Well, after having "Something better to..." than 'Nam, the War finally came home. I am glad they didn't git him so his gradchild has some sorta a Grandpa, but I do hope he saw the carnage finally. I am sure that much like the cofins @ Dover and the rat motel @ W.Reed, he saw anything. La-de-da / la-de-da...tomorrow is another day. Maybe Scrub will finally git to see some real action.

Hack, I agree with you that a paltry 20,000 troops is the political equivalent of a band aid on a brain tumor. Like others have said, it's basically a political solution to a military problem.

The silver lining in this dark cloud, in my opinion, is that General Petraeus will be the new on-the-ground commanding general (the title used to be called "CINC Centcom", but President Wartime Deserter's insecurity prompted an order than no one but the Dauphin himself could use "CINC" any longer).

I think Petraeus is an inspired choice for a number of reasons. I realize that President Shortattentionspan picked Petraeus because Petraeus was virtually the only General who said that this ill-advised surge might work. Petraeus though has an exemplary record in Iraq, he led the 101st Airborne masterfully in his first tour of duty there and got rave reviews from both the conservative and liberal press. He appears to be one of a vanishing breed: a General officer who understands counter-insurgency and remembers the hard lessons of guerrilla warfare taught in Southeast Asia decades ago. I am convinced that if anyone can pull President Lameduck's fat out of the fire it will be Petraeus....conversely, if Petraeus can't do the job, President Bunnypants' goose is cooked.

Petraeus is replacing George Casey, who is being kicked upstairs to Army Chief of Staff for having the temerity to state for the record that he didn't think this surge business was gonna work. It will be good to have a realist as Army COS. Casey is replacing General Shoomaker, who is retiring again (he was brought out of retirement, you'll recall, to serve as Army COS). Shoomaker was a disappointment...I had high hopes from him but he seemed to go out of his way to avoid any appearance of conflict with his boss, the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld, and I think that hampered his (Shoomaker's) effectiveness. It seems to me that Shoomaker spent his entire tour of duty apologizing for Rumsfeld.

I'm very worried about President Weaknstupid's decision to replace the Arabic speaking ground commanding general Abaizaid (sp?) with a Navy admiral. I cannot think of a reason for this sort of maneuver unless the ultimate plan for President Chimpy McFlightsuit is to use Navy resources to further his adventurism in Iran while the Army is locked into a bone-grinding war of attrition in Iraq.

I sincerely hope it doesn't come to this. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I have no wish to see a "perpetual war".

-Bas

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"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross" - Upson Sinclair, 1906

It is very difficult to understand where we will be 6 months, a year, 5 years, 10 years from now in Iraq. Obviously, the lack off leadership from the Commander in Chief all the way to both political parties continues to be the problem. Dems are trying to pass legislation to undermine the President; Reps have no fresh ideas. At this point, how can we be worse off we any candidate just to have a fresh start and a fresh face in the Oval Office!

My father served in the Army for 22 years, proudly retired after serving in Vietnam, Korea and being part of the occupation forces in Germany at the ripe age of 18. I served in the Air Force myself for four years, and was raised to support and respect our superiors regardless of what our beliefs were. But the war in Iraq is one issue that I’m at a loss, the sectarian violence and divisiveness is so entrenched that the mightiest military force in the world cannot do anything about it.

What could be so wrong about gradually bringing our troops back home? I honestly don’t see how we will salvage this one; the Iraqi people need to sort this one out; not us, not the Brits, nor anyone else for that matter. Our borders are porous in this country; intelligence data speculates about Middle Eastern terrorists entering through Mexico, why not station our troops there to complement the border patrol? Wouldn’t you hate to be in the position that the Brits are in now where they suspect having upwards of 2000 home grown terrorists plotting against England?

AF-10 and Army Maj, hack, thanks for serving our country and for always “keeping it real” in your posts.

This is a fight unlike any other we have engaged in. When it comes down to it, it is a holy war (from our enemy's view). The reason they want us dead is that we do not worship their god. We are the great satan. You really can't negotiate with people with that mentality. What were the people in the twin towers doing to attack Islam?

Tell me what is wrong with an open-ended committment? Wasn't the American Revolution open ended? Hasn't our committment to NATO and the cold War been open ended? Wasn't every war we have ever fought open ended?

About the only non-open ended interventions have been Grenada, Panama, Hati and Kosovo (which I think we finally got all of our troops that were supposed to be out in one year finally out).

America has got to stop abandoning allies when the going gets tough. I truly hope you are wrong Hack.