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WaPo Publishes Pro War OpEd by an in ops Marine Captain
Well this is progress. The WaPo is publishing an op ed which makes utter hash of the drivel that Murtha is spouting and does so calmly and respectfully.The Truth On the Ground By Ben Connable Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A29 When I told people that I was getting ready to head back to Iraq for my third tour, the usual response was a frown, a somber head shake and even the occasional "I'm sorry." When I told them that I was glad to be going back, the response was awkward disbelief, a fake smile and a change of subject. The common wisdom seems to be that Iraq is an unwinnable war and a quagmire and that the only thing left to decide is how quickly we withdraw. Depending on which poll you believe, about 60 percent of Americans think it's time to pull out of Iraq. How is it, then, that 64 percent of U.S. military officers think we will succeed if we are allowed to continue our work? ...We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than any armchair academic or talking head. As military professionals, we are trained to gauge the chances of success and failure, to calculate risk and reward. We have little to gain from our optimism and quite a bit to lose as we leave our families over and over again to face danger and deprivation for an increasingly unpopular cause....The proponents of the quagmire vision argue that the very presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is the cause of the insurgency and that our withdrawal would give the Iraqis their only true chance for stability. Most military officers and NCOs with ground experience in Iraq know that this vision is patently false. Posted by: mhw 2005-12-14 |
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