I think a lot of Pat Buchannan. But he could not be more wrong.
First, the U.S. military presence on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. Second, U.S. sanctions causing terrible suffering among the Iraqi people. Third, U.S. support for Israel's dispossession of the Palestinians.
Reason #1 is gone. Reason #2 is gone. Reason #3 is certainly on the wane. Yet, AQ doesn't seem to have backed off AT ALL and in fact has ramped up attacks and planned attacks since last January.
Pat has made this argument for years. He just doesn't get WHY terrorists want to kill Americans, which has NOTHING to do with the smokescreen of the 98 FATWA.
According to Gen. Barry McCaffrey, we must now prepare for 300 to 500 dead and wounded every month in Afghanistan by summer.
When you increase the number of troops you definitely are going to see more dead and wounded.
Consider. America lost 4,000 soldiers in six years in Iraq, with 30,000 wounded. Yet not one American of the 125,000 soldiers in Iraq was killed in December. Why not? Because we no longer conduct raids, patrol streets, kick down doors and pat down suspects. We have ended our combat operations, withdrawn to desert bases and seem anxious to go home. When we stopped fighting and killing them, they stopped fighting and killing us.
Our soldiers in Iraq aren't being killed because they're not leaving the FOBs where it is relatively safe. If you get them out doing patrols, there are going to be more attacks and deaths.
We need to get them the hell out of there. |
