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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gator II who wrote (21779)	10/8/2004 5:02:55 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Gator, you might be surprised to find that I agree with much of what you say. The areas of disagreement, however, go to critical assumptions that lead us to different conclusions. I agree that: 1. More troops were, and are, counter productive AFTER the insurgency took hold. Prior to that time they could have prevented the looting and provided some sort of security to a grateful population, especially if coupled with a real and visible "Iraqification" process. After the insurgency took hold with a sufficient level of popular support to sustain it, more troops would only have meant more casualties on both sides and a more rapidly escalating conflict. (Assuming we didn't engage in the scorched-earth policy of true "pacification.) 2. The great failure in Vietnam, and emerging failure in Iraq, evolve from our defeat in the "hearts and minds" tug of war, together with our failure to win the conflict through the committment to fighting from the "locals." I think, however, that failure is less due to our ineptitude or lack of effort and more due to the fact that there is a strong, instinctive resistance of all peoples to foreign meddling on the one hand, and, on the other, that we weren't helping them get what they wanted, we were attempting to force them to accept what we wanted. I think you saw that in Vietnam where the ARVN forces would rarely fight and then often only when they were attacked and needed to fight to survive. I think you also see that in Iraq today where men sign up for the wages but rarely seem to be willing to kill or die fighting their own "bad guys." I think you also see that the "hearts and minds" battle does not turn our way after the insurgency has started and our men have developed a siege mentality. So that's the test for me; do the Iraqi people believe in what we are attempting to do there to the extent that they will put their lives on the line to fight for it. So far the answer is "no." We try to say that's a lack of training but you and I know that fighting is more a function of will than training. If most of the population are sheep, and they probably are almost everywhere in the world, then which side will the wolves choose? So far the answer is clear but it's not one we like to hear. Your last point about it being a disaster to change commanders in chief, and that our military is probably not in favor of that, leaves me in partial agreement. I do believe the military at this point would choose Bush. Of course the top brass would favor him because that's who gave them their military commands. The military rank and file, similarly, are in the middle of the "game" and most of them aren't going to question the coach. That is beginning to change, however, as more of them begin to see that all of their best efforts are not yeilding sustainable results. There is no particular reason that I can see for not changing presidents in the middle of a war, however. The presidents true function is to weigh policy and choose the ship's course through troubled waters. It's that job which he hasn't done competently; he surely hasn't been on the front himself. He didn't ask our men to decide policy and if policy changes, he won't ask them then either. Would you be upset if you'd served our country honorably when asked to go and fight and then were asked by your country to cease fighting? Would it make you feel better to keep fighting, killing and dying after your country realized that the mission for which you'd been sent to fight was no longer viable or justified? As a citizen of America would you "stay the course" with a president who'd shown poor capacity in judgement and execution? I don't understand why leadership accountability stops when the war starts. Ed