Kennedy worried about Iraq refugees, but Dem solution would create millions more
The Democrat Daily excerpts Ted Kennedy's op-ed on helping refugees from Iraq. It is ironic that the liberation of Iraq actually produced a return of refugees, but that the insurgency's war against non combatants has created thousands. What Kennedy and the Democrats seem not to notice or care about, is that leaving Iraq before the job is finished will create millions more. All those members of the Iraqi army and their families would be either refugees or killed. It would be the same for the civil servants and others who have cooperated with the US. What they are asking for is a betrayal on a grad scale that will lead to a future genocide by the Islamist enemy.
What makes it worse is that it is based on the false premise that we are losing in Iraq. While the enemy has not been defeated, he is certainly not winning. He still cannot muster a company size unit without risk of destruction. This is not a small thing. To win he has to be able to mass forces and control real estate. Right now he has the power of a cock roach who can make a mess, but cannot carry off the house. Part of the mess he has made has been to cause retaliation by the Shia militias. Leaving the insurgents to fight it out with the militias with the help of al Qaeda is not a humanitarian gesture worthy of the Democrats.
Leaving would also be a boost for al Qaeda, whom the Democrats say should be the focus of the war. I have not heard a convincing argument from them on where they think al Qaeda in Iraq will go if we are not their to fight them. I don't think they will just go home.
What makes it worse is that it is based on the false premise that we are losing in Iraq. While the enemy has not been defeated, he is certainly not winning. He still cannot muster a company size unit without risk of destruction. This is not a small thing. To win he has to be able to mass forces and control real estate. Right now he has the power of a cock roach who can make a mess, but cannot carry off the house. Part of the mess he has made has been to cause retaliation by the Shia militias. Leaving the insurgents to fight it out with the militias with the help of al Qaeda is not a humanitarian gesture worthy of the Democrats.
Leaving would also be a boost for al Qaeda, whom the Democrats say should be the focus of the war. I have not heard a convincing argument from them on where they think al Qaeda in Iraq will go if we are not their to fight them. I don't think they will just go home.
Hey Merv, how can you be so sure we're not losing? I spent 15 months in Baghdad as an infantry officer. Nothing we did during my experience there nor that we’ve done since, has led me to believe we are capable of arresting the accelerating humanitarian and strategically damaging disaster we call the "liberation" of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteThis enemy with the power of a cockroach has nearly broken our ground forces' force structure. Why don't you do some research into insurgencies of the 20th century?
Guess how many troops the French had in Algeria? 760,000! Sure, they kept a lid on the place, ‘won the war’, but at what cost? Indeed, too high a cost as they endured mutinies in their military, were brutal in their implementation of counterinsurgency, and suffered great turmoil in their home government.
The military overmatch enjoyed by our forces is not in dispute. We have the finest finishing force in the world. Trouble is, in this "easy to kill, hard to find" threat environment, our overmatch is more liability than strength. This “cockroach” of an enemy is exactly the type of enemy we don't want to face. Were he to aggregate into company-sized formations, we would be (and have been) far more successful. That was what the Malayan communist insurgents did for the Brits...and the Brits eventually prevailed.
But sadly, they will not provide us such an advantage because what they are doing is working too damned well. In a dystopian Darwinian way, the occupation has provided a terrorist laboratory. And with the Internet and global, 24-7 news, he has a near-real time operational feedback mechanism. A trip by an insurgent to the Iraqi version of Radio Shack engenders multi-billion dollar electronic countermeasures for our counter-IED efforts. Trust me, these countermeasures don’t work. Every convoy hit over there has multiple versions; he has moved to victim-initiated devices.
You and others on the right continue to overlook the fundamentally homegrown nature of this Iraqi front in the "War on Turr (sic)".
"Al Qaeda in Iraq" is a canard foisted by right-wing chickenhawks onto the American people to continue to scare them into thinking that somehow this debacle, created by our leadership's buffoonery, was ever in our national, strategic security interests.
Iraq's resistance movement is predominantly anti-American and anti-occupation and is overwhelmingly homegrown. We toppled the regime that sat atop a brutal police state that was peerless in its propensity to use revolutionary violence, dirty tricks, and subversion. Is it any surprise we find ourselves mired in a quagmire that is draining our conventionally configured, trained and equipped forces?
The alternatives are not appealing, but they are clear. And compared to the staying the course, are logical and most importantly, ethical. We begin withdrawal and take the wind out of the resistance, which is at its core, anti-occupation and anti-coalition. In place, we leave behind a contingent of trainers and advisers (contractors, Special Forces(the true UW experts) to conduct unconventional warfare until we get an acceptable SOB back in power.
Then we can (finally) shift gears into fighting the true war on terror against Al Qaeda and Al "Qaedism" franchisees around the globe. This type of fight requires an unblinking eye and global cooperation, something the disaster in Iraq has precluded.
And to your last point: Al Qaeda in Iraq, to the extent it exists, will have no choice but to go home or, hopefully, die in place as the Iraqis reorient their fires from each other and our men and women in uniform to the murderous fomenters of much of the sectarian violence. Iraqis object to terrorism just as we do. Even Saddam's Iraq was no exporter of terrorism. There is no history of suicide carbombing in Iraq before Operation Iraq Freedom.
For the sake of our troops, our country, and the Iraqis, I hope that someday soon you and others sitting on the sycophantic shoulder of Bush et al will see the reality of the mess we’re in. The ISG tried, but instead we see you guys again ignoring the input of the measured, objective and expert analysis offered therein. I won’t hold my breath.