Critique wanted of my LTTE on Lieberman's call for more troops

[NewJeffCT]

Any suggestions/ideas are welcome, including editing. Yes, this is long, but the paper I'm sending it to likes letters between 350-500 words:
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With his call for additional soldiers to be sent to Iraq, Senator Lieberman is again showing that he is either being disingenuous or is completely divorced from reality. At least when his fellow Senator John McCain calls for more troops, we know it is purely politics. Having just won an election, Lieberman should have no reason to play politics with the lives of our soldiers.

Lieberman says that he became convinced of the need for more soldiers after speaking to the commanders in Iraq. Yet, when the head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, testified to the Senate, he opposed an increase in the number of troops. In his testimony, Abizaid said he spoke with every commander in Iraq and they all rejected the idea of sending more troops to Iraq. Colin Powell also rebuffed the idea, as did the Joint Chiefs of Staff, unanimously. Where is Senator Lieberman getting the impression that more soldiers are needed after speaking to these same people? Does the word “no” not mean “no” to him?

We already tried increasing the amount of troops in Baghdad this past summer, by moving them from other parts of Iraq into the capitol city. Judging by the fact that each month of the summer saw dramatically increasing violence in Baghdad, the strategy that was then dubbed Operation Together Forward was a miserable failure. Yet, now Senator Lieberman is calling on this strategy to be repeated for all of Iraq?

Besides, where are these additional soldiers going to come from to be sent to Iraq? Colin Powell also said that “the army is broken,” and it seems that extending tours of duty, or sending people back for second, third or fourth tours is a sure-fire way to accelerate the further breakdown of our military. If you think it could be new recruits, General Abizaid also said that it would take up to a year to get an additional 6,000 soldiers up to speed. The only way to get 15,000 to 30,000 new troops without completely wrecking the military is to implement the draft.

Lieberman is the person who, upon losing the primary this past August, came out and said that nobody wanted to end the war more than he did. He was convincing enough that a large number of voters believed he was an anti-war candidate. With his call for sending more soldiers into the meat grinder that is Iraq, it seems that Lieberman has comfortably shifted back to his old warmongering self. Perhaps we will next hear him tossing around phrases like “Peace in our time” and advancing the Domino Theory idea.

(I'm not thrilled with my last paragraph, so any ideas are welcome!)

[gratuitous]

1. It's probably too long

But you know your publication better than I do. Five paragraphs seems long, though you make many salient points, and buttress those points with pertinent citations. I would suggest condensing some of the thoughts in paragraphs 2-4, thusly:

"Lieberman's call for more troops is in direct opposition to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell and Gen. Abizaid. Whose judgment is more trustworthy? When the number of troops in Baghdad was temporarily increased last summer by moving them to the capitol from other parts of Iraq, violence and casualties increased dramatically. Lieberman is calling for this failed strategy to be enlarged over all of Iraq.

"And without a draft, where does Lieberman think these additional troops are going to come from? The current troops are strained to their limits, Gen. Abizaid has said it would take a year to train and post an additional 6,000 troops; and Lieberman wants to send two to five times that many right away. There just aren't that many available bodies."

[NewJeffCT]

4. thanks

some good ideas.

[jody]

2. Draft LTTE is 436 words. Suggest you prune it to about 150 words. n/t

[NewJeffCT]

3. The paper I'm sending it to wants them to be 350-500 words

see some of these letters (the first one is about 420 words)

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What has been absent from much of the discussion about the Iraq Study Group's recommendations is that it included an extreme and blatant greed-ridden item that Iraq privatize its oil industry and open its oil industry up to international companies.

This major recommendation must raise questions and significant concerns about the ISG's credibility and bias.

Antonia Juhasz, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time," says "we have to not just call for the end of troops in Iraq, but make clear that the U.S. corporate invasion cannot be progressed or continue, as well."

The proposal specifically states that Iraq's oil should be opened up to private foreign energy companies and that all of Iraq's oil revenues should be centralized in the central government. The report calls for a U.S. adviser to ensure that a new national oil law is passed in Iraq to make all of this possible, and that Iraq's constitution is amended to ensure that the central government gains control of Iraq's oil revenues. It continues to recommend that the U.S. government not provide support to the al-Maliki government unless it advances the changes that essentially privatize Iraq's oil.

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17604070&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=458252&rfi=6

[jody]

5. The Journal's policy says, "shorter letters are welcome" and reserves the right to edit long LTTE.

- Letters should be limited to 350 to 500 words; shorter letters are welcome. Longer letters we would like to publish will be edited. All letters may be edited for style, length, relevance, and clarity.

IMO writers are more likely to avoid editing if LTTE are short.

I hope your LTTE is published. :hi:

[NewJeffCT]

7. I've rarely been rejected by them

and am usually around 400 words or so, though I did have a shorter one that even made it to Ned Lamont's website.

[Jane Austin]

6. Your second paragraph could almost stand on its own.

It says all I need to know about Lieberman, and would require only a one-sentence intro to be a great LTE to lots of other papers.