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Pump Up The Violence
July 7th, 2007One of the arguments against a “time certain” withdraw from Iraq is that terrorist in residence would ramp-up violence as that date approached. This conclusion goes beyond common sense and enters the realm of prophesy.
And so it should have been with the September 15th reporting date of progress, or lack thereof, in Iraq. Yesterday, General Petraeus — a man whose job I wouldn’t take for all the money in Hillary’s campaign accounts — noted that he fully expects the jihadists, wahabbist, and maybe even Iraqi Rotarians to stage high-profile attacks leading up to his Congressional presentation. With a little over two months left before the “date certain minor”, we can expect to see a steady increase in bloodshed and the stupidity of those causing it.
Indeed, the day Petraeus made his prediction, 100 Shia were blown to bits north of Baghdad.
The bottom line is that setting any date for any measure of resolve gives the enemies of humanity an objective. It gives them the advantage of metering their resources, timing their carnage, and perfecting our retreat through revulsion.
Congressional clowns that put forth the mandated reporting date have 100 new bloody souls on their hands, and will soon have more.
Found your site via the Gun Facts book. Well done.
Up front, I’ll tell you I’ve been against the war in Iraq since Day 1. No need to beat that dead horse.
I have said since we started this, that if we’re going to do it, go all-out. No Hearts And Minds crap. Go in with force, kill them all, come home. Otherwise, American soldiers die unnecessarily.
Clearly, this administration does not have the political will to do a Dresden-esque bombing. Our guys are hamstrung in their ability to kill the enemy. Hell, they’re brought up on charges when they kill too many. You and I both know that this will never change.
So what would you do? How would you stop the bleeding without withdrawing our troops?
Quite honestly, I don’t give a damn about the 100 Shia you noted above. Not one little damn. I care about our boys over there. Making them sitting ducks does nothing to make our country safer. It just gets us dead soldiers.
Thanks for the compliment on Gun Facts.
In perfect 20/20 hindsight, the original concept did not seem bad: build a nation, build a police/military, and once they were competent, then bug out.
I never thought that would happen quickly, but it is taking longer than I anticipated (having never built a country, police force, or army by myself, I have no idea just how long that should take … though I hear America was doing just that for well over a decade in both Japan and Germany last century).
The one heartening aspect of this “surge” is that it looks like some of our troops are going on “seek and destroy” missions, as opposed to playing Baghdad Cop. That is the only way to thin out the terrorist in Iraq, though I fear there are enough jihadists coming in country daily that such missions will be an ongoing affair.
I’ll disagree with you on the original concept. It is called Nation Building. Not something authorized in our Constitution, and specifically frowned upon by our Founding Fathers in their personal and public papers.
Japan and Germany were conquered countries. Both had declared war on us. We had no such similar reason for invading Iraq. You don’t wage war on supposition, but that’s what we did.
In WWII, we occupied them with a stifling force. If that was the Administration’s plan, they forgot about the stifling part. The only way you can force your ideology on a country is through the sheer, brutal imposition of your will. Period.
Back to the original point, though: What would you do now? Realistically, considering the political climate, and the apparent lack of political will of the administration?
You make valid points. My only quibble might be constitutional authority for nation building. Though not enumerated powers, the associated powers (executive foreign policy, etc.) together create the authority.
If it is wise is another issue.
What can be done now? Such a strategy is above my pay grade, but it would appear that increase troop levels is the primary approach (recent search and destroy missions are showing some success). I have not looked at what our current reserve force is, so that has to be in the calculations (the ability to fight on two major fronts simultaneously remains a requirement).
What is disheartening (and for which I have no simple answer) is the failure of the new Iraqi government to get their collective arses in gear and meet the challenge. Until that happens, we are morally stuck in keeping imported terrorists from consuming the country.