General Patreaus, who McCain called one of the greatest military leaders of all time, just recommended no more troop withdrawls from Iraq through 2008. The link to the story on ABC News is below
http://abcnews.go.com/...
So, let me understand this. The man in charge of the mission, this great military mind, has his forces spread so thin that he cannot draw down forces in one area to supplement the forces his "generals on the ground" tell him we need in Afghanistan NOW (10,500 combat troops). This is military genius? Only if Custer was a genius. Patreaus is playing politics, which is what he does (interesting article to lay some groundwork, http://www.esquire.com/... We have thousands of soldiers in Iraq playing policeman, building schools, rebuilding the Baghdad zoo, etc. We have 146,000 troops in Iraq, and approximately 180,000 contractors. People often forget to throw in our mercenary army in the force totals.
Understand the issues here.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. It has achieved nothing except prove the math of how many troops you need in place to keep some modicum of order.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. If we can't draw down less than 10% of our troop forces (and less than 5% of our total forces - don't forget our mercenary army) in Iraq to send to a hot spot, where our commanders are screaming for help now, not tomorrow, but now, then the surge hasn't had any result other than an expensive version of whack a mole where we have enough people to shoot bad guys before they can shoot us.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. Patreaus states that he is nervous about drawing down the troops because of the pending Iraqi election (didn't they supposedly have one, remember the purple fingered people), Al Queda in Iraq, and the tribal leaders that are the ones we stopped fighting as part of the Sunni Awakening. Please always look for the moniker - Al Queda in Iraq or Al Queda in Mesopotamia - are not the 9/11 Al Queda.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. Al Queda in Iraq and Al Queda in Mesopotamia are NOT the Al Queda that attacked us. We are too reluctant to leave an area where the enemy we are sworn to fight isn't even present.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. The "increased security" we keep hearing about is a fragile facade, and our own commanders don't think that these "gains" are self sustaining. Don't you wonder what they know that the general public is not being told? There is a reason that they don't want troop drawdowns, and it is beyond being "nervous" about what may happen when the troops are needed elsewhere to fight what is happening.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. A little noted recent report showed that the Shiite controlled Iraqi government was having US troops accompany them to arrest the same tribal leaders that are credited with being responsible for the Sunni awakening. These same tribal leaders are the ones we are still paying cold, hard cash to.
- This tells you the surge is a failure. The Shiite people in power are rounding up their Sunni opponents, high-ranking Iraqi officials are stating that there is no place in the government for any Sunnis, and the Kurds are in this mix still not knowing where they will stand in the "new Iraq".
- This is the key. Barack Obama's judgment is better, more accurate that that of John McCain's by a huge stretch. I will say it again, the surge is a failure, because it hasn't and won't produce any sustainable results. The Sunnis and Shiites split in approximately 630 AD I believe, and our time in Iraq hasn't mended that fence, what a shock.
- If John McCain is elected, General David Patreaus will be the most powerful man on earth. McCain has made it quite clear that he will do whatever the General says, and since the CIC can move troops around, reset the mission, etc and do a whole lot of that without having to get Congressional approval, people need to understand that Patreaus will be the de-facto CIC. This is the same general whose military decisions have us bottled up and mired down. A general is like any other executive, he has a finite number of resources to accomplish multiple tasks, and it is his job to accomplish the missions with the resources granted. So, anyone know what the stated mission in Iraq/Afghanistan is?
- Our NATO allies are woefully behind sending the committed level of troops and supplies to Afghanistan. Remember, this is supposed to be a NATO mission, not just a US mission. Anyone believe, with his approach, that John McCain can talk the allies of NATO into living up to their committed levels of troops and supplies?
To borrow from Joe Biden, Barack Obama was right and John McCain is still wrong. The surge curbed violence, but how did it do it? Take away the troops and the cash payments, the Sunni Awakening becomes the Sunni Rebellion and throw in a few pissed off Kurds and you see that the Surge accomplished nothing but to make the 320,000 US personnel (don't forget the mercenaries) one big Police Force. Meanwhile, somebody is sitting on a mountain of oil cash, and the citizens of Iraq aren't getting any of it.
So, one ex-military person has to say it, the SURGE is a total failure, a mere band-aid applied with a heavy boot. We have combat troops busy nation-building, while their comrades are, once again, under-supplied, under-staffed and basically forgotten. Why? Political, not military reasons. Wesley Clark was damn right, McCain, who says he knows how to win wars, has never planned one single campaign, or even one battle. Being a pilot, getting a target package, dropping your load and hopefully not getting shot down doesn't qualify you to lead the military. I will take Obama's proven, correct judgment in the Mideast over McCain's proven failure any day. I hope the rest of America does as well.
One more time, we have over 140,000 troops and over 180,000 contractors in Iraq (that's 320,000 people) and we can't spare 12,000 to send to Afghanistan even though the commanders on the ground in Afghanistan say they are woefully understaffed and need help immediately. Let that sink in, and tell me if the military decision is political or not. Patton is rolling in his grave.