Posted by
Saint Michael on Friday, May 04, 2007 7:20:56 PM
As I watch the MSM and listen to liberal pundits I keep hearing a recurring theme. That the solution to Iraq is political and not military. They quote Gen Petraus as stating that the military alone cannot win this war (paraphrase).
The missing link in the argument (conveniently, for political gain, missing I might add) is that the Iraq war cannot be won with strictly a political solution either. It will take a combined military, political and economic solution to bring peace to Iraq. Which in turn means we win the war.
A second theme I hear is "what does winning look like?". It looks like a peaceful Iraq. An Iraq where people can get an education, by an XBox, a TV, get health care, etc, etc. That is happening to some extent in Iraq in many areas. Many areas in Baghdad are obviously not secure yet. That fact only solidifies the need for the troop surge.
I have posted before that winning takes a combined effort and President Bush has outlined that effort. For every democrat or liberal who has stated that the President did not have a plan "for the peace" you were wrong. To state that there was no plan is blatantly lying to the American people. If there was no plan for the restructuring of Iraq then how did Iraq end up with a President, a Cabinet, a Parliament, Army, Police Force, etc.
The truth is the war was planned, the restructuring was planned, and the long term end state is what that planning is working to achieve. That is an important point. The long term objective is to create a peaceful Iraq and foothold of stability within the Middle East. We cannot live in the here and now. We needed to take action today to solve the issues of tomorrow.
A key point that every politician is now touting is that mistakes were made. Absolutely mistakes were made. We are fighting a war!!! Mistakes happen and soldiers die. Soldiers who had the courage and patriotism to stand up and fight for this country. Soldiers believe in America and believe that America is worth defending. Terrorists have attacked us multiple times and we needed to strike back.
The political talking point answer to that statement is "Iraq didn't attack us". No, Iraq did not attack us directly but they did harbor and sponsor terrorism to include AQ, who did directly attack us. If we didn't do something in the Middle East the entire region would have become a much larger haven for terrorism. Iraq was the logical choice for change for a number of reasons: Geographical, Regime, WMD, Terrorism links, History, Strategic impact. How much clearer does it need to be?
The political talking point rebuttal to that argument is "No WMD's" or "Meeting in Prague didn't happen". Those are 2 points in a much larger argument that keep getting broadcast as truth for the entire justification to go to war. The MSM can prove the WMD were there but they choose not to. The meeting in Prague is irrelevant, it would only have provided another link in a much larger chain.
The reality is that the war was justified, the aftermath was expected and nobody said that this would be easy. They said the initial ground war would be easy, and it was. They said reconstruction would be a long hard road and it is. It will take a Political system in Iraq, an Economic system in Iraq and it will take Security in Iraq to win this war. No single alternative is the answer.