Jane Galt brings up both issues (thoughtfully, as always) in this post.
I did a long analysis in the comments, so I thought I'd reproduce it here. It's in two posts:
I should note that the initial comment below is directed at the comment thread that ensued, not Jane's post, and in a broader sense is directed at all of us, myself included sometimes.
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And once again, when we try and discuss our problem, or if we even HAVE a problem, out come the knives and the backstabbing begins.
No discussion of what to do now (barring dc, who gets props even if he's wrong G). No discussion of whether the initial premise is correct. Just blame-games
We've got problems to solve. At least the Republicans are trying to solve them, however imperfectly. In the meantime, much of the Democratic Party seems to have aligned itself with America's enemies. Nice going.
Even granting that criticisms from either side, or both, are valid, so what? What were our alternatives?
1) Lie back and try to enjoy it as the Islamists continue their plan of world domination
2) Go nuclear
3) Fight back conventionally, even though we're not really staffed up for it
So far as I am concerned, #1 is right out, #2 is to be avoided if at all possible, and that leaves #3.
I'd take the criticism from the Left better if they would either show us another VIABLE option, come right out and tell us they prefer 1 or 2, or get off their butts and start trying to HELP on 3 instead of just complaining.
Posted by DSmith at April 13, 2004 11:26 AM
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To answer the original question, I'm not convinced that we're woefully understaffed. What is it that we can't do that we should be able to do? Certainly there is no enemy force that can stand against us. They die at 10-1 when they try. When we decide to use force in Iraq, our problem is normally trying to apply as *little* force as possible. We don't have too little force, but "too much".
But, I can hear the cries now, what about all those ambushes? How come we're losing people every day to IEDs and snipers and such?
That goes with the territory when you're an occupying power. Even if we had 500,000 troops, how would that change things? Is that enough to have a trooper every 5 feet? No. More importantly, would more troops change our willingness to use violence? I doubt it. So we'd just have more troops who can't act pro-actively. More targets.
We know who and where the bad guys are for the most part already, and have since we got there. Problem is, we're not willing to bomb their towns to take them out. We're not willing to send out hit squads on the Al Sadrs. And before anyone squeals, I'm not necessarily advocating we should do any of those things. But the point is, we already have the force structure to inflict far more damage than we are willing to inflict.
The other objection, as I see it, would be that we need those 500K troops essentially as policemen. Just to patrol the streets. Show the flag lots of places and all that. And yes, I agree that in this particular situation that would likely be helpful. But that means, essentially, that we should have a huge army of MPs. Are we going to staff up for that? Does it even make sense? Would we ever need that force structure again? I don't know, but I think it's far from obvious that if we, for example, still had the Army of 1990, that the additional manpower would make all that much difference in practice.
Policing Iraq has to be done by Iraqis. There's no way we can have an army that's big enough to *police* a state with a population of 25 million. And yes, this is somewhat of an Achilles' heel in our efforts in Iraq. It's an area that has gone particularly badly, to all our misfortunes, and hence it's an area that needs a lot of focus going forward. Does this failure mean that Bush "didn't have a plan" or that the war shouldn't have been fought? Not at all. Remember that we're there trying to avoid Options 1 and 2 I mentioned in a previous comment.
We will continue to take regular low level losses until the Iraqi police and defense forces are *well* up to speed, and that's going to take a couple of years. Even at that, it may not work. We may fail there. I pray we do not, because if we do, I think Option 2 is inevitable, which would be a tragedy for all concerned.
Let's try and remember what's at stake.
Posted by DSmith at April 13, 2004 11:56 AM