There's been a lot of talk over the past year or two about how the Iraqi military and police force just isn't coming along fast enough. It's going too slow for some. And somehow these people find a way to blame Bush or Rumsfeld for this. As if he's they're the ones over there training them. Come on. If you truly want to be honest with yourself you have to place the blame where it actually lies. If you feel the Iraqi military and police force aren't coming along as fast as you would have hoped then the blame lies with the U.S. miltary. They're the ones over there. They're the ones training them. If you don't like what's happening then it's the military's fault. But you'll never see anyone blame the military. Why? It's something this country is lacking. Intellectual honesty. I wish more people would take a cue from Joel Stein. He's the L.A. Times reporter who said you can't support the troops if you don't support their mission. And he's right. That's like saying "Well, I support the police. I love the police. I just don't like when they arrest people". Or "I love firefighters, I just hate it when they put fires out". If you truly support the troops you have to support their mission and what they're doing.
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Filed under War On Terror
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3 comments:
The fact that Bush or Rumsie isn't on the ground in Iraq is actually irrelevant.
There're a few reasons why it's failing.
Firstly, because when General Eric Shineski said in February 2003 that the US would need "several hundred thousand troops", he was ridiculed by Wolfowitz, and the Secretary of the Army, Thomas White, was sacked for agreeing with Shineski - basically meaning that Bush, Rumsie and the rest rejected such notions, and decided to send in a significantly smaller force.
The second big reason was because when the Coalition Provisional Authority was instituted, Paul Bremer, the director, sacked 30,000 civil servants, policemen, teachers and doctors, and dismissed all 400,000 soldiers in the army without pay or pensions... and then let them all keep their guns, because America supports private gun ownership.
So what that did take the already trained people, tossed them into the street with their guns, and then made an understaffed army try to run around and keep the peace.
After that, when Iraq got Allawi, information was never released, there were continual lies about what was happening, and it just generally threw another spanner in the works.
Oh, and second point - Stein is wrong.
You CAN support the troops if you don't support their mission. The soldiers didn't choose to invade Iraq - Bush did.
Supporting the troops is simply trying to make things as best for them as you can. Sending them stuff, hoping they don't get killed for someone else's stupidity and so on.
It's not saying "Yes! I want you to continue staying in a war zone where there are over 150 attacks on you every single day!".
Wow, you really do have your head up your ass. War is the business of the soldier. No war, no soldiers. The two are interchangeable. As such, if you really think that war is so damn evil, then you say the soldiers are evil. They are the ones enlisting (and re-enlisting)during wartime to fight the "evil war of G. W." This so called war for oil is being fought by people who want to be there. Since you say soldiers aren't evil, then that must mean that they are doing something good. Even without your flawed logic, that's been proven. Do yourself a favor, stop spewing your liberal propaganda at people who post the truth here on the Internet, and shut the hell up so our boys can finish the job. I am a soldier, and it is a slap in the face for you to stand there on your soapbox and claim to support the troops to make yourself feel better while you lie about the president and the war because you are a fan of Saddam Hussein.
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