When I could today, which was not often, I tried to watch the news about the Iraq study group. One of the big problems with working in the Air Force building I am working in is that all the TV’s are turned to Fox News ( or to sports). That tells me a lot about why so many of the Air Force people working here are brain dead…….too much Fox helps destroy that part of the brain that enables critical thinking.
I tell you the truth, I can’t make much sense out of the things I am seeing on TV. Lets start with a couple of things about the troop strength. I am at a loss to see how the training thing is going to work. We have been training the Iraqi Army for some 3 years. It does not seem to be taking. And those who are being trained are immediately putting their skills to work for the scruffy haired little devil Al Sadr.
What does that buy us?
Then the idea of a conference about the Palestinian problem. That’s been done before. It ignores the fact that Palestine as an independent state is not a very viable idea. And Israel is no mood to give up prime farmland that it has now occupied for some 40 years.
Also I don’t understand why there are separate panels in the Pentagon and State Department and NSC. Why did they not have one organization with empowered representatives from all of those organizations? This is not a Swedish buffet. You cannot take from and then move on to get another entree from the other.
Bottom line for me is that I think the talk of victory is using an incorrect word. Victory has nothing to do with a democratic government, economic stability, or any of the that other nonsense. Victory is about defeating your opponent and ensuring that he knows that he has been defeated. By that standard we never set out to achieve victory. The only person we defeated was Saddam.
To defeat your opponent it requires him to be subject to an overwhelming demonstration of your power, through either brute force or trickery. I do think that was what Shinseki was trying to tell the people some 3+years ago.
The conditions the President is aspiring to are more properly described as an endstate-albeit an unachievable one. The two conditions are different. There is plenty of precedent for ending wars when and endstate is achieved. That does not, however qualify as victory.
I still see really only two choices. Either go all in-as in literally re-invading the country and leveling cities and applying overwhelming military force, or leave. If we choose to stay as we are then the Army has to become larger-much larger because we will be there for years. Training the untrainable, and dealing with the ungrateful. You know, Arabs.
