OR: Get Ready, Here Come the Casualties
There are 2 months before the national elections and one of the two main issues is American Foreign Policy, especially as witnessed in Iraq. The Bush Administration notes that since 9/11 we have destroyed the dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan and tightened American security to lessen the threat in the United States. I'm not sure how we will know we are safer (regardless of how many times the President tells us to think it) until terrorists are actually caught in some stage of trying to do something. But the situation in Iraq is very visible and unfortunately becoming a very ugly situation.
A few weeks ago before we all went on vacation Moqtada Al Sadr was reportedly inside a mosque in Najaf with his militant brigade which the Defense department said we had killed a little more than 3 million of while sustaining only 3 U.S. casualties, but nevertheless, the main body was inside the mosque and surrounded. Al Sadr WAS a wanted man for being involved in a plan to kill another cleric in 2003. Many neocons on JoeUser were calling for storming the mosque and ending the threat as the ultimate sign of our intentions in dealing with those who opposed us. My own feelings were to lay siege and wait them out as the least bloody and dangerous action.
What the U.S. ended up doing was letting Al Sadr go! That's right, we said, "now taketh thy militia and skidaddle and don't be seen around these parts no more" unless you're running for political office. Now, I can't say I read every article on JU but I don't remember any neocons (and I apologise in advance if you did) ridiculing this action as both wrong and inconsistent with our policy on terrorists. Some may even have hoped that Al Sadr (never true to his word before, but why not believe him now?) would retire to a mosque somewhere, say prayers and just forget about the situation in his country.
That belief would, of course, be wrong.
We had Fallujah surrounded in almost the same manner as Najaf. Negotiations there led to a U.S. withdrawal and relative quiet for a time also. We negotiated and eventually people stopped shooting. Well, at least for a few weeks.
The problem is what "truce" means to a terrorist. Truce means "to reload, to get ready to strike again, this time more violently." Negotiation means "the Americans don't have the will to do the militarily right thing and wipe us out." Relative quiet means "wait until we have more weapons supplies because all we have now is spitballs." Oh sorry, under current U.S. policy, spitballs would be a step up from negotiations.
Many people like to draw parallels between Iraq and Viet Nam. One of the parallels that comes to mind is that we don't know who our enemy is and so, don't know who to shoot.
So, as a service to Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and all our troops in Iraq, allow me to humbly explain the situation for you. The people who are doing the car-bombings and shooting the rockets at our headquarters and shooting our soldiers don't give a crap about civility. They will lie, kill, lie, kill, and lie some more as long as you think negotiations are the answer. Negotiations are not the answer and responding to terrorism by doing less than taking away all weapons will not work. American soldiers who cannot tell the enemy from the man on the street are not in strategically safe positions and placing troops at risk because a truce is in place is suicidal. When you find terrorists, they must be removed.
Otherwise, the fall is going to be full of reports of more dead. Unnecessary and a testament to the failure of U.S. policy.