Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assumed the role of spin doctor in an article on Time Magazine's web site, claiming that the insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force. From The Grape's vantage point, it would appear that the insurgency is making a lot of headway, not losing ground. It's very rare that I agree with Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) but he did say it best. "The insurgents are thinking in terms of years. It took 10 years in Afghanistan to evict the Soviets. We're thinking in terms of months, and that causes problems." Senator Reed is correct. This is a siege, not a war, and the insurgents only need to wait us out.
The problem we don't seem to want to address is the source of the insurgency. Yesterday, we sent 1000 Marines off on a mission to combat insurgents. That's like using a fly swatter to kill a bunch of cockroaches in a corner, when what you really need to do is fumigate the entire house. The problem is, the insurgency is not based in Iraq. To end it, we need to take the war to the insurgents. We need to eliminate their training centers in Pakistan. We need to cut-off their funding in Saudi Arabia. We need to close their supply lines through Syria. Until then, what goes on in Iraq is as effective as that fly swatter.
Technorati: politics news Reed Rice Iraq insurgency
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1 comment :
Occupying forces are never popular with the general population, even if they are replacing an oppressive regime. In fact, the longer an occupying force remains, the better the oppressive regime looks as memories of past brutalities fade. That will certainly be true in Iraq. At present, though, the insurgency is not coming from the Iraqi people. It's coming from foreign nationals that are using Iraq as the battleground for their more global war against the US. Calling it an insurgency is really a misnomer, since that implies an underground struggle from within. The source of this battle has very little in common with the deposed Iraqi government or with the Iraqi people in general.
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