Hi Neocon; Re: "Any conflict mobilizes combatants, and veterans hone their skills. Were we supposed to not engage in WWII because Hitler would field more men, and they would become battle hardened?"
We had a plan in WW2. It was to reduce the effectiveness of Hitler's armies by killing and wounding their soldiers faster than Hitler could field more (or they could be "battle hardened"). It was a matter of numbers, and it worked.
We have no such plan in Iraq. We have a hope, and that is that we can train the Iraqis to fight the insurgents. As of now, the insurgency continues to grow, so our plan is not yet working. I doubt that it will work. The fundamental problem is that too many Iraqis hate us enough to be willing to risk their life to kill our soldiers, but very few Iraqis are willing to risk their lives to protect our soldiers.
By the way, did you see:
Rice said she believed there were more than 120,000 trained Iraqi forces -- acknowledging problems of absenteeism and desertion -- but drew a quick rebuke from Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who said he thought the number was closer to 4,000.
news.yahoo.com
My opinion, as usual based on the numbers, is that Biden is an idiot for claiming that there are only 4000 trained Iraqi forces. Maybe he's using a very stringent definition of "trained", but that's a bit deceitful at best. If there were only 4000 trained Iraqi forces, then it wouldn't be possible for the insurgents to kill dozens of them every day.
Maybe the number is hard to determine because Iraqi forces (at least the ones on our side) drive around with masks on their faces out of fear that they will be recognized and punished by the insurgents or their collaborators.
-- Carl |
