Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Simple Truths at Angle of Repose

"Uh Oh" In comments section
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1 comment:

Arelcao Akleos said...

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Iraq
I think we're going to lose this one. And the consequences aren't going to be pretty.

Having committed our military troops to combat, it was incumbent upon our leaders to provide our troops the support and direction necessary to achieve victory. In this, our leaders failed.

When Baghdad fell quickly to our forces, the general consensus was that bringing the rest of the Iraq under control would take no time at all, and that when we left Iraq in a few short years, Iraq would be all peace and sunshine, with a fully-functioning Jeffersonian democracy in place to boot.

Unfortunately, the people in charge of the war seemed to have forgetten that in war the objective is to make the enemy do your will. That means conquering your enemy. Build up the infrastructure if you must, but conquer your enemy first. We didn't do that. We fought the enemy here and there, while we built schools and set up power lines. We installed a government, and then let that government direct us. Our forces recently caught an insurgent thug whom the Iraqi government ordered us to release. Meanwhile, our soldiers die fighting the insurgents.

My first hint that the war was off course came shortly after Baghdad fell. I watched the news where our forces in some Iraqi town wanted to enter a mosque where insurgents were reportedly holed up. A crowd of Iraqis surrounded the mosque and shouted to our troops that they could not enter their mosque. It was a tense situation. The leader of the American soldiers ordered his line of men to kneel and set the muzzles of their rifles on the ground to show the Iraqis that they would not escalate the situation. Our troops didn't go into that mosque. Seeing that, I muttered an "Uh oh."

And then there was Fallujah.

History will record that we invaded Iraq and left it without achieving victory, and that Muslim fanatics gained control, commenced a great slaughter, and established a regime that was hostile to the United States.

And here is a speculation: I think history will record President Bush as one of our worst presidents. But that's another post

12/05/2006 6:49 AM

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