The Surge (do-over)
by David Benzion · 01/12/2007 6:30 amJust for fun, we’re going to try this one again.
There is a report. It was written by folks over at the American Enterprise Institute.
The report is clearly the intellectual foundation for President Bush’s planned troop “surge” into Baghdad.
Read the report and then please share your thoughts about the report.
Does the report answer your questions and address your concerns? After reading the report do you understand the mission better? Based on what you’ve read in the report, do you think this plan can work? Why or why not?
HINT: Read the report.
HINT II: The report says nothing at all about the U.S. border with Mexico.
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The insurgent groups will put up token resistance, continue with IED and sniper attacks and as the operation grinds through its phases, meld back into the population and limit their attacks against Iraqi and US military. They may even move to other cities.
Then as the hold and build phase progresses, they will start their attacks in ernest, blowing up any new developments or improvements and killing civilians anew.
Round and round…and at some point we need to pull most of our troops back to large bases and leave our SOF to work with the Iraqi military and civil affairs.
Except in the wild west of Iraq, there we will have to continue to give large scale support because of the large areas that have to be cleared and held.
But in the capitol, the Iraqi forces can battle it out as they determine themselves.
There will be other hot spots in Iraq as some of the diehards will move to those cities to continue their operations.
Then we can praise the Iraqi government, build our Mega-bases and continue to chase al Quata and the Iranians that will still be in Iraq.
The major area that we are losing in is the Information/Propaganda war. We must turn that around. We must stop the internet propaganda by our enemies, stop the hate speech where ever we find it, by any means possible and replace it with Iraqi government/U. S. government propaganda and facts.
Meanwhile back in the U.S. we must counter our own media’s efforts to undermine Bush’s Administration and America’s fight against Islamics.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
David
I read the report
I don’t think the religous divide between the Sunni and the Shia the territorial disputes between Kuwait and Iraq, Turkey and the Kurds, Iran and Iraq are going to be solved by a 50 pager
Literally there are thousands of working papers on the Palestinian and Israeli solution - some of them good ones
We all know how those turned out
well aaaaaaaum israel leaked a story about nuking irans nuclear facility.
could the buildup be coordinated at all?
fact is if that were to happen we would need the tropps there just to keep iran out if that happens.
Be sure to take this to the bathroom when you plan on being there for a while for your reading pleasure.
David;
It doesn’t matter one little bit about the report.
As Papa Ray suggests, the real battle is her at home against people who will undermine the effort no matter what any report says.
Thye will do and say almost anything to take peoples attentions away from what the report says, and from the reports and papers of other military professionals. hey will bring up years old shibolleths about Bush’s National guard service, or cutting taxes, or any of the other lies and distortions they’ve been bringing up since BEFORE the war in order to keep people from considering this report—or any good news or facts the mange to get through the wall the meida has put up.
Here’s a disgusting piece of trash:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seery/predict-the-number-of-tro_b_38314.html
A “contest” to see how many American soldiers wll die next year. It bring up crap we saw yestreday:
People who support the war without “personal sacrifice”
Bush’s supposed lack of credibility in asking fllks to enlist:
His “avoidance of service”
This is only going to serve as a platoform for the Mobies and the people with the personal courage to be honest about their views to discuss ANYTHING else but the report and the consequences of our giving up and leaving Iraq.
Once again Sarge, and I don’t think anyone wants to address this-Why weren’t these extra troops sent at the start?
I addressed I YDD–
Once again you mischaracterize and make things up.
These troops do not appreciably raise troop levels above the MAXIMUM that have been there all along. We’ve had several instances of small increases and reductions since 2003 as circumstances dictate.
YOU can characterize it as doing the same thing over and over or any other such nebgative characterization your politics instructs you to, but I know that in any war conditions change and troops are—or ought to be—staffed according to conditions.
What has changed is the mission, but you are either too ignorant or too political to notice or admit that.
Hey—I’ve got an idea, though:
Why not idiscuss this report?
and answer the question you;ve avoided answering before:
Is it moral for this country to cease protecting millionsof people when we know that hundreds of thousands of them will die if we do?
#5 sargevining
You are right, that article is a piece of trash. And it is only going to get worse for GWB and our troops.
I think that the only thing GWB can do now that will help is to do what he hasn’t done in a long time. Stand up, speak out, be forceful, be passionate, every day, every opportunity. Be seen daily meeting with the military, not his political group. Visit the theatre frequently. Twist arms of congressional Republicans to do the same.
We cannot just pull out and let the slaugher begin. We cannot just blow everything up in sight. Our men and women in the military will do us proud but they need to see strong forceful leadership.
jolly;
It isn’t going to matter one whit.
No matter what happens, the media will spin it and the left will play up the negatives.
None of those SOBs want to discuss the ramifications, consequences, or the stakes in this war. All they can see is how to use it politically. They avoid the moral ramifications of leaving those people to die, they ignore the National Seucrity ramifications of allow Islamic Fascists to take over an oil rich country and the follwing regional or World War.
all they care about is the negative reflections on George Bush that they can pull out of whatever happens. They give a tinker’s damn about the millions of lives and threat to the country.
So no, David—-the report won’t get discussed much today either—except when people can pull nuggets out of it to slam bush with.
Like “Does he have the credibility to ask people to serve given his avoidance of service?”
#9 sargevining
It can matter. Really. What the media cannot spin is what GWB does on a routine basis. For the last year, he has worried more about politics than about this engagement. He has waffled. No one wants to follow a leader that waffles.
If he gets out in front of this and leads the charge, it can matter. Longshot? Probably. As I pointed out yesterday, the only thing that matters in the media today is perception. GWB must be willing to change this perception. The report talks about perception and small areas affecting it on page 14/15. Use the 4/64 rule and it can matter.
#9 sargevining
The media still sees some resolve in GWB. He can build this up by doing what I said above.
Taking the Vietnam out of Iraq
Or, he could change his spokesperson:
Air Force Sergeant
Jolly;
We’re slamming Bush and not discussing the report, aren’t we?
#13 sargevining
Who’s slamming GWB? And I quoted the report. Huh?
BTW; Did anyone see The Bit*h, Barbara Boxer, using the deaths of our soilders to make a political point yesterday? It was when she was grilling Condi Rice at the Senate hearings.
I hope this isn’t too far off topic,…David ;=)
Criminy Jolly;
You pulled another nugget out of the report that is negative to Bush.
This time, instead of mentioning his NG service this one manages to fold “Viet Nam” into the issue.
I love it.
Here’s the parallels to Viet Nam:
1. We withdrew from a war would could have won—one we were winning at the time, because the people listened to the media instead of thier Generals.
2. We will leave millions of people to be slaughterd.
3. The Left prefers the military policy of the United States to be that if we are not winning or if we make mistakes, we hand victory to the enemy.
Sarge, you have a comphrehension problem. Too many drawings in pencil before you switched to CAD, I think.
I didn’t pull a negative out of the report, what the heck are you talking about. You link to an article disparaging our troops and think I’m bashing someone? Geez. Louise, man, get a grip.
The quote I pulled from the Vietnam article is positive about the President. I said so. I said that he could build upon his determination to help at home with the political world.
Man, you are a trip.
golly, that’s right.
You just posted something that has nothing to do with the report that mentions Bush and Viet Nam in the same senteces.
Got it.
Anything in that report catch your fancy, besides the NG angle?
Sarge, see # 10.
So why do you say I pulled a negative out of the report, then say I didn’t. Kinda like yesterday when you said the guys didn’t drive away then said they did because it was strategy.
Hmm. I’m thinking you know John Kerry pretty well, as in - flip/flop.
BJ;
We can challenge each other’s credibility all day long.
But if we do that, we’ll be discussing each other instead of the report.
so far all you;ve done is confirm that what I said above is true:
Nobody is going to discuss the report.
Nobody is going to discuss the ramifucations of leaving Iraq
Nobody is going to discuss the morality of leaving Iraq in the hands of genocidal maniacs.
Sarge, I’ve been discussing the report! You’ve been taking me to task for who knows what. The report says that we need more troops and the the President should make a personal plee. I addressed that. The report talks about the problem of perception in the US. I’ve addressed that. All you’ve done is tell me I’m bashing GWB when that is the opposite of what I’ve done.
Do you want to address the report? Tell me something about it then.
Sarge
so Iran invades Iraq, we destroy Irans infrastructure Their leader is facing growing opposition, he will be probably either overthrown or greatly weakened
Saudi asks us again to send troop to their country
And miraculously we enjoy lower oil prices again
And Iran is finally defanged
Hopefully
The report section titled training is very interesting and rings true. It seems that for the last 3 years we’ve heard an awful lot about training the Iraqi police and how ineffective we are. The report suggests dropping or decreasing the use of embedded trainers and relying more on OTJ training.
Wino could probably interject here but in 20+ years of training people for manufacturing positions, nothing and I mean nothing, is more effective then putting a guy alongside a superior worker and letting him learn how he does it. A short version of the old apprenticeship method of training craftsmen.
Eric;
One of the things teh “surge” does is buy us a bit more time to deal with the Iranians, and to have thier own people deal with Ahmindamoodforjihad.
There recently was talk of impeaching HIM (which is sweetly ironic) within the Iranian governing bodies, and the concensus among others is that he won’t be getting the support from the mullahs he needs to be re-elected.
Recent reports lut of Sauid that I see is that if we leave Iraq, they will go to the rescue of the Sunnis because the Shiite’s will finally be free to kill them on an even larger scale. This will probably put them in direct conflict with the Iranains. sure, they ask us for troops…but that will have about as much effect as the requests the South Viet Namese made in 1975.
I can’t for the life of me see where a war going on between the #1 and #3 producers of oil (who occupy both sides of teh Straights of Hormuz) using the #2 nation as a battlefield will make our oil cheaper.
How much higher will oil have to go for Saudis to buy the military equipment and logistics they would need to fight the Iranians–and win? How much will the Iranians need?
If you think that we will send troops to stop that bigger war after the Left successfully talks us into leaving the small one we’re in now, you’re dreaming—and no student of history.
Sarge
Iran and Iraq sell to Europe
Saudi sells to us, so does Africa and North America and South America
We also have shale reserves see wikipedia that are now economically workable
We do not and never did need their oil
Sarge
Begging to differ, this is no war - its a large uncoordinated swat operation
We will reeducate the Iranians and the world what strategic bombing including the holy grail of oil reserves really means
Eric;
No offense, but I think a SWAT operation is prefereable to massive strategic bombing of half a continent.
Lot’s less people die in SWAT operations han do in world wars—including Americans.
ASk yourselkf this
If you were the Iranian high command
What war would YOU want to wage
Me, If you invade my allies threaten me and my allies with nuclear weapons
Use your army in the manner of the forces of darkness
I’ll put out your lights for ya
As to training:
The problem has been security, not OJT. We’ve been successful in wide swaths of the country and have turned over a number of provinces to complete Iraqi control. Leaving without securing is only going to mean that the attacks will spread out from the areas in which they are contained into the ones already secured.
Whther this “surge” works or not, the stakes are high enough that any talk of “this is the last chance” only risks the wider war.
what we need is Leaders who can see that and join in with the President when he tries to elucidate this–not ones who will use it as a poltical hammer against him. Help the man win the war, or you risk a World War ought to be the message.
David
Back to the thread in 3 . 2 . 1
BORDER BORDER BORDER (Iran and Iraq that is)
Done guys going to pick up a load of children in the wilderness
#29
So now the poor Iranians are terribly put upon by the evil USA.
Of course, they could also have seen this as the USA ridding them of an enemy who killed a million of thier people and used poison gas on them and who remained a threat to them as well as to everybody else.
What they are really pissed about Eric is that we went in there and got rid of Saddam before they could.
I have absolutely no compassion for the Iranian view of the situation. Even if they did feel we were a threat by invading, they could have handled it a lot better than arming BOTH sides in the conflict.
#30 sargevining
The report talks a lot about security. It also talks about training.
What do you think about what the report says about training?
I’m no expert in security but the report says pretty much what you just said.
I beleive in getting priorities straight first. Highest priority is security, next comes training.
I know that we train our polciemen over here in Academies, then assign them to training officers in the field in duty assignments that are less likley to bring them into difficult situations and the career path goes on from there.
Seems like that would work. OJT alone isn’t going to solve a thing. The reality is that it WILL take time. it takes time to develop traditions and corporate identities.
Leaving before they are able to do that is not going to be the most effective means of insuring succes and thier ability to defend themselves and the rights of thier citizens. This is the approach we took with the Phillipine constabulary and National Guard after the last successful counter-insurgency war we fought against muslim fanatics (not by dipping bullets in pig blood). It’s also the reason why the transition of India from Colony to nation went so smoothly and peacefully, despite muslim interference there.
#34 sargevining
Is it okay if I state that we agree on this one? Cool. I just did.
I found this on Boxer/Rice;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243359,00.html
Like McCain or not, this is a positive sign for the President and our military:
McCain defends President
These guys should shut up and sit in their rocking chairs:
Jolly;
thre really isn’t much in that report that any sensible unbiased person could take serious issue with if they give it a fair read and fair considereaton.
Which kind of makes my point about some folks wanting to talk about anything else other than the report, or to use it as a springboard to bash Bush.
The people spoke and said they wanted changes in Iraq. About half of them wanted us out, and the other half just want to fought better.
The constituency for those who want out are on the Left—and not for purely ideological reasons. IMO, but for the political hay it will reap for them. When we speak of not learning the lessons of Viet Nam, I think of the millions of dead Cambodians, the hundreds of thousands of imprisoned Viet Names, and the hundreds of thousands who became “boat people” and came to this country to transform neighborhoods into thier own image.
If you think muslim immigration is big now, wait until ther’s a few million refugees wandering the earth trying to escape a half a continent at war with itself.
#38 sargevining
Say it ain’t so. Two agreements in one thread, all in less than 60 minutes. Wow.
We actually agree a lot more than you let on.
Dave;
That’s just another variation of the chickenhawk argument. Liberals ike to limit who gets to have inout on any issue by false definitions and anointing or appointing someone with “absolute moral authority” to give their positioon and disallow anyone else from being able to speak thiers.
I wish they’d come up with ideas isntead of critcisms. They could get away with that before by saying “We’re not in charge, it’s not our responsibility.”
I just don’t like how everything in the world suddenly becomes either a referendum on Bush, or a challenge to “absolute moral authority.” The problem is much bigger than that. The report—and this thread—deals with solutions to the problem, not with the OPINIONS about what may or may have created them, the legitimacy of the war, a rehash of all the mistakes made, or using those mistakes as a political tool.
Rehashing and using mistakes as poltical tools only insures that nothing is learned from them—like the aftermath of Viet Nam for instance.
There is also a problem with definitions of terms. I’ve seen here and in other forums over the past couple of days—years actually—that this is an “unwinnable war.”
thjat pure balderdash. Thre’s no such thing as a “unwinnable war.”
When someone uses that term, it’s done rhetorically to assign negativaty and to promote dismay and defeatism. What one really means when they say “This is an unwinnable war” is:
“This isn’t a war worth winning.”
and when they say that, it tells me they are more focused on their poltical enemies rather than the ones that threatne the lives of every non-muslim man woman and child on the planet.
Failure in Iraq should not be an option, I agree with the President on his newly stated rules of engagement in Iraq. However, we are still ignoring what should be the number one priority in the war on terror.
trl
Osama Bin laden says Iraq isthe central battlefield in Al Queda’s Jihad. doesn’t that make holding it the #1 priority in the Global War on Terror?
I wish people who aren’t in the military would quit trying to convince themselves that they want this war to end because they are caring for the troops. SHUT UP already. I left home because I felt old enough to make decisions for myself. One of those decisions was to join the military, and I don’t like being used as an excuse for people to carry out their agenda to bash the President. You are not fighting this war, you are trying to make yourself a ‘concerned’ party. If you don’t support the war fine, but don’t hide your hatred of it or the President behind your superficial care for the troops. Go have your own kids and tell them how much you want to protect them, because I have plenty of weapons with ammunition and totally believe that what I’m doing is the right thing to do. And I’m not about to say it’s because I care about you, it’s because I care about this country. It’s a pride thing, maybe some people should try and have a little more of it.
#44 Sargevining
I might of made it number 2. Number 1 would have been securing the borber but if I mention it on this thread I could get banned.
Without both we could be in the #2.