An Obscure Candidate Fights Obscurity

James S. Gilmore III, the former governor of Virginia and republican candidate for president, called for the phased redeployment of U.S. troops to bases in Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
In a letter to Bush Gilmore derided the present course and also the calls for withdrawals and timetables by the democrats.

This approach of drawing down our forces while maintaining the military presence needed to preserve democracy in the country and launch special operations missions against terrorists would save U.S. lives and tax dollars as well as prevent Iraq from becoming a base of operations for foreign jihadists and buy valuable time to train Iraqi forces.

This policy I suggest entails risk that the political or military process inside Iraq may not come out as we hope. But we are already at risk in the Middle East.

I hate to say it, but Jim Gilmore is a cut-and-runner. He's a Rino, a republican in name only, hell, he's a defeatocrat.

No really, this sounds like a decent plan, if you can plan for miracles. The part about bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia to launch operations into a pseudo-occupied Iraq sounds a little like pie-in-the-sky thinking. The truth be told this sounds like Lawrence Kolb's plan pushed by the democrats last year.

He goes on to highlight his uses of U.S. troops.

I believe that the American military is on target when officers ask for a mission that includes maintaining -- either at bases in Iraq at the request of Iraq or in bases in Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia -- a military force powerful enough to launch special operations missions against al-Qaeda or Sunni insurgents in Iraq; train Iraqi troops to defend their own country; and guarantee the security of the Iraqi government, if so desired by Iraq.

He keeps commenting about these things being requested by Iraq. What if Iraq asked us to butt out, would we go? Nope, not a chance.

Gov. Gilmore is just trying to stay in the race against terrific odds. He wasn't much of a governor and has no name recognition. The fact remains that Bush has painted himself and his party into a pretty tight corner and we are not pulling out nor or we redeploying.

U.S. troops will be in Iraq until Bush leaves office and for many years after that. Gilmore talks of forcing more responsibility on the Iraqis. He argues against the "we broke it, we bought it" attitude. The truth is, that's the truth. The only government is the one we support and the only security is that which we provide.

Pushing a democrat sort of plan won't help Gilmore, there's no help for him.

Jim Martin