I know, i know. We don’t want to stray from TravGate, The Worcester Push, and the late breaking rumor that John Carroll’s grandpa traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
On Iraq, circles. But can the Dems? Iraq Study Group sounded good when trying to forcefeed the hard facts to Bush who still can’t face them.
But when Baker turned to “involving the Syrians, Iranians, Hamas, etc” — um, Hillary and Obama do NOT want a slice of that. Reid okay with RAISING troop levels in short term, which freaked out Kennedy. Kerry freelancing aimlessly.
Nobody exactly clear on how to handle the key problem: we need to leave behind an Iraqi military that is functional.
So finally, an interesting, detailed take on steps that would enhance our ability to strengthen Iraqi troops so we can get out. Check it out here. Needed: accountants! Gary, pack your bags.
Charter schools!!! đŸ˜‰
I was reading Atlantic Monthly’s excellent series on the war in Iraq (before it was called an occupation…then a civil war…), and at the time, the major problems seemed to be: 1. An unwillingness on the part of the administration to take post-war Iraq and the training of Iraqi troops seriously, and 2.) Once it was realized that training Iraqis was the key to success, not a lot was done about it.
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The fact that there are Iraqi troops that still haven’t been paid in over a year kills me. What the hell is going on in the Ministry of Defense? We’re four years into this, and we haven’t got the logistics worked out yet? And once the logistics ARE finally worked out (if they ever will be), THEN you have to go about actually taking down the insurgents.
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FUBAR.
thing that rivaled the fubarian fact that we haven’t simply set up our own accounting system with direct deposit…
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….was that iraqi soldiers can’t take guns home with them, so they’re unarmed when death squads try to find them!