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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Dale Baker who wrote (12199)2/15/2006 7:00:28 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (2) of 540885
 
Once you have parked an army of 150,000 troops in one country along with air and naval support, it can't be picked up and moved easily to another theater of conflict, for both logistical and political will reasons

OK, your talking strategic mobility not tactical mobility, and strategic mobility of soldiers already involved in a conflict rather than strategic mobility of any reserve forces.


So the premise that we are defeating Al Qaeda by patrolling Iraqi streets and drawing AQ fighters there is tenuous.

I agree. Its possible that it might hurt Al Qaeda and have some positive effect for us, but positive or negative there is no way these actions will directly defeat Al Qaeda.

They could contribute to the defeat or at least the marginalization of Al Qaeda indirectly and in the long term by "drying up the swamp", but we won't really know how well that works for at least years probably decades.

I simply find the "fight them there instead of here" argument especially weak.

I don't find it very strong but I don't find it morally bankrupt or intellectually dishonest (not your terms but terms used in this conversation), and I'm not sure that I would even call it especially weak.

OTOH "not strong" is probably enough for it to not be a good major justification for the Iraq operation. At very best it would be an additional supporting justification, and even that can reasonably be questioned.
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