General warns against Iraq withdrawal
As much as I think Bush’s strategy has been a failure in the Middle East I fear a pullout with no plan would lead to a disaster. The key is changing our goals to stabilizing Iraq not forcing tribes that have been killing each other since 700 AD to function as a representative democracy!
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Edward Joseph of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies both warn that an early withdraw of troops could lead to an regional civil war. Yet they disagree with Bush’s strategy of forcing a strong central government in Iraq. What do you think?
WASHINGTON (AP) — As pressure builds for a change in Iraq policy, a top U.S. commander there warned Friday that drawing down troops too soon would leave the country “a mess.”
“You’d find the enemy regaining ground, re-establishing sanctuary, building more” roadside bombs, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told a Pentagon news conference. “The violence would escalate. It’d be a mess.”Lynch was responding to a question on the possible effects if officials were to decide not to extend beyond the summer the troop buildup President Bush ordered early this year.
Bush sent an additional 30,000 troops to try to pacify Baghdad and wants Congress to wait until September for an assessment on how it’s working. But an increasing number of U.S. lawmakers are already convinced the policy is failing and should be changed.
Fact is, if you are waiting for a stable Iraq, then you had better go ahead and commit to decades of occupation and reinstate a draft.
John, I just posted an excellent article in your “open blog” thread that pertains to this thread. The article is by Chris Hedges, former Middle East Bureau Chief of the New York Times. This guy makes much sense!
Well we went in to get rid of Saddam, destroy Al Qaeda, end torture, and free the Iraqi people from oppression. One out of four ain’t bad.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
I would be surprised to see Gen. Lynch continue to be a “top U.S. commander” if he keeps saying the exact opposite (which just happens to be reality) of what all the lawmakers want to hear.
Walls and Partitions
The US is in danger of digging a deeper hole in Iraq. Just when you thought that this Administration’s policy in Iraq could not possibly get more screwed up than it already is, first it announces the building of walls around select neighbourhoods in Baghdad…
Doesn’t General Petraeus with his much touted strategic expertise realise that together these policies confirm all of the very worst suspicions held by the average Iraqi? The average Iraqi looks at the concrete walls and says, “Where have I seen these before? Why, in Israel and the West Bank of course!!” So, he concludes, the US is trying to do to us what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. Sure enough, far from protecting residents hemmed in by the walls, these concrete barriers both make them sitting ducks for sectarian cleansing and hampers their access to schools, shops, hospitals and the requirements of daily life. In the minds of the hemmed in Iraqis, the wall is there to target them and control them and not to protect them.
It really is time to pull out and reassess. The Republicans keep saying that you cannot pull out without having a solution. Well, when a bull goes into a China shop, there is no graceful solution. There is not much that can be done but to get the bull out. The shop owner is is going to have to be left to pick up the pieces and move on. It is not going to endear the US to the Iraqis, nor indeed to the rest of the world, but the damage is already done and frankly, there is no other solution.
LeftHook – great post (your #5)
And remember, I’m a Paleo-Conservative/
Constitutionalist/
Populist – something like that.
This is not a partisan issue, it’ an American issue!
Here’s another thought provoking piece. The opening paragraph starts thusly:
““You cannot win the peace unless you know the enemy at home and abroad,”
US Marine Colonel from Tennessee.
Everywhere I visit from Copenhagen to Istanbul, Patagonia to Mexico City, journalists and academics, trade unionists and businesspeople, as well as ordinary citizens, inevitably ask me why the US public tolerates the killing of over a million Iraqis over the last two decades, and thousands of Afghans since 2001? Why, they ask, is a public, which opinion polls reveal as over sixty percent in favor of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, so politically impotent? A journalist from a leading business journal in India asked me what is preventing the US government from ending its aggression against Iran, if almost all of the world’s major oil companies, including US multinationals are eager to strike oil deals with Teheran? Anti-war advocates in Europe, Asia and Latin America ask me at large public forums what has happened to the US peace movement in the face of the consensus between the Republican White House and the Democratic Party-dominated Congress to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, supporting Israeli starvation, killing and occupation of Palestine and destruction of Lebanon?
Absence of a Peace Movement? ”
And further down in the article is an answer:
“The Unopposed War Lobby
The US is the only country in the world where the peace movement is unwilling to recognize, publically condemn or oppose the major influential political and social institutions consistently supporting and promoting the US wars in the Middle East. The political power of the pro-Israel power configuration, led by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supported within the government by highly placed pro-Israel Congressional leaders and White House and Pentagon officials has been well documented in books and articles by leading journalists, scholars and former President Jimmy Carter. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has over two thousand full-time functionaries, more than 250,000 activists, over a thousand billionaire and multi-millionaire political donors who contribute funds both political parties. The ZPC secures 20% of the US foreign military aid budget for Israel, over 95% congressional support for Israel’s boycott and armed incursions in Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and preemptive military option against Iran.”
And finally the link to the article. All should read; the article will reinforce currently held opinions, or perhaps open some minds, but in the spirit of exchanging information, we should always read “from all sides”. Here’s the link:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=75239
I think the Brookings Institute should sit the rest of this one out. The ideas coming out of that place during this war have been just the type of ideas the White House was interested in hearing, and naturally, they’ve never resulted in anything positive.
I suppose that if the Brookings Institute continues to have a line in on Bush’s brain, they’ll continue the clusterf*ck and thereby ensure there will be future need for more studies and papers.
In fact, as long as they cut 25% reality and replace it with the readings from their crystal ball, they can sound reasonable. Because the strategy before (which they endorsed and at times came up with themselves) can always be criticized, which makes the report sound “ballanced”, and since day one of this mistake in Iraq, the bread and butter of these hacks has been to pretend that they can see into the future.
Here’s another example of it. Obfuscation up to and on through September…indeed, get your bulls*it raincoat and galloshes on. My friends, it’s goign to be raining down on us in buckets.
This report can be considered a shot over the bow.
Can anyone tell my why they think a strong federal government in Iraq will work?
NEOCONS/NEOLIBS at the end both are against local control!
“Can anyone tell my why they think a strong federal government in Iraq will work?”
Because our president has faith that it will work, duh!