Posted on 08/06/2007 5:54:10 PM PDT by Kaslin
It's not often that an opinion article shakes up Washington and changes the way a major issue is viewed.
But that happened last week, when the New York Times printed an opinion article by Brookings Institution analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack on the progress of the surge strategy in Iraq.
Yes, progress. O'Hanlon and Pollack supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — Pollack even wrote a book urging the overthrow of Saddam Hussein — but they have sharply criticized military operations there in the ensuing years.
"As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq," they wrote, "we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory,' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
Their bottom line: "There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
ping
The Surge is Working and Victory is Looming
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Democrats: Best friends of America's Worst Enemies.
Democrats: Trying to relive their "victory" on Vietnam and damage America's prestige for another 40 years.
This just keep getting better and better.
The greatest day in the modern DefeatocRats life was when the Helicopters were lifting people off the Saigon Embassy. They had visions of Surrender with disHonor II.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I and many of my friends are sick and tired to the incessant criticism of the post-war situation in Iraq. Nobody with any brains thought this was going to be a cakewalk. No, Bush and co. were not perfect. What else is news? Let’s review the facts 1) the Hussein family is gone, dead, and not coming back 2) state sponsored terrorism funded by Iraq is non-existent now 3) large fractions of Iraq are safer than most other countries in the middle east 4) multiple elections have taken place and 5) al-Queda is making a last stand in southern Iraq. Yes our soldiers are still dying and yes the Iraqi government forces aren’t where we want them to be yet. Yes politics in Iraq aren’t where we want them to be. It’s better than it would have been if Sadaam was still in power. Especially since we’ve cut off the Oil-for-Food fraud. Use your brains folks. Look to history - things in Japan and Europe in the post-WW2 period didn’t settle out for decades after the end of the war. Continue the mission and get on minus the whining. We’re going to have to deal with Iran at some point. Get ready to take them down, because they are the REAL enemy here folks.
What do you do for a living?
I an IT consultant. I do project management and systems engineering.
Ah, ok.
I think what many of us here are critical of in regards to the post Hussein handling of Iraq is not so much where we are now, but the way our military has been forced to play the game.
By that I mean the rules of engagement that have hamstrung the military all along. Same kind of crap that started after Korea. Add to that the second guessing after serious engagements. Soldiers given such restrictions that they could easily be killed before they are allowed to shoot back. And so on, ad nauseum.
Honestly, for me, most of my beef has been with the same stuff that the military has been saddled with for the last 40 years. So, it is not new.
I don’t know if it has been happening anywhere in Iraq, but I know for a fact that our soldiers in Bosnia were at times not allowed to carry weapons that were loaded. Oh yeah, you can carry your rifle, but you can’t load it until after someone shoots at you. But there has been a lot of that same sort of stuff forced on the military commanders by the civilian side.
And that my friend is a crime. A moral travesty. And it has definitely been a factor in our difficulties.
Got to love it!
President Bush never said it was going to be easy. But the left acts like as if he did
No disagreement from me that the ROE is wrong. We needed more kick ass and less take names. Of course, the time for that was right after the end of active hostilities. Now we’ve let the bad guys live. Oh well. Let’s try closing the borders. That would work, and we know how to do it. Oh, we won’t do that at home do we? The largest fraction of al-Queda types we capture are from Saudi. And Iran is sending weapons. For God’s sake its just not that hard.
So what needs to be made clear to the civilian commanders of this war is exactly what we are unhappy about in terms of the prosecution.
Don’t send our boys out to fight and die, unless you are really going to let them fight. It’s not complicated.
Fundamental principles of warfare have been ignored in order to worship at the alter of Political Correctness. Bizarre reasoning and despicable behavior.
President Bush has been proved a man of unique courage and vision. Protector of the American way. Grantor of liberty to the slave of the dictator.
We’re not dealing with Uropeans here. We need to make them afraid of us, not make friends. What did the Romans say? “Let them hate, so long as they fear.”
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