You ask: “Why are we asking so much less here?” I’m not sure but here is what I think. The bottom line is both Republicans and Democrats are fundamentally unserious about this. They know, at this time, the American people will not support more troops. To ask for more troops would require the Republicans to admit that mistakes were made. CYA seems more important than winning the GWOT is to them. Also, both Democrats and Republicans seem to be more interested in trying to assign blame than they are in actually trying to fix problems.

A good place to begin would be by firing Don Rumsfeld. The Democrats are spot on to point this out. The Democrats should follow up by suggesting a replacement for him. I think they should suggest either Senator Lindsay Graham or General Eric Shinseki. The Repbulicans have shown they are unserious by trying to run interference for Rumsfeld. They can go a long toward rectifying this situation by stopping this practice and suggesting a replacement. Lindsay Graham and General Eric Shinseki seem to have great military credentials and they seem to be non Bush partisians.

You are quite right. We should fully mobilize for war. Also, we should work immediately to end our dependence on foreign oil and to use as little oil as possible, period. I thought we should have mobilized for war immediately after 911. Its not to late to do it now. Both Republicans and Democrats will have to go before the American people and explain the stakes and ask for sacrifices.

Perhaps Iraq is not the best battlefield for the GWOT and perhaps it should not have been fought at all. Even if we withdraw from Iraq, we need to substantially increase the size and strength of the military. If those troops are not used for Iraq, they will be needed elsewhere. If we are unwilling to make the commitment, we should withdraw immediately. In this case, we can make our stand at fortress America.

And that means a draft.

Another,we told you so comming soon.

If we are fighting this generation’s version of Hitler how can we not fully mobilize for war? What rationale is there for not raising the tax on the commodity that enriches our enemies, oil? Why doesn’t the CINC outright ask young people to join up and send his own offspring off as an example of the sacrifices to be made?

Hell, even Prince Harry will go do his bit as a service to his country.

Why are we asking so much less here?

Thank you for your service to our country!! You are right we need to more troops. To me this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is an issue that affects all of us. The candidate, regardless of which party he or she is from, who gets out in front and requests more troops for Iraq and elsewhere in the GWOT will get my vote. In regards to Afghanistan, NATO troops have fought bravely but it seems clear that the governments of NATO members are not going to honor their full commitments. The US will need to step up and make a greater commitment.

And further, let me take this opporunity as a vet to say I told you so.

There aren’t enough troops and all that is happening is the Army I love is being ground down. He’s the leader of your party, notmine so perhaps you can find out what he plans to do as the macaca seems to be hitting the fan.

Oh yeah, and we are losing Afghanistan as well. A country we should totally dominate by now.

Short of a draft where will these troops come from. Now that the age of enlistment is 41 perhaps Rich Lowery can spare couple of years.

And for the record,two years ago at 49 I tried to reenlist. Too old unfortunately. Who knows they might even take me now.

Thanks for the reply to my post. I also take those articles with a grain of salt. The article is from an “op-ed contributor.” As such, it is an opinion article.

As I see it we have basiclly three options. 1.) We “stay the course.” With this scenario we don’t have enough troops to actually secure the country and disarm the militias. Dan Senor who is formerly of the Coalition Provisional Authourity recently admitted this. If this is going to be what we choose, we hope the Iraqis we train will be up to the task of defending their country. We hope the the now liberated Iraq will not become greater Iran and we hope the liberated Iraq will be allied with the US, in the GWOT. Allot of this is based on hope. I don’t like policies based on hope. In any event, the “stay the course” policy does not seem to be working very well right now. 2.)We commit more troops. This gives us the opportunity to get security under control and it gives the Democratic process a greater chance of succeeding. This will result in more American casualties. Also, in the final analysis, whether or not Iraq can achieve a stable Democracy will be up to the Iraqis, however, without someone to provide security the chances of Democracy succeeding are slim and nill. I would go for this option but I don’t think we have the troops or the equipment right now to do it. Also, I don’t think the American people are going to go for it. Finally, any additional troop commitments to Iraq should be in a manner that is consistent with American national security interests. I’m not sure additional troop contributions to Iraq are consistent with American national security interests. We need to be flexible enough to handle other situations. We need to be focusing more on Russia and China. Those are the two greatest threats to American national security. 3.) Since we don’t seem willing or able to commit the troop levels that would be necessary to defeat the insurgents and the militias decisively, right now our best option seems to be to redeploy to Kurdish areas. We will need to closely monitor the situation to ensure that terrorist bases are not established. In any event, the redeployment eliminates the so called “recruiting tool” of us being in Iraq. I think the redeployment may give us the opportunity to focus on what we need to be focusing on, which is containing the Communist threat from Russia and China and fighting terrorists.

Russia and China are currently undermining us becuase we don’t seem to have the resources to focus on them. By redeploying to Kurdistan, we can scale back our presecense in Iraq. This frees up resources to focus on Russia and China and puts us in a better position to prevent them from undermining us.

You are right it is a tough situation. I’m not sure what the best course is but it does seem abundantly clear to me that we either need to, as Rick once put it, quit or commit. Since we are not likely to commit, redeployment to Kurdistan seems to be the best option.

Well, I took the NY Times article with a large grain of salt (too many presumptions and opinions of the author). If you agree with him that we must remove ourselves from Iraq, then what are the consequences?

More terrorism - we are seen much weaker in the Mideast and elsewhere.

South America along with Russia and China see us weaker and advance their efforts to undermine us.

So the position that you agree with would leave us much weaker and open to increased terrorism.

I’m not sure there is a better solution, but to withdraw from Iraq may be flawed. Tis a tough situation in todays world.

Thanks for the NY Times article!! I think the ambassador nails it. He expressed my thoughts, only he expressed them more articulately than I could.

Without a larger commitment to Iraq you are right it likely can’t be fixed. Even with a larger deployment, there is no guarantee that this would fix the problem. At this point, I’m not optimistic that more troops would help us much, int he long run. “Stay the course”, while a cute slogan, appears to be a terrible option. Since we aren’t going to commit, the best thing to do would be to withdraw to Kurdish areas. Also, with the increased threats from Russia, China, and South America I don’t think a larger troop commitment to Iraq is in our national security interests.

Deagle

It’s interesting you mentioned South America. I’ve noticed the same thing. I think this is part of what our Iraq policy has wrought. While focusing on Iraq, we may have taken our eyes off of South America. This has allowed Russia and China to establish a Communist beach head. Russia and China are far greater threats than Iraq or terrorists ever have been.

Chris

I agree. We either dig down deep or leave. It will probably be latter. At this time, I’m unsure we have the troops to commit or the will to commit them, if we did. I’m not even sure a greater troop commitment serves American security interests. If we leave, it should be done now without delay. In the final analysis, it was going to be up the Iraqis whether or not they could achieve a Democratic form of government but I don’t think we ever commited the appropiate resources to give this a reasonable chance of success.