Calling Their Bluff
on 03/11/2007 at 05:29 PM
We need to have a lot of troops and equipment in the mideast for a long time into the future. Think Germany after WWII. 20,000 or so troops, one way or another, is a pretty piddling amount as far as the big picture is concerned. There were about 500,000 troops in the first gulf war.
Our main problem at the moment is that we are trying to police a dispute between the two branches of Islam which has been going on for centuries. We let things deteriorate to the point where they are, due to the policy of “Invasion Lite”. We won the initial battle and lost the occupation. Due to our own bungling, we are not going to be able to fix this situation no matter how many troops we put over there.
My favorite UT cheerleader Kay Bailey Hutchinson believes that we should partition the country. I believe this too.
Dallas Morning News
06:43 AM CST on Thursday, March 1, 2007
Kay Bailey Hutchison: If violence in Iraq is quelled, then what?
We need to plan now for partition
America and its allies have fought valiantly for four years to establish a stable democracy among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq. It has proven to be a task not achievable in a short period.
President Bush and the American people realize that a new approach is necessary. As the president’s plan is implemented, I believe it is important to look beyond the immediate goal of stopping the violence. Thinking about the next step is not premature – it is essential. If the heroic warriors whom we have deployed to Iraq in defense of America are able to contain the murderous mix of terrorists, criminals, insurgents, jihadists and militia, we must seize that hard-won opportunity and move forward with a new initiative that utilizes existing authority in the Iraqi constitution.
Such a plan would create at least three separate, semiautonomous regions in which local law enforcement, commerce, security and education would be managed by local authorities. A limited central government would be responsible for ensuring an equitable division of oil revenue, conducting foreign policy and protecting national security. In fact, the Iraqi Cabinet has recently approved a draft of new legislation that would allow the distribution of oil revenue to individual regions based on population.
We are also stretching our military entirely too thin. We have never fought a war of this duration before without implementing a draft. I agree with my fellow Democrat Charles Rangel in this reguard.
What a load - sorry Yellow Dog - 1) partitioning Iraq is a set up for Iranian invasion, they are salivating awaiting for the Shiites inthe South (think OIL) to get set up as their own entity. And the Sunnis back into control of the mid Iraq - Syria too is salivating for that, just bidding it’s time to return all of Saddams WMD to the ‘real’ islamic peoples. And the Kurds would be swept down from the North by Turkey which is just waiting for the chance to get rid of them while getting some prime (and well managed) land. . .
2) we went uber War in Desert Storm - and looked like the overagressive, military might the World wanted to believe we were - so this time, a bit smaller (although I do agree, the Powers that Be, should have just pushed the 4th ID in despite Turkey) and once things started going badly, up the ante.
But unringing a rung bell is a bad place to be.
I just love President Bush - he isn’t going to cave on this (nor should he).
Rangel talks a ‘good’ point but I have long come to suspect when a dem is pushing something - what does this person really want. And with his terrible beliefs on the military - it’s not a pro-military stance.
The military stretched thin is a Clinton created situation - cutting our military from 17 divisions to 10, not to mention the budget.
But it is all President Bush’s fault. Always and forever. Man I’d love to be him - just to have that POWER.
I agree, W is playing Texas Hold’em. And doing a magnificent job with the “poker face”. For everyone who’s been ragging on him about the war, you’ll see. As for his “open border” thing, I wonder if that may be similar. I doubt it, but JUST MAYBE he has a real plan we just haven’t seen yet. THAT remains to be seen.
Wardmomma,
I think Bush is a good guy too. I have voted for him every time he has run for Governor or President. I wouldn’t do that now, at least for President. He is loyal to his friends to a fault. Once he decides on a course of action he follows it even after it has become clear that the course he chose is not working. I think he is in a little over his head.
It is his fault. The buck always stops on the President’s desk in military matters. He has said this on numerous occasions. The Republican Party is paying a steep price for this at the moment and it looks like that will continue through the next election cycle.
As far as the partitioning of Iraq is concerned, Iraq is already in the process of partitioning itself by way of civil war. There has been so much bloodletting at this point that there is no possibility that tempers will moderate of their own accord. Partition is working for the Kurds. The north of the country is relatively peaceful. I don’t think that is going to be possible to get these folks to live side by side in harmony at this point, so it is just a matter of how you split them apart, with the least amount of death and destruction, makeing sure you maintain the oil flow as best as possible.
I understand if cannot bring yourself to agree with Rangel on anything. If he says it is day outside, I am sure that you would say it is night. How about agreeing with Andy Rooney? He was a sergeant in WWII and a Higgins boat pilot. That gives him some credibility as far as military matters are concerned. Yes I know that he is a member of the evil mainstream media. He said this on 60 Minutes last night.
There have been stories recently about the problem the Pentagon is having recruiting enough soldiers to do the fighting that we’re committed to do in Iraq.
In an attempt to get the soldiers they need, recruiters have reduced the standards for getting into the Army or Navy.
They have reduced the educational standards, for example, so that they’re getting more soldiers who didn’t go to high school, let alone graduate from high school.
Recruiters are granting thousands of what they call “moral waivers”. A “moral waiver” it turns out means they’ll take someone who has committed a crime or even someone who has been in prison. Last year, a total of 8,129 “moral waivers” were given to men who volunteered for the Army.
Are these the people we want representing us? As American soldiers, they’re going to give the people they meet around the world the impression that they are what all Americans are like and if they have been taken from the bottom of the barrel, they are not what we’re all like.
In August of 1941, I had just finished my junior year in college when I was drafted into the Army. Hundreds of my classmates were drafted at the same time.
I hated everything about Army life. I hated the Field Artillery regiment I was assigned to. Most of the guys in it were high school dropouts and the Army wasn’t using the term “moral waiver,” yet but a lot of them would have needed it.
They had joined before the draft so they had already been promoted to being corporals or sergeants and they were in charge of the rest of us.
In 1942 we were at war with Germany and it wasn’t long before drafted college students and high school graduates dominated our military. It changed the United States Army for the better and in two years made it the best fighting force there has ever been. The Army and Navy were no longer made up of losers.
Now comes the part of this I never thought I’d hear myself say: Whenever we, as a nation, decide to fight a war – in Iraq or anywhere else – it should be fought by average Americans who are drafted.
I don’t see any problem with drafting women either. What would be wrong with Paris Hilton and Nichole Ritchey driving trucks in Iraq? It would certainly be more of a character building experience than what they are doing now. It might make a good reality show. Elvis did OK when he went to Germany. Yuppie mall rats might actually make pretty good soldiers. They are good at video games. Quick reflexes you know…
It really does not matter who is responsible for the current over extended condition of the military. What matters, is that it get fixed. If something is screwed up, it is still screwed up even if you can find some way to blame it on the other party. The world is crazy and it looks like it will only get crazier. We need a strong military to protect our interests.
Yellow Dog, I haven’t listen to Andy for ages but stopped even taking him seriously (you aren’t the first to send me something of his) since his ‘God told me Mel Gibson. . .’ statement about ‘The Passion of the Christ’ and then he made the commentary Our Soldiers in Iraq aren’t Heroes in 2004. Read the above closely, Yellow Dog, it is just a sexed up version of the liberal screed that the Pentagon is taking convicted felons because they can’t get recruits. Waivers have been a part of recruiting for decades - and if you have paid your fine/done your time, doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?
And two - why now? Recruitment rates and re-enlistment rates are high, so use anything to tarnish it and of course attack the Bush Administration.
And no Yellow Dog, we will end up just like post Vietnam with everyone embittered, angry and resentful after we left a people to be slaughtered simply because we were told by the denizen of all things journalistic Walter Cronkite that it was ‘unwinable’.
In WWII - it was a different era where patriotism was acceptable, service to the country expected and for a lot of people it was the ticket out of farming, mining and poverty.
Given that the inner city minorities are NOT the highest enlistment block - I no longer think any of the above are the case - so the draft would just breed bad things - which is why I think Charlie Rangel is promoting it and that is a noxious way to do business in American politics.
