Now This Pisses Me Off
Donald Sensing is reading the same article as me about the troop surge. He reports that we are undergoing a military strategy shift from training the Iraqi Army to killing the insurgents. What?!?!
I was under the impression the top priority was stopping, ie killing, insurgents. If this is the case, I have a serious beef with how the war was being run for the past 3 years. You've got to be kidding me...
Update: I second this criticism of Bush.
1 comment:
That second article you link to says the following:
"Our troops are doing their job. From what I have read, they are conducting a textbook counter-insurgency program."
No, we did not. Counter-insurgency doctrine preaches that the people are the treasure, not enemy body counts.
According to Thomas Ricks on Tim Russert's show, American forces were focused exclusively on tracking down insurgents and force-protection, i.e., making sure American soldiers didn't get killed. Meanwhile, the terrorists and insurgents focused on terrorizing ordinary Iraqis through suicide bombs and selective killing of community leaders. We gave no protection to a local mayor who was willing to confront a militia, and so unsurprisinglly, that mayor was killed or corrupted.
As I see it, this failure to protect the fledgling Iraqi political communities is the real failure.
Post a Comment