Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Nix Nieuws, as the Dutch Say (Nothing New!)

From what has been released so far, I do not see anything that hasn’t been debated before, put into action, or rejected for sufficient cause. The very act of publishing this for the world is a grave disservice to the Cause, in my opinion. It blatantly announces to the insurgents that they are winning here at home, and merely need to keep up the pressure to force us out, and give them free reign in Iraq. The very idea of trying to talk seriously with the Iranians or Syrians is foolish at the least, and dishonest to the American people at the worst, for many Americans believe in talk-talk as the “civilized” way to resolve differences. They will be misled by any talks, in that they will be expecting something positive to occur.

Most Americans do not understand Islam, do not realize that they are not playing fair, that they will lie, cheat, and steal from infidels at every turn to obtain their objectives. Talking is useless without a strong military position from which to begin.

The idea that we should beef up our embedded troops with Iraqi troops by some 20,000 men might be a reasonable thing to do, except that this draws down our own forces and our ability, therefore, to respond to crises by as much as an entire US division. If the Iraqi Army becomes paralyzed by its indigenous Sunni or Shiite members, we have lost our division to any immediate action, and perhaps put them at risk for being shot in the back by their “fellow” soldiers.

This entire suggestion by the ISG will, in my opinion, have the effect of further weakening the current Iraqi government, and will embolden the insurgents to more and more IED bombings. We are trying to put the entire onus for success on this weak government, and its current misled army. While that could be corrected to some degree by our increased participation, this ignores the realities of how the insurgents exercise power over the army.

Every man in the Iraqi army can potentially be coerced into disobedience, defection, spying, and sabotage to defeat the goals of its leadership. The insurgents merely have to know the soldiers name, and they can go to his family with threats of death for them all unless the soldier does their bidding. So, the Iraqi Army, as it now stands, is not reliable.

It is still my opinion that “going long and strong” is the only way to ultimate success. That we are being told we don’t have the manpower in the Army to do this speaks to serious weakness in our ability to defend ourselves at all. We are led into this situation by the draconian reductions of force executed during the Clinton administration, and not corrected by Bush.

Labels: Iraq

# posted by Mannning @ 4:51 PM