Kagan: Send more troops to Baghdad and we’ll have a fighting chance

[Barrett808]

Send more troops to Baghdad and we’ll have a fighting chance
Frederick Kagan
Frederick W Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq

A decisive moment in world history is at hand. If the United States, Britain and their allies fail in Iraq the result will almost certainly be a regional maelstrom. If the coalition succeeds, then the West will regain the initiative against radical Islam in Iran and throughout the Muslim world.

The current trajectory in Iraq is poor: rising sectarian violence threatens to rend Iraqi society and destroy America’s will to continue the struggle.

The choices are bleak: nobody has yet developed a convincing plan to resolve this conflict through diplomacy, politics or any other form of soft power. Hopes for success now rest on the coalition’s willingness to adopt a strategy of bringing security to the Iraqi population and confronting the sectarian violence directly as the prerequisite for subsequent political, economic and social development.

Embracing such a strategy would mark a dramatic change from the approach that the US military has pursued since April 2003. Since the beginning of the counter-insurgency effort US central command has focused on training Iraqi soldiers and police to establish and maintain security on their own. America’s own military efforts to establish security have been reactive, sporadic, under-resourced and ephemeral.

(more)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2517657,00.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. You don't throw good money after bad

and you don't send in more troops to bolster a losing war. Why is it that I could see all this happening back in early 2003 and demonstrated against war, and the bozos in Washington didn't have a clue?

[Bobbieo]

3. A fighting chance for what?

What constitutes winning in Iraq? A theocracy but on which side - Sunni or Shiite?

[John Q. Citizen]

4. The Bozos in DC want the war. They have lots of clues. They aren't bozos, they

are imperialists building an American empire.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. as long as they or their relatives don't have to fight it n/t

[MikeNearMcChord]

2. OK Rambo you first!!! And take your FILTHY PNAC BRIGADE TOO!!!

I am sick of these SCUM!!! :grr: :grr: :nuke: :nuke: :grr: :grr:

[tabasco]

7. Is Daryn over 42 yet? If not they will take her!

Yep, time for these war lovers to get their asses to the recruiters' office.:mad:

[Warpy]

5. Typically violent by proxy right winger

I've been warning about the hubris of Vietnam: more money, more bombs, more bullets, more troops and more dead kids will win the war.

Wake up, Kagan! This war, as was Vietnam, is UNWINNABLE unless you want to do the unthinkable and slaughter every male over the age of five. Check your history books for The Harrying of the North to find out what's needed to win an occupation.

The Romans were brutal, but they only bought themselves time by their extreme brutality. The local population eventually threw them out.

We have only two real choices in Iraq: leave now or waste lives and resources only to be thrown out later.

That's the lesson of Vietnam, all you 101st Chairborne warriors. History is very clear on this. Either you have to flatten the country and slaughter most of the population, something you won't get away with in this age of worldwide communication, or you have to avoid getting involved in occupations in the first place.

[cornermouse]

6. The time to send extra troops was when we first went in.

Rumsfeld's war plan was flawed (a variation of Blitzkrieg?) and we're very lucky the Iraqis couldn't/didn't put up much of a fight or they would have cut our supply lines and it would have gotten really ugly for us.

And then there's the minor fact that if Bush had any common sense, we wouldn't have gone there at all.

[StClone]

8. I can't identify Kagan

Is he the neck-slitting Red-throated Loon?



Or, just the garden variety Common Loon?

[Skittles]

12. here ya go

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Kagan

[xchrom]

9. lol -- we already outnumber the insurgents.

way to win respect kagan -- throw more troops at them -- and you'll still end up losing.

that's part of the problem -- the west just looks like a big ol' incredibly well armed ogre -- so now we grow the size of the ogre.

oh you might even stop the violence -- but what you'll reap in the long run will be ashes in our mouths.

[Skittles]

11. he is a f***ing PNAC neocon wingnut bastard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Kagan