Rumsfeld & North on “The Surge”
Posted on January 5, 2007
Oliver North, Conservative writer and retired US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, writes in Human Events today:
On adding more “troops:”
For months, advisers to President George W. Bush have been trying to convince the commander in chief that more U.S. troops in Iraq will improve prospects for victory. Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), both recently returned from Iraq (and a courageous surprise stopover in Ramadi, capital of bloody Al Anbar Province) also support adding more American troops. Unfortunately, they are wrong.
On asking “troops” in the field:
Not one of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen or Marines I interviewed told me that they wanted more U.S. boots on the ground. In fact, nearly all expressed just the opposite: “We don’t need more American troops, we need more Iraqi troops,” was a common refrain. They are right.
The specter of history:
The call for incrementally increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq — a “solution” that was first proffered last summer as the congressional election campaign heated up — sounds eerily like Lyndon Johnson’s plan to save Vietnam in the mid 1960s. Johnson saw “gradual escalation” as a way not to lose, and to avoid the unpleasant necessity of directly confronting North Vietnam. Regrettably, that also meant we could not win.
On what “could” do something:
While putting 200,000 American or NATO troops on the Iranian and Syrian borders to stop infiltration might make sense, that’s “mission impossible” given the size of U.S. and allied armed forces.
The bottom line:
A “surge” or “targeted increase in U.S. troop strength” or whatever the politicians want to call dispatching more combat troops to Iraq isn’t the answer. Adding more trainers and helping the Iraqis to help themselves, is. Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets.
Retired Navy Captain, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld last month:
The more troops you have, the greater the risk that you will be seen as an occupier and that you will feed an insurgency. The more troops you have–particularly American troops, who are so darn good at what they do–the more they will do things and the more dependent the Iraqis will become, and the less independent they will become. …
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From everything I have heard and read, the problem is that Iraqi’s, like most middle easterners, take forever to learn to be soldiers. What would take a couple weeks for Americans to learn takes them 6 months.
Ollie North is obviously Osama’s bumboy.
ah buy our wonderful congress has ‘analyzed’ the situation in Iraq- safe from their offices thousands of miles removed from the action, and determined that more troops are needed- sigh
The point is a good one — they must take over. The hand off must proceed apace.
what signal we send to the enemy - and future generations - is CRITICAL.
if we stabd pat, or withdraw, then we send a signal that we’re throwing in the towel. surrendering.
if we surge a little or a lot, we send a signal that we will not relent until the job is done.
we have the resources to fight this war for a few more decades - if the enemy-appeasing dems don’t do what they did in 1975 to the svg and what they did a decade later to the contras.
they cannot override a veto.
but in 08 they might. or they might take the white house.
in which case we will enter a decade like the one we suffered through before reagan saved the USA and the west and the free world.
i know. i was there. in fact - i was a supporter of carter then.
but i have seen the light.
1989 changed everything. 9/11 even more.
the dem party is run by folks who are not only pre-9/11, not only unrepentant carterites, but folks who still thion it’s 1973!
let’s not turn back the clock or the calender.
not to 1973.
and not to the 11th centiry eiother - as our foreign enemy is trying to do.
only one party stands for a future of liberty for all: the GOP.
and with hagels and luagrs even the gop is weakening.
at lest mccain and rudy are hawks.
i’d rather have a lib hawk like mccain or rudy, then have ANY dem.