Good-bye Donald Rumsfeld
I'm glad that Rumsfeld is gone.
I was all for the reforming of the military. His ideas were great in both concept and application. We have the greatest fighting force on the planet. Faster, stronger and better is exactly what the military needed.
But, the ideas were short sighted in that they didn't anticipate the inevitable need for an occupation force. We can kick anybody's ass, but we can't occupy them properly. I'm sure the terrorists in Iraq are saying "you call that an occupation force? HA! Saddam would have been ripping out my fingernails months ago!"
We are failing in our occupation of Iraq. We need more troops securing more areas and staying there to ensure that security. Those snipers wouldn't make it very far if we had a machine gun at every intersection. IEDs would be much harder to plant with troops in foxholes everywhere. The problem is, we are more concerned about the politics - winning hearts and minds - than with force protection. We are trying to win hearts and minds in the near term. We are putting our troops at risk in the hopes that Iraqis will like us and decide not to kill us any more. But, we should be beating the entire populace into submission. Later, when the infrastructure is in place, we can lighten up. We can gradually turn over areas to the Iraqis and then they will love us when they see how nice things are - running water, electricity, sewer service and a real police force that protects citizens.
posted by Chris Farley @ 2:48 PM
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