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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (201473)	4/4/2007 8:12:39 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793670

What a hodge podge that is. Then we have this assessment "The situation on the American side is not much better. The careerists in the Army and DoD have leaned that not taking chances and reporting only good news up the chain are the ways to advance their careers. Just look at General Casey. The army is first and foremost a bureaucracy intent on taking its processes, forms, procedures and top down decision making with it wherever it goes. The Army is not flexible enough or well trained enough to win a counterinsurgency." To that I say Amen! "We have mismanaged Iraq in ways too numerous to list here for four years. In order to succeed on the ground we would have to scrap everything we have done and start over…." We started over with the surge and the appointment of GEN Petraeus. This falls into the Angry Left's meme of "not changing course." Substantive and real changes have been made in strategy and tactics. We have seen that here in Al Anbar with engagement of the local Sheiks and militias. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is becoming more desperate with every savage attack. Things are not going to change overnight, but they are changing and they are getting better. Petreaus was not a start over. The only significant change he brings to the battlefield is more US troops in Baghdad. But you know that may be enough for his purposes. If anywhere along the line he can declare Baghdad secure, he will have provided an opening for our withdrawal.

To: LindyBill who wrote (201473)	4/5/2007 3:08:01 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793670

The other part of this that simply makes no sense to me is this - if Maliki and the Shia are the real problems and determined to exercise control over Iraq a la Saddam Hussein, why do they not do the following: Simply order the Shia militias to stand down and do nothing, but particularly not attack Coalition Forces. If the Shia militia violence is the real problem and their control so pervasive then Maliki and the Shia could set the conditions for the US forces to be gone by the end of 2007. If there were four or five months of no real activity the clamor at home to bring US forces would be deafening and there would be no refutation of it. They might, if they were acting for themselves only. But they also obey Iran's orders, and Iran wants the US to stay tied down. A US army withdrawn is a US army freed up.