Smoke and Mirrors
By: Bob Straight
Republicans are using a smokescreen but they also are in the process of turning against the war and demanding a withdrawal. What became of all the hot rhetoric about being tough on terrorism, that Iraq was the center of the war on terrorism, and that to do anything less than stay the course in Iraq would be an insult to our troops AND leave the place in the hands of Al Qaeda?
We’ve been down this road before…..in Vietnam. And just like in Vietnam, just as soon as the troops realize the government has thrown in the towel and is trying to find the exit door, it becomes a case of “who will be the last man to die in Iraq?”
So, here’s my bet; we’ll pull forces back to larger bases and launch limited offensive ops (to keep the badguys off balance) from there; we’ll have advisers working with the Iraqi military but, in this case, their security will be in much greater jeopardy than the advisers we had with Vietnamese forces because Iraqi forces are less well trained and likely infiltrated by sympathizers of the insurgency. We’ll give up the outlying areas to insurgent control and attempt to maintain some semblance of control in the larger cities.
We might even have a de facto understanding with the badguys that if they dont attack our forces we wont attack them. And the Bush Administration either directly or indirectly through second parties will be making every possible attempt to strike a deal with anyone (Syrians, Iranians, al Sadr, Sunni insurgents) who will allow us to withdraw our forces from country. If they do not cooperate, Bush will have to pull forces while they are under fire.
This is war, and the politicians (and military leadership) are talking about pulling out. That means a defeat for the United States of America and no amount of spin can change that fact. For over a year, people have been hollering that this isnt a Vietnam and any comparisons are false. I agree. In Vietnam, we went to the aid of an ally to assist in stopping an internal rebellion and to fight external aggression. In Iraq, we invaded another country. In Vietnam, we had a so-called Peace With Honor that stopped the fighting and allowed us to withdraw. At that withdrawal, South Vietnam had a fully constituted and fully functioning government and a robust military of land, air, and maritime forces.
In Iraq, there can be no Peace With Honor. The election in December will not result in a government that has control of anything outside the Green Zone. There are no cohesive, fully capable Iraqi Armed Forces. There are militias who owe their loyalty to religious and sect leaders, not a central government. And to crown the whole fiasco, if we pull out, Iraq will immediately fall into greater chaos and the very people (those who love to kill, those who hate America) Bush so eloquently cites as a threat, will be left in control of Iraq.
This is sickening. A war that did not have to happen but which did because Americans fell for this cowboy’s fear mongering tactics and disinformation is coming to a close with over 2000 dead Americans and over 16000 wounded. By the time we clear Iraq, over 3000 US men and women will have been KIA. And for what? We unseated Saddam Hussein? He didnt have WMD, he didnt have an atomic weapons program, he didnt have ties with al Qaeda or 9/11, and at the time of the invasion, we had controlled the airspace over Iraq for ten years, we had carved out part of northern Iraq and given it to the Iraqi Kurds, and we had an economic stranglehold on Iraq. It was teetering on the edge of economic collapse. And, al Qaeda was not in Iraq. It was elsewhere.
This war was not necessary. Bush should be impeached and every Congressman, Republican and Democrat, who voted for the war but who is now calling for an exit strategy (because public opinion has turned against the war and the 2006 elections are just around the corner) should be voted out of office in 2006 and 2008.
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