by 08pooled on Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:55 pm
MM6 wrote:Hi Lena
08pooled"][quote="MM6 wrote:[quote="08pooled"]I choose to look on the bright side. Its not easy to set up a stable government. It took Japan seven years to do that. And it took us 15. Patreus said the surge is working, and I have no reason to doubt him.
you are very trusting.
Patreus is trustworthy. The left isn't.
His military background and his intelligence are not in doubt. What seems to be in doubt in the American media is the discrepancy between his record in Iraq and his subsequent rise to power.
To wit: This January he was promoted to Supreme Commander and OverLord in Iraq (ok thats not his title but you get my drift) despite being previously and relatively recently responsible for some embarrassing c
ock-ups
in Iraq. He was in charge of securing Mosul (in 03) and he did it. But the insurgents captured Mosul again a few months later and the police that Patraeus appointed either deserted or changed sides and $40m worth of weapons were lost. He also implemented the training of the Iraqi army. But today it is totally incapable and corruption is rife. And most of the Iraqi procurement budget of $1bn was embezzled with the Iraqi soldiers having to to rely on inadequate equipment.
You could say the collapse of the Iraqi army isnt his fault and that he was just giving the Iraqis autonomy on how they spend their procurement budget. But if he's not going to follow through on the job he's been given then who is. In business you dont appoint a manager and then let the staff run wild with the credit card. The surge wasnt his idea - he inherited it and so far it hasnt been responsible for anything of note. Baghdad is still the most dangerous place on earth (would you like to live there?) with the numbers of Iraqis fleeing rising every month and the US increasing their use of air strikes. The reason the number of sectarian killings is down is simply because Baghdad is now a Shia city and there is nobody from the Sunni faction left to kill.
Im not saying the MoveOn.org ad in the NY Times was fair (actually "General Betray Us" was rather funny) but the controversy that followed it was fairly extreme to say the least - voting in the Senate to "strongly condemn personal attacks on the honour and integrity of General Petraeus" - if you cant question the Supreme Commander and OverLord in charge of your most controversial war since Vietnam then what happened to free speech?
I would argue that too much was put on Patreus's shoulders. In the Civil War, Grant had William Sherman. In WW2, Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur ran things. But in Iraq, its a one man show. Your manager analogy works, but Patreus was put in charge of an enormously difficult task. It was a huge mistake by the Bush administration to not put one or two more 4 or 5 star generals out there-assuming men of those standards even exist. Also, I want to touch on something you said:
"The reason the number of sectarian killings is down is simply because Baghdad is now a Shia city and there is nobody from the Sunni faction left to kill."
That didn't just randomly happen in the last 6-8 months. I would say the surge deeply contributed to it. One last thing:
Bagdad is most certainly a dangerous place. But its less dangerous now then it was 6 months ago. That's a good thing, IMO. It shows progress. Things were getting bloodier every year, and for the first time, violence has decreased over a prolonged period of time. The surge is mainly responcible for that.
Personally, I think we should try another surge.
BUT don't send any soldiers to fight and die to back up those delusions