IF THE MILITARY SURGE IS SO ‘SUCCESSFUL’–WHY NOT JUST LEAVE?
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistThe 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.comLabels: Bush, Iraq war, John McCain, Malaki, Obama, timetables, withdrawal
SURGE PROVES TO BE A MUCH BIGGER FAILURE THAN BEFORE
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistIf you were waiting for the other shoe to drop on this troop surge in Iraq–than it already had.
Months ago.
Did Bush actually
believe that adding another 30,000 tired and worn out troops to the mix was going to make any difference in Iraq–especially in the long run?
4 months ago, Bush said that the goals of the surge was to tamp down the violence in Baghdad and give the severely weakened Malaki government “breathing room”.
But four months into the operation–now at full strength–has proven that nothing has really changed as a whole.
Violence still is at an all-time high, attacks are constant, Baghdad is still under siege, and all Bush can do and say is: “We won’t know for several more months–if the troop surge will work or not.”
But why wait four more months, when we can already see the end results of this failed gamble?
Nothing has
changed. The capital is still besieged, the insurgents are still running amok all over the place, and Malaki can’t figure out how to best approach this problem–when the people he was sworn into a couple years ago–has lost
all confidence in his ability to unite the country?
For the life of me, I can’t figure out the logic of the Bush administration in this mess. The latest signs point to a complete failure of this troop surge, but we’re being told to
wait several more months.
Or another year. Whichever comes first. But whether or not the time comes for the truth to come out, the reality of this troop surge has become clear to me:
It never worked.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.comLabels: Baghdad, Bush, insurgents, Malaki, months, troop surge, year
WHICH SIDE ARE WE ON THESE DAYS? FANTASY OR REALITY?
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistIt doesn’t cease to amaze me. You would think that this endless war without a plan or exit strategy would curtail the government and military’s
rosy and
optimistic views on how this conflict is going–but it
hasn’t.
Curiously, it seems to have
magnified the symptoms drastically: Though we have daily bombings in Baghdad, with civilians and US soldiers dying pretty much every day, both the military and the government running this dog and pony show still
believes that they are making “progress”!
So I guess in this instance, we are in
fantasy mode–not reality.
Despite all the carnage going on, both apparatuses are operating under a
make-believe mentality that things are progressing regardless of the enormous loss of life done to both occupier and its
liberated populace.
Which of course, is making the mission in Iraq less definable and more complex. If the recent surge of troops (scheduled to be increased to 28,000) was supposed to have worked by now, it has
failed.
If the recent surge of troops was supposed to have stemmed the bombings and contain the violence, it has
failed.
That is reality. But to Bush and the military, that’s “progress.”
To my mind, this is the
worst application of military and federal intelligence in any war brought forth by the US since its inception over 200 years ago.
It is no wonder the chaos still goes on unimpeded! We are simply allowing this to happen because we got a bunch of amateurs in both sects of command operating under the mentality of a
retard!
This goes beyond anything which the civilized world would be able to understand. And quite frankly, this conflict is creating more instability by the day, than it could possibly do in the exact opposite.
And despite Bush’s claims to progress with Malaki’s government, there hasn’t been at all. Some half-hearted gestures from his side, but in reality, he’s allowed this to go on for far too long.
The Iraqi people are clamoring and
demanding that he does something, but he
can’t.
However, Bush will still call it “progress” no matter what. The Iraqi security forces are unable to halt the violence. Stop the insurgency, stop the Shiite militias.
And neither can ours.
So in effect, what we are dealing with here is something we all call
reality.
But to the Bush administration and the US military, it’s called
fantasy
“progress”.
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@yahoo.comLabels: Bush, chaos, fantasy, Iraq, Malaki, reality, troop surge
