Stay the Course and other Insanities

Variously attributed to Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin, the best ever definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

Yesterday morning I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to agree with Bill O'Reilly. During his interview with Katy Kouric on the Today show, he pointed out that a U. S. soldier can be trained in as little as twelve weeks, six weeks of basic training and six more of more specific career training. What have the Iraqis been doing the past two and a half years? It would appear they haven't been subjected to the same kind of training we subject our own soldiers to. This leads us to Gen. Peter Pace's comments today about the state of Iraqi forces and the statements about their readiness. General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claims that about forty Iraqi batallions, about 4000 troops, are at readiness level two, about that of an American brigade operating in the field but relying on the Air Force for resupply. He claims that eighty brigades, or about 8000 troops, are at level three.

Then why the hell, General, in the current offensive against insurgents, Rumsfield be damned - they are insurgents, are there 2000 American troops and 500 Iraqis?

According to John Murtha, our troops are exhausted, worn out and ever less battle ready. I believe him. I also believe the field commanders are telling the Shrub what he wants to hear, that the troops are in great shape and the Iraqis will be ready to take on the terrorists in time for the 2006 elections so everyone can be home, Republicans can get reelected and we can make the country safe for tax cuts. See, what separates general officers from colonels is a sense for politics. Politics under George W. Bush means that you don't voice opinions that don't support the Administration's pre-determined conclusions. The President gets no news that doesn't support his policies and if he does, the messenger is summarily shot. So they spin their reports to match the Administration's needs to save their careers, their retirement, their legacies, the President operates in his favorite mode, blissful ignorance, and American soldiers die while Iraqis apparently don't take their training seriously. Apparently they've allowed themselves to be trained to the approximate level of Saddam-era troops, ready to be shocked and awed and just fit enough to retreat. The motivated ones seem to be on the other side.

Here's my plan for ending our involvement in Iraq. Note I didn't say victory. I could really care less about victory in Iraq, whether there's a free and independent Kurdistan, an oil-rich Shia Islamic republic in the south and a bunch of poor Sunnis in the middle: I care about U. S. troops, about the loss of our reputation and our standing in the world and the continual flow of abuses from Republican Washington in the name of the war on terror. I want us out of there. My plan is simple. Iraq, you have six more months then you're on your own. From that time on, you can do what you want, become any kind of state you want as long as you pose no threat to legitimate U. S. interests. While that would give the terrorists a timeline, it would also provide the Iraqis an incentive to do what we can do in twelve weeks, train soldiers, in six months.

But we'll stay the course until it begins to damage Republicans politically. Rove certainly has determined that Republican control of Washington is linked to this issue and that bringing the troops home in time for the election or at least announcing major troop reductions in the week before will tilt the vote. I agree with Murtha that our troops will be home by next November but until then, we'll do the same thing over and over. Only Bush expects different results.