That's the question now. It's official. It has started. I knew it would.
Senator John McCain launched the opening salvo some time ago, with Lieberman
chiming in as well. Now it's making news. Not so fast, boys and girls, troop
withdrawal may not be such a good idea. We can change the political solution
in Iraq: just offer up more U.S. troops as targets.
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to next stop Vietnam, circa 2007, that is if someone doesn't set their foot down and do something.
… But some current and retired military officers say the situation in Baghdad
and other parts of Iraq is too precarious to start thinning out the number
of American troops. In addition, they worry that some Shiite leaders would
see the reduction of American troops as an opportunity to unleash their militias
against the Sunnis and engage in wholesale ethnic cleansing to consolidate
their control of the capital.John Batiste, a retired Army major general who also joined in the call for
Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation, described the Congressional proposals for
troop withdrawals as “terribly naïve.”“There are lots of things that have to happen to set them up for success,”
General Batiste, who commanded a division in Iraq, said in an interview, describing
the Iraqi government. “Until they happen, it does not matter what we
tell Maliki.”Before considering troop reductions, General Batiste said, the United States
needs to take an array of steps, including fresh efforts to alleviate unemployment
in Iraq, secure its long and porous borders, enlist more cooperation from
tribal sheiks, step up the effort to train Iraq’s security forces, engage
Iraq’s neighbors and weaken, or if necessary, crush the militias.Indeed, General Batiste has recently written that pending the training of
an effective Iraqi force, it may be necessary to deploy tens of thousands
of additional “coalition troops.” General Batiste said he hoped
that Arab and other foreign nations could be encouraged to send troops. …
This sure as hell better be true. … Because, as an update, I just heard Senator Jack Reed say on MSNBC that putting in more troops for a short amount of time to stabilize certain regions might be possible. This is the reason I backed Murtha for majority leader in the House. I want at least one person out there reminding people what the voters went to the polls for and voted on, because it seems right now everyone has caught a virus called collective amnesia.
Comments are closed.