The trick-le of the surge strategy
It becomes increasing clear that the "new strategy" in Iraq is simply the same old stay the course. Already the so-called surge supporters, who were repeating the tired refrain of "just give it six more months" to see if it will work, are now saying just give it two more, six more months. And you can be certain that in two more, six more months, the same wrongheaded pundits will be calling for just six more, ad infinitum, until Bush can skulk out of the White House and back to Crawford where he'll turn his attention to zealously hogging brush and pretend the whole nightmare never happened.
Surge supporters are declaring early signs of success every time Baghdad manages to go three hours without a major bloodbath but still the suicide bombings are popping off across the country like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Nothing has changed, at least not for the better,
The Iraqi government was allegedly given sovereignty in June of 2004. They've dragged their feet on every benchmark of progress promised by the White House from holding their elections, to drafting their constitution, to building their own security forces. How many six months cycles does it take to figure out that the Iraqis have no incentive to meet benchmarks as long as our troops are doing all the heavy lifting for them? And now our generals announce the "groundbreaking" news that our troops need at least a year to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis? How about the new Iraqi government wins some hearts and minds of their own instead?
The "new" strategy only continues to bleed out our own military readiness and unfairly burdens our National Guard with a nation building exercise in a foreign land, rather than allowing them to fulfil the duty the signed up for -- which was to protect our nation. And I ask you again, if the terrorists -- whoever the hell they are -- decide not to wait for us to leave there so they can follow us here, but instead decide to arrive here before our troops return, who will defend America when the majority of our forces are deployed thousands of miles from home?
This isn't a strategy, it's a dirty trick on our troops and on Americans.
Surge supporters are declaring early signs of success every time Baghdad manages to go three hours without a major bloodbath but still the suicide bombings are popping off across the country like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Nothing has changed, at least not for the better,
The Iraqi government was allegedly given sovereignty in June of 2004. They've dragged their feet on every benchmark of progress promised by the White House from holding their elections, to drafting their constitution, to building their own security forces. How many six months cycles does it take to figure out that the Iraqis have no incentive to meet benchmarks as long as our troops are doing all the heavy lifting for them? And now our generals announce the "groundbreaking" news that our troops need at least a year to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis? How about the new Iraqi government wins some hearts and minds of their own instead?
The "new" strategy only continues to bleed out our own military readiness and unfairly burdens our National Guard with a nation building exercise in a foreign land, rather than allowing them to fulfil the duty the signed up for -- which was to protect our nation. And I ask you again, if the terrorists -- whoever the hell they are -- decide not to wait for us to leave there so they can follow us here, but instead decide to arrive here before our troops return, who will defend America when the majority of our forces are deployed thousands of miles from home?
This isn't a strategy, it's a dirty trick on our troops and on Americans.
posted by Libby Spencer at 8:35 AM
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