the McCain plan1
by John at 11/21/2006 01:34:00 PM
This is the McCain plan (really, it's his plan, even though the Pentagon is studying it right now, and some people think Baker's Iraq Study Group2 will recommend something similar). Send a couple tens-of-thousands of extra soldiers to Iraq to quiet things down.
I'm not a military strategist, nor do I know anything about "Arab psychology" (or other such racist bullshit). But you know what I would do if 20,000 extra soldiers showed up in Iraq if I was a militia leader? Tell my men to go home and wait it out. When the G.I.s leave, I'd tell them to grab their guns and go back to war.
On the other hand, 20,000 extra soldiers is nothing. A 1999 Pentagon war game said that we would need 400,000 troops to pacify Iraq (a number curiously close to the number former General Shinseki said we would need back in 2003) - and that assumed that a civil war was not already underway. So maybe my men would just keep fighting, but now in a even more target rich environment.
What am I getting at? The same thing I have been saying for a long time. There is no military way out of the Iraq debacle. We should just come home. The Democrats' plan to start a phased withdrawal (that's pronounced "orderly retreat") in four to six months isn't bad, but really, why wait? Nothing substantial is going to change between now and March, unless it is for the worse. Start the retreat as soon as possible.
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1. They should call it that. If he really believes in it, he should own it. If it works, make him President in 2008. If it doesn't (and it won't) they should tattoo it on his forehead.
2. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have an Iraq Study Group before we went to war?
I'm not a military strategist, nor do I know anything about "Arab psychology" (or other such racist bullshit). But you know what I would do if 20,000 extra soldiers showed up in Iraq if I was a militia leader? Tell my men to go home and wait it out. When the G.I.s leave, I'd tell them to grab their guns and go back to war.
On the other hand, 20,000 extra soldiers is nothing. A 1999 Pentagon war game said that we would need 400,000 troops to pacify Iraq (a number curiously close to the number former General Shinseki said we would need back in 2003) - and that assumed that a civil war was not already underway. So maybe my men would just keep fighting, but now in a even more target rich environment.
What am I getting at? The same thing I have been saying for a long time. There is no military way out of the Iraq debacle. We should just come home. The Democrats' plan to start a phased withdrawal (that's pronounced "orderly retreat") in four to six months isn't bad, but really, why wait? Nothing substantial is going to change between now and March, unless it is for the worse. Start the retreat as soon as possible.
-----
1. They should call it that. If he really believes in it, he should own it. If it works, make him President in 2008. If it doesn't (and it won't) they should tattoo it on his forehead.
2. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have an Iraq Study Group before we went to war?
