Why Iraq Will Remain A U.S. Quagmire

During the Revolutionary War, a rag tag, ill-equipped American army defeated a well armed, well trained, well funded British military. The American insurgents ignored the accepted rules of war at that time; two armies marching toward each other on a field of battle, announcing their arrival with drums, flutes and bugles. Instead, the Americans used the tactics of terrorists; hiding behind trees to fire their muskets, and ambushes to repel the British invaders who had come to our shores to squash the rebels who had declared their independence from the English King George.

With more than $400 billion a year in military spending, today's American military is the most powerful in the world, in fact, the most powerful in the history of the world. We are in Iraq fighting a rag tag, ill equipped army of insurgents using the tactics of terrorists to repel the invaders who came to their country and are now occupying them.

The administration says it will begin pulling U.S. troops out when the Iraqi military can take over. The Pentagon tells us that there are 169,000 Iraqi military and police trained and equipped making up 107 operational military and special police battalions. However, U.S. and Iraqi commanders on the ground rate only three as capable of operating independently.

In a country where there is a 60-70% unemployment rate most of the Iraqis who sign up do so for the $300-$400 a month salary rather than any desire to fight their countrymen. U.S. Major General Joseph Taluto admitted that it's "good, honest Iraqis fighting" the American troops. He said that "99.9%" of the fighters we capture are Iraqis.

One of the many things the Pentagon failed to take into consideration is the fact that Iraq has a culture that dates back more than a thousand years. That culture doesn't allow them to storm into a mosque with weapons drawn to arrest clerics and those gathered in prayer. It won't allow them to break into peoples' homes and violate women's quarters.

Our excuse for staying is that if we leave there will be a civil war. Isn't training Iraqis to kill Iraqis creating civil war?

U.S. troops who go out on joint missions with the Iraqis complain about their lack of enthusiasm for fighting the insurgent enemy. They aren't fighting the enemy because we're the enemy. We're the invaders. We're asking Iraqis to kill Iraqi freedom fighters, the 99.9% of good, honest people, who are trying to drive out the invaders. They've seen their villages destroyed by our bombs. They've seen their family, friends and neighbors killed, maimed or arrested by us. Now we expect them to fight the very people who are trying to prevent us from doing more of that.

We've already lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. The insurgency is increasing. For every Iraqi resister of our invasion and occupation that we kill or capture, two will fill his place. The fighting will continue as long as we're there because they are fighting against our presence. We're creating the very situations we're staying there to prevent.

We'll never succeed. We'll only continue to spend our money and the lives of both the American troops and the Iraqis, and Bush will continue to "stay the course" of offending and inciting 1.2 BILLION Muslims around the world. Is this going to make us safer?

The Iraqis know they can't defeat the U. S. militarily anymore than the Afghans thought they could defeat the Soviet Union militarily. What they can do is continue to drain us of manpower and money with "hit and run" attacks. We are spending $4-5 billion a month in Iraq and our military recruitment is down. Our government learned nothing from seeing how this same scenario led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Soviets battled in Afghanistan for ten years without success. Despite the optimistic rhetoric of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld about how we know we're winning because the insurgents are attacking more and how the insurgency is in its last throes, we're building 14 permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

They lied to get us to support an invasion of a country that was never a threat to us. Now it looks as if they are lying about when we'll get out.

6-11-05