remain for the time being in Iraq, Mr. Churchill has severe criticisms of how the country has conducted its war.
"The Bush administration certainly never had a coherent plan for what to do when they got to Baghdad, and as a result have not had enough troops. And this is what has allowed the insurgency to get under way big time."
The real problem, he said, is that western powers, whatever the strengths of their military arsenals, have allowed the number of soldiers in their armies to fall disastrously since the end of the Cold War.
He also criticized the disbanding of the Iraqi army and police forces, and the decision to deny all former members of the Baathist party any role in government. Many members of the army and police forces were no doubt honest people, he said.
And the Baathist party, which governed Iraq under Saddam Hussein, included many of the most competent people in the country.
"If you look at the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, or the totalitarian regimes in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, you see the same story repeatedly -- it was impossible to get an education, become a teacher or doctor, have any real professional employment, without a party card.
"And to assume after the liberation of such countries that all those who carried a party card are one's enemy is incredibly naive and stupid."
Mr. Churchill did not want to give away all the points he intends to make in his speech, but he did have a piece of advice for the Americans: "Train your troops for peacekeeping work. Your army and Marine Corps are excellent at making war, but when it comes to running a peacekeeping operation, they are well below the level of events.
"That's something we Brits learned the hard way over 40 years in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, you only win when you get the civilian population overwhelmingly on your side."
I wonder what Neville Chamberlain’s grandchildren have to say?
interesting thread. i can see the uk’s commitment of around 5,000 in iraq to continue for the foreseeable future. its a managable number to keep in and around basra, adding weight to the efforts taking place in the southern provinces.
Speaking only for myself, I reckon we (uk) need another 20,000 troops in the army to maintain the amount of war fighting being done by the armed forces.
Peacekeeping is not what our military is about. The best peacekeepers would be the liberal Democrats, they think if we just make nice with terrorists they'll go away. I say send them over and find out if their plan will work.
‘I wonder what Neville Chamberlain’s grandchildren have to say?’
They would probably follow the US popular line from 1940 - nothing to do with us, let them fight their own wars.
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