A hopeful review of the Iraq surge strategy

First I am sensitive to the complaints from arm chair generals and secretaries of state and even librarians of congress. And if having 535 other commanders in chief isn’t enough, remember the other line “if only they had listened to me”. And hindsight always helps. And of course the President and his hired minions have better information than I have.

And I intend to ignore all my ideas of mistakes made in the past. The President’s political objectives have always been do-able, but the method he chose got us where we are today. Let’s go forward. Let’s deal with today and the “new improved” strategy. I admire the President for his method of listening to ideas, courses of action, debates; and then making a decision. I just respectfully disagree. Maybe he has too many hired minions?

What prompts this is reading the White House news release about the new strategy. I will make a link to it at the end of this post. What I read was dismaying for three reasons.
There is no mention of one person in charge (uniting DOD and the SD)
There is no mention of making the (local) police more important than the military
There is mention we will treat the Iraqi’s as equals. They should be treated unequally as long as we are paying in money and blood.

All this new strategy sounds somewhat like the same failed strategies of the past. Of course, maybe we Americans just don’t have the fear and interest to address all this. Some think so. They may be right. After all what are we sacrificing on the home front? It also sounds like those educated from the past trying to lead us to the future, and they are losing. In this latter case, then the strategy seems like more of the same, albeit refined and tuned up some.

Assuming we have educated fools leading an old and failed strategy of limited war, then we have a depressing future. There is little worth fighting for.

Then American politics seem to kick in. What seems like a Democratic Party strategy (not a tactic) to complain leaves me bereft of an alternative. Hence this email and an alternative.

In a reverse sort of way, maybe we citizens can lead. We want security from terrorists, and success in Iraq as a way to try get there. We will support success, from our point of view, and be most harsh for failing ideas. We all know there is a war of civilizations, or maybe a war between civilization and barbarism. Bottom line, I demand safety for me and my family. It probably will just come down to voting to make sure.

I also think the new General we sent to Iraq to save the day, and the extra troops, must be given a chance to work. And I hope there are things going on we do not know that let him run the show, and do the other things I complained about. I think I am correct about this sharp American leader, so let the show go on.

You must know I was always encouraged by our President saying over and over again he would not micromanage a war from D.C. This is good, even if his hired minions may have tempered it by their values. But what he and his hired minions did to get us where we are today is failure, pure and simple. Most of us Americans can see this, and say do something else. This post is about the how to do something else.

If we expect any leadership from the Senate, forget it. The House, even worse. It is beginning to look, again, like we voters are in charge.

Here is the link mentioned earlier: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html