Surging to Nowhere
"The rethinking of U.S. Iraq policy represented by the Baker-Hamilton report is an important and welcome start but insufficiently radical if Iraq’s collapse and an unprecedented regional war are to be avoided," writes the International Crisis Group by way of introducing their report on the situation. I concur. The White House, meanwhile, believes that Baker-Hamilton goes too far. They believe that things are basically fine in Iraq. The improvement that needs to be made, says the White House, is that we should send the new rotation of troops into Iraq on schedule. Those troops are supposed to relieve troops who are already there. Which is where the White House plan comes in . . . if the troops who are supposed to get relieved just . . . stay in Iraq for a while, then -- like magic! -- we have more troops in Iraq.
This is the "surge" option that, apparently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff oppose on the grounds that the White House has no particular mission in mind for the surged troops and is just looking for a policy that sounds good while remaining committed to an open-ended occupation of Iraq.
Comments
I am confused on one thing. It's a common opinion that there aren't enough troops in Iraq. Wouldn't that automatically leave these 20,000 with something to do?
I'm not, I hasten to add, agreeing with Bush's plan, I'm just trying to figure out the full picture of military deployments and missions.
It's a common opinion that there weren't enough troops in Iraq back when they could have done some good. Most people agree that it's far too late for additional troops to make a difference at this point.
Wouldn't that automatically leave these 20,000 with something to do?
Well, sure, if you had 20,000 more troops in Iraq they could do something. The Joint Chiefs' concern, I think, is that the White House doesn't have anything in particular in mind for them. Do they want the 20,000 extra troops to mount an assault on Sadr City? To increase the frequency of foot patrols in Sunni neighborhoods? In mixed-sect neighborhoods? To increase the volume of people involved in the training mission? To secure oil pipelines? What?
A real plan would say "we think it's crucial to get X done in the near future, X will require Y additional troops, so let's send Y troops over to do X." The White House is just saying "here's a way to get Y additional troops to Iraq..."
you can count me among those who believe that the only man in america who could have prevented this disaster was colin powell, who could (and should) have resigned in disgust, denounced the policy, and given congressional opponents some wherewithal. he didn't, and he's now desperately trying to salvage his reputation (too late, colin, too late).
the joint chiefs, though, don't come out much better. they sat back and allowed american troops to be used without a clear mission; indeed, some of the joint chiefs were simply enablers. it's about frickin' time that they remembered what their job is.
"the joint chiefs, though, don't come out much better. they sat back and allowed american troops to be used without a clear mission;"
One of the chiefs, Shinseki, did say that any occupation of Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops. Since there was no way that a force like that would be raised, he essentially spoke out against the war about as much as he could. Rumsfeld had already cut Shinseki's legs out from under him though. It was common knowledge that anyone backing Shinseki had no career. Still, some things are more important than a career.
njorl, that's exactly the point!
Personally, I think this entire region was just waiting for a chance to explode and Bush gave them the kick start. Whether we sent 500,000 troops or a million at the beginning of the war, these people would still slaughter each other and us any chance they got. This notion that you can impose democracy at gunpoint is beyond ridiculous. We had our chance to promote democracy there in 1991 when the Kurds and Shiites rose up against Saddam and Powell and company advocated against it. Where was Dick Cheney then?
Again, this civil war was inevitable. It could have been mitigated by getting our act together early on. But hindsight is irrelevant now. Get in there, train the forces and get out by 2008 (timetable). Force Maliki to be a leader or suffer the consequences. Surge in forces now is pointless. Use the troops that are there and be done with it.
Dee, I disagree. The americans inadvertantly ran an experiment in Iraq. On the one hand, in Northern Iraq, in the Kurdish state, in 2003, the Americans left in place a police force and a militia. Now, these forces had engaged, recently, in a lot of bloodletting in the civil war in Kurdistan in 96, but the U.S. did not use that as a reason to dissolve them. On the other hand, the U.S. unilaterally dissolved the police force and the army (that it, incredibly, did not control - the reason for more troops in 2003 was, among other things, to secure the armed forces that surrendered. To let an armed force simply melt away into the population is the height of stupidity) and replaced it with a seriously inadequate force of American soldiers, supplemented by some Coalition soldiers. According to Fiasco, Ricks account of the first year of the war, the Americans didn't make a real effort to create an infrastructure of policing for a year.
In America, this kind of thing is often fantasized about - in the movies. For instance, the Robocop movie fantasized about a Detroit in which the police force suddenly dissolved. These fantasies are not about the subsequent peaceful selforganization of neighborhoods as Americans find that their supernatural virtues make police really an unnecessary luxury. These fantasies are about raw violence being unleashed.
Hollywood is right. Rumsfeld was wrong. You cannot overestimate the effect of the initial disbanding of all security in occupied Iraq. It is one of those occassions in which initial conditions lead to true chaos.
Roger, totally agree with you that the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the debathification process in Al Anbar and the Baghdad areas was colossal mistakes. And we pay the price now. But I really do think civil conflict was inevitable in this region of the world -- when I say civil conflict, I mean between Muslims either in Iraq or in the Arab world. This war was just a jump start to begin to release all of the anger and hatred that permeates their culture. The war in Iraq is not about us anymore really. It's about them... their culture, their idea of civilized society and tolerance... we are just stuck in the middle. It's like we wanted to blow the lid off the pressure cooker but now we want to put it back on. Not going to happen.
"Do they want the 20,000 extra troops to mount an assault on Sadr City?"
The 20k troops will provide force protection for the FOB's while the Air Force bombs any resistance, Sunni or Sadrist, and possibly Iran.
Dee wrote:
This war was just a jump start to begin to release all of the anger and hatred that permeates their [Arab and Iraqi] culture.
And I suppose genocide and racism permeate 'civilized' western society today, as evidenced by the oh-so-civil conflict of WWII, not to mention the Reformation?
Give me a break, and get a sense of historical perspective.
You can't spend 90 years screwing with a country and then get all self-righteous when it goes to pot. Hell, Iraq isn't even a country, it's a British cartography exercise.
The Iraq war is not about us anymore? We spent 12 years destroying their country. We spent the ten before that trying to encourage them to destroy it one their own. But somehow, none of that matters now.
And enough of this 'Arab world' baloney. There are lots of places in the world that aren't doing so hot. Some of them even, gasp, don't involve Muslims.
At any rate, what in the world do you folks expect al-Maliki to do? He's a democratically elected leader. It's not like he can just abandon his people to make some American politician look good.
Rein in the militias? Even supposing it wouldn't topple his government, how? Who has the means to rein them in? If the GIs are reluctant to take on al-Sadr, you can bet the ragtag Iraqi 'army' is. Half of them are probably on al-Sadr's or al-Hakim payroll to begin with.
Finally, 20,000 or 100,000 what's the point. This is about political points, not results. It always has been, from March 2003 on.
Still, if Bob is right about the bombings, they might as well send in half a million because between the Sadrists, the Badr brigade, and the Iranians, it'll be quite a show. Looking forward to front row seats myself.
The White House is just saying "here's a way to get Y additional troops to Iraq..."
The aim of the surge of troops is, in part, to quiet the sectarian violence enough, for long enough, at least in Baghdad to open a space in which some actual national reconciliation-related program activities can take place. This means probably both providing more troops to go after JAM, and more troops to do foot patrols in Sunni and mixed-neighborhoods, and so on.
Yes, 20k is probably actually way too low for any hope, and it's probably way too late almost regardless. But I don't think there's any way to actually surge with the numbers you'd need.
Plus two other things. One, mixed up in this is the political calculation that advocating a surge like this enables Bush to show that he is defying Democrats, the ISG (more or less), and public opinion, Truman-style, to make the right decision, which will enable him to at least make a go at spinning the draw down of troops that is coming in time for election season 2008 as something other than an utter concession to his domestic political adversaries and a concession of the utter failure that it is and will be.
Second, this whole thing is complicated by the fact that Dick Cheney is sitting back and sitting pretty, not really interested in the larger strategy of national reconciliation that the surge is just one military component of, waiting for it to fail so that the alternative that he has managed to get designated as the chief fallback - the chilling "80% solution" - can get its turn. At that point, the current strategy of national reconciliation will already have increased US troop numbers while shifting the mission overall toward training, and empowered Sciri within the new governing (or non-governing) coalition. The military strategy at that point will work perfectly well for the Salvadorization of Iraq and taking sides in the civil war.
mirc
mirç
mırc
mırç
mircturk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mirc yukle
mirch
mırch
mirc turk
turk mirc
mırcturk
turkmırc
mırc turk
turk mırc
turkiyemirc
türkiyemirc
turkiye mirc
türkiye mirc
mircturkiye
mirctürkiye
mirc turkiye
mircturk
turkmırc
muhabbet
forum
forum
turkforum
turkiyeforum
mirc
turkmirc
toplist
site ekle
pagerank
turkmirc
turkforum
sohbet
chat
sohbet odaları
bedava sohbet
bedava chat
türk
karar
sex shop
Thanks Best Regards
mirc
mırc
mırç
mircturk
mirctürk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mırc indir
mirç indir
mirc yükle
mırc yükle
mirc yukle
mırc yukle
mirch
mırch
mirc turk
turk mirc
mırc turk
mircada
mircturkiye
muhabbet
mirc sohbet
mırc sohbet
mirc chat
mırc chat
mırc ındır
mirc ındır
türkçe mirc
turkce mirc
turkçe mırc
turkce mırc
oper mirc
sohbet
forum
chat
online sinema
catlak
türk forum
turk forum
kafkas
kafkasya
ders
siyaset
izmir
karşiyaka
karsiyaka
forum
karsıyaka
sohbet
Post A Comment