Ten more years in Iraq

newsweek's right... the presidential candidates either do not know about this or they don't WANT to know about this... i hope to hell this hits the national media big-time...

In For the Long Haul

The Petraeus plan will have U.S. forces deployed in Iraq for years to come. Does anybody running for president realize that?

[...]

As Democrats and Republicans back home try to outdo each other with quick-fix plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and funds, what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus’s new “surge” plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation. How long must we stay under the Petraeus plan? Perhaps 10 years. At least five.

[...]

“We’re putting down roots,” says Philip Carter, a former U.S. Army captain who returned last summer from a year of policing and training in the hot zone around Baquba. “The Americans are no longer willing to accept failure in order to put Iraqis in the lead. You can’t let the mission fail just for the sake of diplomacy.”

[...]

[An] Army expert in irregular warfare notes that insurgencies take on average 10 years to defeat. And while technically we’re about four years into this one, the Pentagon was in such denial for so long about confronting the Iraqi insurgency—and wasted time on so many errant alternatives—that America may be at square one in fighting it, or possibly even “in negative numbers,” this expert says.

this has to be the most dismal piece of news i've read in a long time... it confirms everything i've thought was the case... we're in iraq permanently, and that's been the intention all along...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet