Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Iggy’s Daily Gouge

Good news, at least in the big picture; the Troop to Dwell time bill was blocked, giving our commanders the flexibility they need to adequately fight the war on terror.

Syria has publicly declared that those killed at the missile site are “martyrs”. I would like the term “idiots”. At least they got what they deserved.

The first article is a reminder of the savagery of Al Qaeda and Iran’s continual support of our enemies. Can we actually consider this a proxy war?

I am also attaching an article from the Weekly Standard, just to help strengthen our resolve.

Taliban Allegedly Used Children As Shields

By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades used children as human shields during a battle in southern Afghanistan yesterday, forcing U.S.-led coalition soldiers to hold their fire for a time, the coalition said.

The clash in Uruzgan province began when more than 20 insurgents attacked a joint Afghan and coalition patrol.

The soldiers did fight the insurgents when they tried to flee the compound, and more than a dozen suspected militants were killed, the coalition said. The report did not list any casualties among troops or civilians.

U.S. Maj. Chris Belcher said Taliban forces had previously used children as shields. In June, insurgents forced women and children into a canal in Uruzgan while battling coalition forces, and many of the human shields died in the cross fire, he said.

“If you look at some of the actions where the Taliban have had women and children carrying ammunition for them, where they’ve used civilian houses, and now in this case they’re using children to shield themselves, I’d say that shows they really don’t care about Afghans,” Belcher said.

The U.S.-led coalition and the NATO force in Afghanistan themselves were strongly criticized earlier in the year by President Hamid Karzai and others for causing civilian casualties in air strikes on suspected enemy locations. The number of such casualties has dropped recently.

Also yesterday, NATO said it was investigating a weapons shipment recently intercepted by troops in Farah province near the Afghan border with Iran.

“We’re still evaluating what is contained in that shipment,” a NATO spokesman, Maj. Charles Anthony, said.

A Washington Post report Sunday said the shipment seized Sept. 6 was being sent to the Taliban and included armor-piercing bombs similar to those that have been used against foreign troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, about 2,500 Afghan and NATO troops launched an operation yesterday in Helmand province. The southern province has been the site of the fiercest battles this year and is the world’s largest opium-producing region.

Ready, Willing, And Able

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too.

By Thomas Donnelly

In the wake of last week’s Iraq-related developments in Washington, the strongest quasi-respectable argument available to Democrats who want to oppose President Bush and General Petraeus while sounding responsible is the claim that a troop drawdown larger than the one they propose is needed to “rebalance risk”–that is, that the surge in Iraq has made us more vulnerable elsewhere in the world.

This has long been a concern to more moderate Democrats, and Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (and father of an Army officer), reiterated the position in his prepared statement at the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. He asked whether “Iraq is the war worth the risk of breaking our Army and being unable to deal with other risks to our nation. . . . With so many troops in Iraq, I think our response to an unexpected threat would come at a devastating cost.”

This argument is a version of the concerns voiced by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army chief, Gen. George Casey–a point not missed by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who wrote that “Democrats are now hoping concerned generals will support their case [for withdrawal], even if most Republicans won’t.” Indeed, the goal of driving a wedge between the military and the Bush administration has been a consistent strategy of the antiwar party. As Dionne puts it, “If withdrawing troops from Iraq is dangerous, failing to withdraw them may, in the long run, be even more dangerous.” Fighting now compromises future readiness.

Yet the military logic behind this argument is weak. What are the “other risks to our nation” that are so “unexpected” and would exact such a “devastating cost”? It’s a dangerous world and the risks are great, but our ability to respond is likewise great. Consider the threats the Pentagon regards as most real. A crisis across the Taiwan Strait or even a Chinese attack would call for the deployment of naval and air power–capabilities not much employed in Iraq. Suppose we collected “actionable” intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. We’d launch air and missile strikes and perhaps a special operations raid. Again, not really a problem. Even a North Korean invasion would initially demand the strike power of naval and air forces in support of South Korea’s large, well-equipped, and well-trained land forces.

In an emergency, we can even respond to the call for significant land forces. The “surged” force in Iraq of 160,000 represents only about 20 percent of active-duty Army and Marine strength, and less than 15 percent if one includes reserve and National Guard forces. It would be a struggle to make ready and to deploy another large land force–although those forces recovering from Iraq and in the reserves represent a superbly trained, equipped, experienced, and powerful force. But responding to even the most nightmarish surprise, such as a mass-destruction attack at home, is hardly impossible. We should remember that the strains of Iraq come from the length of the mission, not the surge.

The strategic logic of the “risk management” argument is similarly weak: It sharply underplays the negative consequences, in the Middle East and around the world, of a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

This is not the place to elaborate that argument fully, yet it’s worth noting the insight of Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a former Army officer and author of the classic work The Army and Vietnam. A withdrawal from Iraq, he says, would not be like the American withdrawal from Saigon, but rather like the British evacuation from Dunkirk. In the context of the Cold War, the United States could retreat and recover from a loss in Vietnam without having to retake Saigon. But in World War II, strategic realities compelled the Allies to retake Western Europe from the Germans. It’s hard to imagine a victory in “The Long War” against revolutionary Islam without success in Iraq. This grim logic is well understood by troops serving in Iraq, especially those who also fought in Desert Storm. We are fighting in Iraq, they often say, so our children won’t have to.

For better or worse, it is and will be for quite a while the duty of America’s land forces to fight the Long War. Of the three great security challenges of our time–the rise of China, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the dangers of revolutionary Islam–it is the third that requires of us strong land power capabilities. The way to manage the risks of this extended struggle is to rebuild and reshape our land forces to respond to the challenge.

While not all the battles of this war will be exactly like Iraq, the bitter experience of the last four years should serve as a reminder that we must adapt to the war as it is rather than pretend we have the option of fighting a war we would prefer. Nor should we pretend that there’s something more important for U.S. ground troops to do. If they are ordered to retreat from this battle, their next battle is likely to be a lot harder.

Thomas Donnelly is resident fellow in defense and national security studies at the American Enterprise Institute.