Hold the election ..Declare Victory and COME HOME.
Editorial by Joseph L. Gallway..Bradenton Herald,January 7,2005
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover but there may be only one good way out of the deepening disaster that is Iraq.HOLD THE ELECTIONS ON JANUARY 30,declare victory and begin leaving.
Anything less, anymore "STAYING THE COURSE.".. and we are likely doomed to an even bloodier and most costly defeat in a country divided along ethnic and religious fault lines and headed toward civil war.
A large number of Americans perhaps even a majority, believe that pulling out now would lead to an America defeat that undermines U.S. credibility and endangers he global war on terrorism. they worry it would create either an AFGHAN-style terrorist haven in Iraq or an anti American Shiite regime that would only be a new source of instability in the Mideast, a region vital to American interests.
The problem is that there is no way we can Win. Defeat the insurgents and install a stable,democratic friendly government and bad things are going to happen anyway.There is no way Americans are willing to pay the price even of stalemate,never mind an unattainable victory.
That would mean half a million American soldiers on the ground, maybe more and a new draft to find enough people for the force. It would mean an escalating drain on hundreds of billions more dollars and a bloodbath on both sides.
Why can't we win ? Because we charged in with false premises and bogus assumptions. Because for every insurgent we kill two or three more join the cause. Because even our advertised victories.. like Falk Fallujah we apparently had to destroy the city in order to save it or Samarra or Ramadi.. only turned the entire Sunni population against the US and its Iraq Allies.
And in the end, election or no, there is nothing we can do to produce and Iraq government that will be considered legtimate..by the entire population. The Sunnis hate the interim government as it is an American creation.
They will hate any elected government dominated by the Shiite majority. They and a growing number of Shiites will hate us because we are there and we are occupying their country and are an occupying army.
If we learned nothing else from the bitter history of Vietnam it should be that there are places and people who won't accept change and won't quit fighting until eve the most powerful nation and army in the world wearies of the killing an dying.
The fallout fro staying the course will be thousands more American soldiers killed and wounded, and Army so broken that repairs and reconstruction could take a decade or more and a Federal budge deficit staggering under the Cost of this war.
Consider these stories published this week:
Lt. Gen James R Helmly, commander of the U.S. Army's 200.000 Reserve soldiers tells his boss, Army chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, that the Reserves are rapidly degenerating into a broken force. The cause, the war in Iraq and dysfunctional Pentagon and congressional policies(Baltimore Sun, January 5th)
U.s. casualties as of this week: 1,340 killed in action, 10,252 wounded in action and an estimated 12.000 ill or injured. More than half the wounded Americans are hurt so badly they are not able to return to duty.
The Bush administration is preparing to send to Congress a supplemental request for as much as $ 100 Billion to cover unbudgeted cost of the Iraq war this year. That will bring the total cost to American tax payers of this war to an estimated $ 230 billion. That against an original Bush administration estimate of total costs of $ 50.000 Billion to $ 60.000 Billion.
Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has signed off on a Pentagon document proposing $ 30.000 Billion in cuts in once untouchable Air Force and Navy weapons projects to help pay for Iraq and help reduce the overall budget deficit..
Gen Muhammmad Abdullah Shahwani, director of the Iraq government's new intelligence service told the Times of London that he estimates that there are more than 200.000 insurgents and active supporters opposing American ,Coalition and government forces in Iraq.
I think that the Resistance is bigger than the U.S military in Iraq Shahwani said.
Perhaps the only good things to emerge from this misbegotten war will be the end to our infatuation with high tech weaponry and our willingness to continue paying for new fighter planes and nuclear submarines designed for the cold war.
It would also be good if it rekindles a new appreciation for boots on the ground to win our war, and end to Defense Secretary Donald. H. Rumsfeld's fixation with the kind of transformation that revolves around PowerPoint presentations focused on faster,lighter and cheaper.
As we approach the second anniversary of our invasion we need to be discussing and debating WHAT WE ARE GAINING if anything from this war as opposed to what we are losing. |
