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| Iraq |
| An Iraq To-Do List |
| 2007-05-13 |
| How we can help the surge succeed. by Max Boot |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #2 1. Fumigate. 2. Repeat as needed. 3. Invite the 4 million Assurian Diaspora to come back. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-05-13 20:35 |
| #1 Excellent article. At least two/three of his suggestions certainly sound familiar around here. Expand detention, use martial law, and get in the info/propaganda game. And hit Syria hard; he wimps out on Iran, given their greater heft, whereas I would conduct a war-in-all-but-name with such ferocity that it puts the Maliki govt. on the ropes or actually overturns it. (He doesn't mention using harsh measures selectively to disrupt and demoralize resistance, though he sort of hints at it). Good that he mentioned the grumbling over the medals for Bremer, Tenet, and Franks (though I'm not sure about Franks - he seems to have succeeded in his assigned tasks rather well), and esp. Casey's promotion (that is ridiculous). One thing he doesn't mention - he notes that Dubya has been far too tolerant of failure in the field. While true, my impression (only that, still waiting for a USEFUL "tell all" book by some senior retired knucklehead) is that the clearly inappropriate Casey approach had full civilian backing, not to mention support within the brass. The whole operation, mil. and civilian, went stupid on pacifying Iraq sometime in 2005, so it went way beyond tolerating individual failures. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-05-13 15:57 |