IF THE MILITARY SURGE IS SO ‘SUCCESSFUL’–WHY NOT JUST LEAVE?
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political Activist
The moment this Iraq war started to turn itself around, the military brass started to panic.
What if things do calm down–then what do we do?
No one had any answers to that question. Neither did Bush nor McCain–both a strong advocate of ‘staying the course till victory is declared’.
The military surge was in answer to the spiraling, out-of-control violence that threatened to tip Bush’s Iraq war into complete chaos without any way back.
So in went 30,000 troops whom pacified much of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. And while that did seem to shake things up a bit, there was still no progress on the political front.
Just recently, Malaki demanded that the US draw up a time table by next year–a withdrawal date for all US troops to leave his country.
That–in effect–set off alarm bells all over the place. Not just for the Bush cabal, the military brass, but McCain’s camp and his supporters.
“We can’t leave!”--was the rallying cry for all involved. “Setting withdrawal dates just plays into the enemies’ hands!”
How odd that they would make such a statement–wouldn’t you think? After all, if the military surge is a ‘success’–why not just take Malaki on his offer and get the hell out of Dodge?
Pull all our troops out and push them into Afghanistan–where the real war is presently?
Trouble is, this would play right into Obama’s campaign strategy of troops withdrawal within a year and a half of him getting elected President; whereas McCain just wants to continue Bush’s feeble excuse for victory–by keeping our troops in a country that wasn’t even a threat to begin with, but no longer poses much of a challenge for our military forces in the here and now.
And neither Bush nor McCain wants to see Obama get a boost from a viable plan that clearly countermands what they've had in play for the last 6 years.
The insurgency has pretty much died out by the time the surge was completed–with no measurable amount of enemy casualties to show for an effective campaign. The only thing that the military brass was using were ridiculous charts and bar graphs to show our incremental surges of progress–but in the end, it didn’t have that electrifying of an effect on Congress as it did have on Bush and the war profiteers.
You would think that they would've been happy by now!
But no...they still aren't.
Now–with Malaki demanding that we leave his country far sooner than McCain or Bush would’ve liked–the military brass is now more worried about everything being ‘undone’ by such a withdrawal or even a ‘timetable’ for such.Why–if things were such a ‘success’? Why worry at all? It’s a bit puzzling how the military should be the exact opposite instead of fearful and agonizingly uncertain.
As they are now.
Which means, that all this talk of “success” is either vastly overstated, or the plain fact of the matter is that the Iraqis and Malaki have finally grown tired of the US’s mess left at that their doorstop to clean up after 6.5 years of brutal occupation–and have demanded that they leave.
No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
And we have to leave; having overstayed our welcome.
That is the nature of a war-torn country growing fed up with their incompetent occupiers--is it not?
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.com
Labels: Bush, Iraq war, John McCain, Malaki, Obama, timetables, withdrawal
posted by Schuyler Thorpe @ 6:26 PM
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