Staying In Iraq - Forever

The US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C Crocker, seems to be trying to get Americans ready for an extended stay in Iraq. The Administration has been doing a lot of talking about September, but an ambassador to a country is generally their mouthpiece and here's what he had to say, "...will take a lot longer than September," to stabilize the place and get to political accommodation. Lt. Gen. Sanchez led the Iraq war and told Fox News that, "a stalemate - if you will, not a stalemate, but to stave off defeat," was as much as the US could hope for seemed to prompt Crocker.

NYT juxtaposes Iraq Pres Talibani saying the Iraqi Army wouldn't be ready before fall 2008 with Crocker, “It’s way premature to be talking in terms of victory or defeat.” According to this NYT "With Korea as Model..." news analysis Bush has been privately intrigued with the Korean Model - US troops have been there for 54 years - but now Tony Snow and Robert Gates have both brought Korea up as an example of something done right and somehow connected to Iraq.

Analysts have noted that permanent US bases were being established along the route of oil pipe lines, now BushCo is dribbling out hints of a permanent US troop commitment in Iraq, using Korea, a very sizable one. It is pretty difficult to separate oil and BushCo and Iraq. This bunch keeps trying to use historical referents, they started out with Nazi Germany and Japan, Vietnam was used a model of leaving too early, and now Korea. Their problems have been really pretty simple, not one of the models they use have anything to do with what they've done or are doing and the results of all their models also have nothing to do with Iraq.

History is an illuminating study, facts and actions can be looked at and the outcomes of those congruences analyzed. The very important part of this study is that desires have no place in the analysis, these things are fixed in time and not subject to change by wishful thinking. Condi and Rummy both compared the insurgency to the Nazi Wolfenstein, ignoring the facts of post-war Germany's lack of support for insurgency, lack of will to continue combat, and massive occupying forces, later they moved to the rather instructive example of Vietnam where there was little popular indigenous support as an example of not trying hard enough - 58,000 dead troops might disagree about the level of effort, and now Korea - a divided country which had huge resources thrown into the fight. Every time they reach for history they ignore themselves and military doctrine. Taking and holding ground didn't happen in Vietnam and it is not happening in Iraq, it cannot, there are not enough troops and the populous is not on your side.

Maybe the dead-ender 28% that supports George II's war will wake up and see that his idea is to keep this going on for a few more generations, the 3500 death toll and 25000 mangled will certainly make a much more impressive number given a generation or so to grow. Too bad there's no such thing as ghosts, regular visitations might be as close to justice as BushCo ever faces.