You're spot on regarding embedding US troops in Iraqi units: after the first or 2'nd fratricide resulting in US troop deaths, that will be shelved. When I first read that proposal I thought it was the nuttiest idea of recent. However, it has a couple of additional showstoppers as well. Who has control? Will US troops actually be placed under the tactical control of Iraqis? If so, the first time some get killed by what gets blamed on poor Iraqi decision, the experiment will stop as well, or most remaining Republicans in Congress from red states will find themselves looking for new jobs in 2008. What happens if Iraqi units commit atrocities while embedded US troops are present? Do our troops intervene at possible danger of fratricide, do they watch and not intervene, or do they join in? Can they be tried for war crimes (as some currently are being for their own sins) if they simply watch and don't intervene.
I just don't see any way this scheme works.
BTW, I strongly agree here as well:
The deciders have almost all, belatedly, realized we're not dealing with larvae stage Americans but rather an Iraqi culture saturated with mores, ideals and policies we find incompatible with the central governance of a nation containing at least three separate religious or ethnic groups.
I've long argued that our misadventure in Iraq is akin to the UN blue helmets invading Texas to force gay rights on the Southern Baptists (or pick some similar example). Yet many on the right, and indeed the right blogsphere use to yell and scream about how demeaning such a view was of the Iraqi people, how clearly those people were just dying for the chance to prove they were the same as "all men" surely must be. Now, many of those same pundits think we should ratchet up the killing of our enemies, so we can still achieve the goals. Some people genetically cannot get it. |
