The regional powers are setting benchmarks. The US is predicting that there will be an increase in US casualties until August. Other than surging ever higher the number of our boys and girls in the US military being killed or maimed what is being done, except for alienating the Islamic world against the US infidels?. As the US presence in Iraq is accomplishing nothing positive for the Middle East, or even for US interests’, why not start phased redeployment now?
The article “Call for Sunni Inclusion at Iraq Summit” at http://www.examiner.com/a-710310~Call_for_Sunni_Inclusion_at_Iraq_Summit.html states “The International Compact with Iraq sets benchmarks to achieve a stable, united, democratic Iraq within five years. It defines international help for Iraq - including debt relief - but also sets tough commitments on the Baghdad government, particularly carrying out reforms aimed at giving Iraq’s Sunni Arabs a greater role in the political process.”
The article “8 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq Bomb Attacks” at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050600266_ pf.html states “”All of us believe that in the next 90 days, you’ll probably see an increase in American casualties because we are taking the fight to the enemy,” Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army’s Task Force Marne, told reporters Sunday. “This is the only way we can win the fight.”
It is going to be the “hard slog” that Rumsfeld used years ago as “The enemy dominates the terrain,” Maj. Gen. Lynch said. “He has the opportunities to set ambushes. He has the opportunity to set traps.” “You got a thinking enemy out there,” Lynch added. “As soon we do something to prove our capability, he does something to defeat our capability. It is a continual cycle. That’s why I will never rest with our up-armored Humvees or our technology.”Still, Lynch predicted that by August or September, U.S. forces would have “a decisive effect on enemy formations.”Lynch said he did not feel the same way about Iraq’s political process. “I don’t see there will be significant progress on the government side between now and fall,” he said. “You can’t just build a government overnight.Counterinsurgency operations that have been successful in the past took a minimum of nine years. Others took a lot longer but never were that successful,” he said. “There is not an instantaneous solution to this problem.”
Lynch is predicting that this will go into the next presidency as the Iraqis won’t be able to make the political compromises that they are required to. One of the reasons that they won’t is that no one in the US is forcing the Shiite dominated government to give the Sunnis any reason to do anything other than kill Shiites. GOP brutes are always talking about tough-love. Why aren’t they doing this with Maliki’s government? W does doesn’t care about the US soldiers or Iraqi civilian population who are daily get mangled up in the Iraqi theatre of “GWOT”.
Petraeus knows the score. If we get brandished with being as evil as the terrorists then the Iraq War will cause infinite generations of Islamic youth to become jihadists.
The article “Petraeus ‘Concerned’ by Ethics Report” at http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/A/AP_MEETING_PETRAEUS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-05-07-13-19-22
states “The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday he was “greatly concerned” by a recent survey that concluded many combat troops in Iraq would not report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.“We can never sink to the level of the enemy,” Petraeus said by video link from Baghdad. “We have done that at times in theater and it has cost us enormously” - referring specifically to the torture and humiliation of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility west of Baghdad.“So the first step is that we’ve got ... make sure that folks remember that that’s a foundation for our moral compass ... anything we do that violates that is done at considerable peril,” he said.”
We have sunk to that level because of big bro 43. W removed the Geneva Convention protections from combatants making Abu Ghraib an expected outcome. Abu Ghraib was exposed, but you can bet that since W never had the personnel dealing with detainees trained, there are other prisoner abuse scandals out there waiting to be uncovered.
Petraeus didn’t mention atrocities that our military has committed on the battlefield such as those which occurred in the Novermber 19th 2005 Haditha massacre or the total decimation of Fallujah.
The article “Second Battle of Fallujah” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phantom_Fury states “Before the war, it was estimated that the city had 200+ mosques; some claim 60 of these had been destroyed in the fighting. Perhaps half the homes suffered at least some damage. About 7,000 to 10,000 of the roughly 50,000 buildings in the town are estimated to have been destroyed in the offensive, and half to two-thirds of the buildings have suffered notable damage.”
Petraeus knows about Fallujah and Haditha and scores of other atrocities that the US military has covered-up. So the Democrats position of wanting to get out of a failed policy makes sense.
The article “U.S. Democrats stand firm on Iraq troop withdrawal” at http://thestaronline.com/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/7/worldupdates/2007-05-07T0 22455Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-296961-1&sec=Worldupdates notes that W’s former GOP cronies, as well as Democrats, have had enough of this failed policy. Speaking for W’s GOP chums House Minority Leader John Boehner blurted out that he favored benchmark goals to measure the progress of the Iraqi government as a gauge for removing U.S. forces saying “I’m for benchmarks that are for success,” he said on Fox. “I’m not for benchmarks with artificial timelines, yanking funds, trying to ensure that there’s failure in Iraq.”
When push comes to shove he’ll jettison W for his own good as he also said “By the time we get to September or October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn’t, what’s Plan B?”
Democrats acknowledge that one of W’s hugest failure in Iraq is that he provided no diplomatic effort in getting the Middle East to help with its fallen country, Iraq as Rep. Charles Rangel said the House would not let up on Bush until the United States was out of Iraq saying “We’ve got to shake that White House until the people of the United States are heard. We hope that he would be sophisticated enough to come up with an international solution,” he said. “But the people that elected us said, bring our troops home. Enough is enough ... There is no victory in sight. It’s a civil war and we don’t have the wherewithal to resolve that major problem.”
Bush’s approval rating slumped to an all-time low of 28 per cent. The world rightfully considers him to be incompetent. We should save ourselves now and put a halt to his surge, which he promised would temporary, but according to W’s own military, Lynch, commander of the Army’s Task Force Marne, is going to last at least 9 years.
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