Watching the media for the past few days I'm reminded of a cross-country trip with a bunch of restless kids in the back seat. Every 15 minutes you hear "are we there yet?" No, we're not there yet, but we're closer than we were the last time you asked.
Strategic Forecasting LLC had a rather interesting comparison to the D-Day invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1945. They were taking Seymour Hirsh of The New Yorker Magazine to task. Hirsh writes that the whole Iraq invasion plan was wrong, there aren't enough troops, nothing is working the way the Pentagon planned, and it's all Don Rumsfeld's fault. The analysts at Strategic Forecasting remind us that the Normandy invasion didn't work all that well either. After the allies planned the invasion for one sold year "Murphy's Law took over. Montgomery couldn't take Caen when he was supposed to; the landing craft came in all wrong; naval artillery couldn't knock out shore batteries; men drowned in 10 feet of water. No one was ready for the hedgerows beyond the beaches."
Strategic Forecasting says that after just 30 days Normandy would have been judged to be a complete failure and modern era pundits would be calling for the heads of Eisenhower and Roosevelt. "But the fact was that Normandy worked. It did not work out as planned, but real battles never do. Battles are won not by plans but by the innovation and courage of the warriors, and by the basic mathematical logic of war."
Victory may be many months ahead, or it may come suddenly. Many feel that victory will come swiftly after the people of Iraq come to believe that America and the coalition can and will get rid of Saddam Hussein. Until then, Iraqis must hedge their bets. Retributions could be murder (literally) if the coalition were to call it a day. Iraqi citizens are constantly judging the will and determination of the Americans, and every anti-war, pro-Saddam appeasement rally by the left in this country pushes back the date when Iraqis will finally realize their liberation is at hand.
Right now the American people support the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein. American's have seen the extraordinary lengths coalition soldiers have gone to in order to spare innocent life. They've also seen the vicious brutality of Saddam Hussein in his torture chambers and the execution of captured coalition soldiers. The great question now is not "are we there yet, " but do we actually have enough drive to get there. That depends wholly on the American people. Right now the greatest threat to the Iraqi people is not Saddam Hussein, it is the American appeasement movement. If the political currents at home turn that great coalition army in Iraq around it will mean, in the short term, an increased level of brutality by Saddam against his own people. Local Baath party loyalists will round up everybody suspected of showing even the slightest indication of support for the coalition .. and they will be first tortured, then they and family members will be slaughtered. In the long run Saddam will be stronger than before, petty Saddam clones around the world will feel emboldened, Islamic terrorism will be reborn and America weakened. That, my friends, would suit the leftist appeasement protestors just fine.
Strategic Forecasting LLC had a rather interesting comparison to the D-Day invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1945. They were taking Seymour Hirsh of The New Yorker Magazine to task. Hirsh writes that the whole Iraq invasion plan was wrong, there aren't enough troops, nothing is working the way the Pentagon planned, and it's all Don Rumsfeld's fault. The analysts at Strategic Forecasting remind us that the Normandy invasion didn't work all that well either. After the allies planned the invasion for one sold year "Murphy's Law took over. Montgomery couldn't take Caen when he was supposed to; the landing craft came in all wrong; naval artillery couldn't knock out shore batteries; men drowned in 10 feet of water. No one was ready for the hedgerows beyond the beaches."
Strategic Forecasting says that after just 30 days Normandy would have been judged to be a complete failure and modern era pundits would be calling for the heads of Eisenhower and Roosevelt. "But the fact was that Normandy worked. It did not work out as planned, but real battles never do. Battles are won not by plans but by the innovation and courage of the warriors, and by the basic mathematical logic of war."
Victory may be many months ahead, or it may come suddenly. Many feel that victory will come swiftly after the people of Iraq come to believe that America and the coalition can and will get rid of Saddam Hussein. Until then, Iraqis must hedge their bets. Retributions could be murder (literally) if the coalition were to call it a day. Iraqi citizens are constantly judging the will and determination of the Americans, and every anti-war, pro-Saddam appeasement rally by the left in this country pushes back the date when Iraqis will finally realize their liberation is at hand.
Right now the American people support the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein. American's have seen the extraordinary lengths coalition soldiers have gone to in order to spare innocent life. They've also seen the vicious brutality of Saddam Hussein in his torture chambers and the execution of captured coalition soldiers. The great question now is not "are we there yet, " but do we actually have enough drive to get there. That depends wholly on the American people. Right now the greatest threat to the Iraqi people is not Saddam Hussein, it is the American appeasement movement. If the political currents at home turn that great coalition army in Iraq around it will mean, in the short term, an increased level of brutality by Saddam against his own people. Local Baath party loyalists will round up everybody suspected of showing even the slightest indication of support for the coalition .. and they will be first tortured, then they and family members will be slaughtered. In the long run Saddam will be stronger than before, petty Saddam clones around the world will feel emboldened, Islamic terrorism will be reborn and America weakened. That, my friends, would suit the leftist appeasement protestors just fine.
