The Soldiers Speak
"This first systematic look at the views of the U.S. troops on the grond suggests that our present strategy in Iraq is failing badly. The troops overwhelmingly don't want to "stay the course," and they don't seem to think the American strategy can succeed."
--poll conducted by Zogby International and LeMoyne College, asking 944 service members, "How long should American troops stay in Iraq?", quoted in the New York Times, February 28, 2006.
According to an article in the British newspaper, The Independent, "One important development over the past few days is that it is clearly becoming very difficult to use American or British troops to keep the peace, undermining the argument that they are the only bulwark against civil war. The occupation forces lack the legitimacy to play the role of UN peacekeepers; it is almost impossible to have American soldiers defend a Sunni mosque against a Shia crowd, because if they open fire they will be seen as having joined one side in a sectarian struggle."
On a recent appearance on 60 Minutes, Representative John Murtha stated that if we leave troops in Iraq now, they will essentially be fighting a civil war. I missed the appearance and so can't comment intelligently about it, but from my experience as a Marine mom, I'd say mostly what our guys want to do at this point is just stay alive, keep their buddies alive, hang on to all their fingers and toes and other crucial body parts, and just get the hell home.
It is very hard for any of them to feel as if they are accomplishing anything.
In the Zogby poll of U.S. troops, a whopping 72% said that U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq within one year. Of those, 29% wanted us to pull out immediately.
Only 23% of the troops polled backed Mr. Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary.
New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof writes, "having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale."
Even though the White House emphasizes threats from non-Iraqi terrorists, only 26% of the U.S. troops say the insurgency would end if those foreign fighters could be kept out.
And what do the ground-troops believe it would take to win the war in Iraq? By a two-to-one ratio, the troops said, "to control the insurgency we need to double the level of ground troops and bombing missions."
That's not going to happen. This war is going to drag on and on and on with an increasingly overextended and exhausted military doing their brave and valiant duty because that's what they do, while the Iraqis who are busy tearing one another's hearts out stop only long enough to blame--not each other--but the very troops who fought so hard to "liberate" them three years ago.
Meanwhile, senior Pentagon officials said just yesterday that it was "unlikely" that troop levels would be reduced in coming months.
That's a real shame, since so many Republican law-makers who were so quick to jump on the war bandwagon back in 2002, using their so-called patriotism as a bludgeon to beat down opponents and slam their way into office, are now facing re-election.
And the voters are none too happy with an Iraq on fire, almost 2300 young American men and women dead, more than 16,000 maimed and mutilated, and no end in sight.
They had really hoped that a March announcement of upcoming troop deductions in Iraq would bolster their campaigns, show how there was real progress in Iraq, show how right they were to stay the course and how stupid were those people, like me and other Democrats and moderate Republicans, who warned them years ago that a civil war would be the result if we invaded Iraq.
That's the funny thing--and not funny ha-ha--about using WAR for POLITICAL GAIN. That bandwagon can crash and burn. Winds shift, and the fire comes right back and cremates the arsonists.
--poll conducted by Zogby International and LeMoyne College, asking 944 service members, "How long should American troops stay in Iraq?", quoted in the New York Times, February 28, 2006.
According to an article in the British newspaper, The Independent, "One important development over the past few days is that it is clearly becoming very difficult to use American or British troops to keep the peace, undermining the argument that they are the only bulwark against civil war. The occupation forces lack the legitimacy to play the role of UN peacekeepers; it is almost impossible to have American soldiers defend a Sunni mosque against a Shia crowd, because if they open fire they will be seen as having joined one side in a sectarian struggle."
On a recent appearance on 60 Minutes, Representative John Murtha stated that if we leave troops in Iraq now, they will essentially be fighting a civil war. I missed the appearance and so can't comment intelligently about it, but from my experience as a Marine mom, I'd say mostly what our guys want to do at this point is just stay alive, keep their buddies alive, hang on to all their fingers and toes and other crucial body parts, and just get the hell home.
It is very hard for any of them to feel as if they are accomplishing anything.
In the Zogby poll of U.S. troops, a whopping 72% said that U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq within one year. Of those, 29% wanted us to pull out immediately.
Only 23% of the troops polled backed Mr. Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary.
New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof writes, "having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale."
Even though the White House emphasizes threats from non-Iraqi terrorists, only 26% of the U.S. troops say the insurgency would end if those foreign fighters could be kept out.
And what do the ground-troops believe it would take to win the war in Iraq? By a two-to-one ratio, the troops said, "to control the insurgency we need to double the level of ground troops and bombing missions."
That's not going to happen. This war is going to drag on and on and on with an increasingly overextended and exhausted military doing their brave and valiant duty because that's what they do, while the Iraqis who are busy tearing one another's hearts out stop only long enough to blame--not each other--but the very troops who fought so hard to "liberate" them three years ago.
Meanwhile, senior Pentagon officials said just yesterday that it was "unlikely" that troop levels would be reduced in coming months.
That's a real shame, since so many Republican law-makers who were so quick to jump on the war bandwagon back in 2002, using their so-called patriotism as a bludgeon to beat down opponents and slam their way into office, are now facing re-election.
And the voters are none too happy with an Iraq on fire, almost 2300 young American men and women dead, more than 16,000 maimed and mutilated, and no end in sight.
They had really hoped that a March announcement of upcoming troop deductions in Iraq would bolster their campaigns, show how there was real progress in Iraq, show how right they were to stay the course and how stupid were those people, like me and other Democrats and moderate Republicans, who warned them years ago that a civil war would be the result if we invaded Iraq.
That's the funny thing--and not funny ha-ha--about using WAR for POLITICAL GAIN. That bandwagon can crash and burn. Winds shift, and the fire comes right back and cremates the arsonists.
posted by Deanie Mills at 8:46 PM
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