Comments Posted By B.Poster
Displaying 311 To 320 Of 397 Comments
Richard
You are quite right. We should fully mobilize for war. Also, we should work immediately to end our dependence on foreign oil and to use as little oil as possible, period. I thought we should have mobilized for war immediately after 911. Its not to late to do it now. Both Republicans and Democrats will have to go before the American people and explain the stakes and ask for sacrifices.
Perhaps Iraq is not the best battlefield for the GWOT and perhaps it should not have been fought at all. Even if we withdraw from Iraq, we need to substantially increase the size and strength of the military. If those troops are not used for Iraq, they will be needed elsewhere. If we are unwilling to make the commitment, we should withdraw immediately. In this case, we can make our stand at fortress America.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 15.09.2006 @ 16:28
Richard
Thank you for your service to our country!! You are right we need to more troops. To me this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is an issue that affects all of us. The candidate, regardless of which party he or she is from, who gets out in front and requests more troops for Iraq and elsewhere in the GWOT will get my vote. In regards to Afghanistan, NATO troops have fought bravely but it seems clear that the governments of NATO members are not going to honor their full commitments. The US will need to step up and make a greater commitment.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 14.09.2006 @ 23:09
Deagle
Thanks for the reply to my post. I also take those articles with a grain of salt. The article is from an "op-ed contributor." As such, it is an opinion article.
As I see it we have basiclly three options. 1.) We "stay the course." With this scenario we don't have enough troops to actually secure the country and disarm the militias. Dan Senor who is formerly of the Coalition Provisional Authourity recently admitted this. If this is going to be what we choose, we hope the Iraqis we train will be up to the task of defending their country. We hope the the now liberated Iraq will not become greater Iran and we hope the liberated Iraq will be allied with the US, in the GWOT. Allot of this is based on hope. I don't like policies based on hope. In any event, the "stay the course" policy does not seem to be working very well right now. 2.)We commit more troops. This gives us the opportunity to get security under control and it gives the Democratic process a greater chance of succeeding. This will result in more American casualties. Also, in the final analysis, whether or not Iraq can achieve a stable Democracy will be up to the Iraqis, however, without someone to provide security the chances of Democracy succeeding are slim and nill. I would go for this option but I don't think we have the troops or the equipment right now to do it. Also, I don't think the American people are going to go for it. Finally, any additional troop commitments to Iraq should be in a manner that is consistent with American national security interests. I'm not sure additional troop contributions to Iraq are consistent with American national security interests. We need to be flexible enough to handle other situations. We need to be focusing more on Russia and China. Those are the two greatest threats to American national security. 3.) Since we don't seem willing or able to commit the troop levels that would be necessary to defeat the insurgents and the militias decisively, right now our best option seems to be to redeploy to Kurdish areas. We will need to closely monitor the situation to ensure that terrorist bases are not established. In any event, the redeployment eliminates the so called "recruiting tool" of us being in Iraq. I think the redeployment may give us the opportunity to focus on what we need to be focusing on, which is containing the Communist threat from Russia and China and fighting terrorists.
Russia and China are currently undermining us becuase we don't seem to have the resources to focus on them. By redeploying to Kurdistan, we can scale back our presecense in Iraq. This frees up resources to focus on Russia and China and puts us in a better position to prevent them from undermining us.
You are right it is a tough situation. I'm not sure what the best course is but it does seem abundantly clear to me that we either need to, as Rick once put it, quit or commit. Since we are not likely to commit, redeployment to Kurdistan seems to be the best option.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 14.09.2006 @ 17:26
Chris
Thanks for the NY Times article!! I think the ambassador nails it. He expressed my thoughts, only he expressed them more articulately than I could.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 14.09.2006 @ 16:15
Ed
Without a larger commitment to Iraq you are right it likely can't be fixed. Even with a larger deployment, there is no guarantee that this would fix the problem. At this point, I'm not optimistic that more troops would help us much, int he long run. "Stay the course", while a cute slogan, appears to be a terrible option. Since we aren't going to commit, the best thing to do would be to withdraw to Kurdish areas. Also, with the increased threats from Russia, China, and South America I don't think a larger troop commitment to Iraq is in our national security interests.
Deagle
It's interesting you mentioned South America. I've noticed the same thing. I think this is part of what our Iraq policy has wrought. While focusing on Iraq, we may have taken our eyes off of South America. This has allowed Russia and China to establish a Communist beach head. Russia and China are far greater threats than Iraq or terrorists ever have been.
Chris
I agree. We either dig down deep or leave. It will probably be latter. At this time, I'm unsure we have the troops to commit or the will to commit them, if we did. I'm not even sure a greater troop commitment serves American security interests. If we leave, it should be done now without delay. In the final analysis, it was going to be up the Iraqis whether or not they could achieve a Democratic form of government but I don't think we ever commited the appropiate resources to give this a reasonable chance of success.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 14.09.2006 @ 16:00
Rick
I could not agree with you more in this post. The military planners should have figured out that the "small foot print" strategy was the wrong way to go a long time ago. Unfortunately they did not. Committing more troops would be the optimal solution, if they are avaliable but they do not seem to be.
If more troops cannot be found, we should scale back the mission. We could redeploy to Kurdish areas and monitor the situation to make sure the areas we abandon do not fall under the control of terrorists. This is just a suggestion.
I agree with you that Donald Rumsfeld should be replaced. I suggest Senator Lindsay Graham or General Eric Shinseki, if either of these people would be willing.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 14.09.2006 @ 09:59
"THE PATH TO 9/11" PRE POST MORTEM
If they decide to offer this on DVD, man they are they are going to get allot sales. This thing sure has gotten allot of free publicity.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 8.09.2006 @ 19:01
MUSHARRAF'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN II: IT'S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT
Lately we have had a number of huge set backs. Both the US and its allies seem to be losing huge ground. if we are unwilling to take decisive action to defeat Islamic extrenusts and their Communist allies, perhaps it is time to redeploy to fortress America and make our stand here. Better border security would be a good idea any way but if we keep losing ground like this we may soon have no other option.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 6.09.2006 @ 11:03
Geek, esq
Rule #2: Properly identify the enemy. It seems Pakistan may be a greater threat to us than Iraq ever could be.
Rule #3: Don't underestimate your enemy. If we felt we had to invade Iraq, we should have gone in with extreme force and not with the bare minimum force we invaded with.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 7.09.2006 @ 00:55
Geek
You are quite right. We should have tried harder to finish the job in Afghanistan.
dubya
We are not going to invade Iran right now. We don't currently have the stomach to handle Pakistan or Lebanon right now, much less Iran. We helped force a cease fire on Israel and we did not act to prevent Pakistan's surrender.
While we are not going to invade Iran Israel may. They may soon have no other choice. I just hope we stay out of their way when they do.
Comment Posted By B.Poster On 6.09.2006 @ 11:11
