Michael Yon: Part II of III of Hunting al Qaeda:
I watched during the Senate hearings on 11 September 07 as some Senators attempted to corner General Petraeus, insinuating that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the fight against al Qaeda. It was clearly that during the initial invasion, but not today. These photos were taken at the center of what al Qaeda claimed to be their worldwide headquarters. Listening to some of the Senators’ questions, the true magnitude of the gulf between what is happening in Iraq and what people in America think is happening in Iraq became apparent. Some Senators clearly had been doing their homework and were asking smart questions — if negative at times — but others seemed completely ignorant of the ground situation here, which adds nothing meaningful to the debate.
This man knows things that you’ll never get from the biased anti-war MSM.
Of course, if you listen to Lefty bloggers (who have never been to Iraq or wouldn’t recognize al Qaeda if they were cutting their heads off), we shouldn’t be in Iraq because it’s distracting our mission of fighting al Qaeda. Who is in Iraq. Thus the name al Qaeda in Iraq.
If US presence in Iraq has, as you admit, spawned the creation of a terrorist organization who’s to say that the continued presence won’t lead to yet more terrorist organizations?
The surge is going to come to an end soon. If you still claim it was effective I don’t see how you avoid the logical conclusion of advocating for a US presence of, say, 500,000 troops- the number that counter-insurgency experts believe is necessary and closer to General Shinseki’s pre-war estimate than Donald Rumsfeld’s.
A call for the status quo only suggests that pro-occupation Republicans do not, in fact, believe that Iraq is the ‘central front in the War on Terror’.
what “terrorist organization” has been “spawned by the US presence in Iraq?”
the surge will end when? after about a year or two… i don’t speak for robbie here, only myself. i don’t only say the surge was effective; i say it is effective! why stop at 500,000? maybe because 500,000 would hinder the military in other ways as would 3 or 4 hundred thousand. perhaps we should consider that General Petreus is also viewed by many as a ” counter-insurgency expert” and is actually in charge of the operation. how many soldiers does he recommend?
perhaps “a call for the status quo” suggests that “pro-occupation Republicans” and all others who support the strategy understand that while iraq is today the ‘central front in the War on Terror’, that front can and most likely will change and could do so quickly.
have you even attempted to define what victory may look like in iraq? share your vision! i submit that one whom envisions nothing but failure is not very likely to obtain other outcomes, nor appears to have a desire to.
A lot of points, Adam.
what “terrorist organization†has been “spawned by the US presence in Iraq?â€
First of all, let me correct my point: it was Michael Yon, not Robbie who said:
The obvious (and correct) conclusion being that al Qaeda was not in Iraq before the US invasion.
To give a more complicated answer to your question: it depends what your definition of a ‘terrorist organization’ is. Is the Mahdi Army a ‘terrorist organization’? Maybe. Were they before the invasion? No. You can ask the same question about any number of groups in Iraq. There are Marxist groups, Sunni Nationalist and Islamist groups, and Shia groups that did not exist before the war.
It’s pretty clear that there are many, many more organizations dedicated to destabilizing Iraq militarily than there were several years ago.
how many soldiers does he recommend?
It’s disingenuous to suggest that Petraeus’s determination on force size is based solely on his professional opinion. The fact is: we don’t have more troops to put in Iraq. A draft is politically untenable and moving forces from the Pacific or Europe only underscores that burden that the current Iraq policy is placing on our foreign policy.
that front can and most likely will change and could do so quickly.
I’m not sure what the gist of your point is.
As far as my vision of ‘victory’- it is similar to Petraeus’s: political resolution. I don’t see this happening under US occupation- particularly if the Iraqi government is forced to cave into highly unpopular positions such as accommodating independent contractors.
As a trivial aside:
It’s strange to me that many of the same people who loved the Cold War movie Red Dawn and engaged in the fantasy of an insurgent battle to defeat the Soviet Union aren’t able to see that Iraqi insurgents feel the same way: they will continue to resist a foreign occupation and any government seen as collaborating with it.