Tag Archives: Iraq War

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Working with an enemy … or a friend?

Good grief. My head is spinning over this bit of news out of the Middle East.

Iraq’s crisis — with Sunni Muslims seeking to overthrow the Shiite government in Baghdad — has prompted the possibility of the United States working (get ready for this one!) the Islamic Republic of Iran to find a possible diplomatic solution.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/209560-should-us-work-with-iran

How does that saying go, the one about “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

The Sunnis want their country back. They ran Iraq for decades under the ham-handed rule of Saddam Hussein. The United States invaded in March 2003, overthrew Saddam, who then was hanged.

Iraq then elected a Shiite government, friendlier to next-door neighbor Iran.

The Sunnis now have erupted, vowing to retake Iraq. Iran doesn’t want that, of course. It fought a bloody war to a stalemate against Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1980s. The Shiites in Tehran oppose vigorously any idea that the Sunnis would take control in Baghdad.

Oh, and then there’s little issue of Iran despising the “Great Satan,” which in Tehran is also known as the United States of America. We’ve had no bilateral relations with Iran since those “students” overran our embassy in November 1979 and held those Americans captive for 444 days.

But in this instance, there might be some mutual advantage in seeking to stop the Sunni advance in Iraq. The Iranians want the Sunnis to fail, as does the United States, which has a serious stake in preserving the government it helped form in Iraq.

Should the United States reach out to its current enemy, Iran, in trying to broker a deal that ends the crisis in Iraq?

Yes, but only if the Iranians can be held to the tightest terms possible to ensure that they deal in good faith. Is that possible? Give it a try to make that call.

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Let's avoid the 'vain' epithet

There’s a phrase that sends me into orbit every time I hear it.

It comes from those who don’t know better, often from those who’ve never answered their nation’s call to place themselves in harm’s way.

The phrase is likely to resurface in the weeks or months ahead if the situation in Iraq goes completely south and the Sunni insurgents take control of the country.

It will come out like this: “All those servicemen and women we lost in Iraq will have died in vain.”

That is the most preposterous, insulting, degrading and unpatriotic thing one can say about a fallen warrior.

Whatever happens in the conflict that has erupted in Iraq, none of those nearly 4,500 brave Americans lost during the Iraq War will have died in vain.

When someone wears their uniform and receives a lawful order to go into battle, he or she is acting on behalf of the rest of us back home. That individual is conducting himself or herself as honorably as is humanly possible.

To suggest that an individual dies “in vain” because of a failed strategy, or set of policies or even a battlefield tactic demeans the service they performed.

The Vietnam War produced a lot of that kind of empty rhetoric. It’s been said many times over many decades now that the 58,000 individuals who gave their all in Vietnam died “in vain.” They did not. They died in service to their country.

I’m quite sure some folks will quibble with what “dying in vain” really means. They’ll seek to parse the language and suggest they mean no disrespect to the fallen when they say such things.

Me? I take it as an insult in the extreme.

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No troops to Iraq? Good news

Imagine for a moment a situation in the White House, around April 1975.

North Vietnam is sending thousands of troops into South Vietnam. The United States has ended its role in that country by pulling its troops out. The South Vietnamese are left to defend themselves. They’re doing a lousy job of it.

NVA forces are storming toward Saigon and other key cities in the south. Gerald Ford’s national security team comes to him and says, “Mr. President, we have to send our troops back into South Vietnam to save that country from being conquered by the North. What’s your call, sir?”

Do you think the president ever would have given a moment of serious thought to such an idea? Hardly. President Ford didn’t do any of that. Heck, I seriously doubt that option ever was on the table.

It shouldn’t be now as Iraq fights to preserve its hard-won transition from ham-handed dictatorship to some form of democratic rule.

And that is why President Obama is correct to assert that our future involvement will not involve sending troops back to the battlefield.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/obama-we-will-do-our-part-iraq-wont-send-troops-n130536

The president today laid down an important marker for Iraq. “Over the past decade, American troops have made extraordinary sacrifices,” he said. “Any actions that we may take to provide assistance to Iraqi security forces have to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by Iraq.

The chaos “should be a wakeup call to Iraq’s leaders,” he said, and “could pose a threat eventually to American interests as well.”

Are there some military options available? Perhaps, but they should involve air power only and perhaps only in the form of unmanned aircraft, drones, that could be deployed to fire heavy ordnance at the bad guys who are seeking to take control of the country.

Americans’ “extraordinary sacrifices” included thousands of dead and wounded. The country has no appetite for more war. However, we must do “our part,” as the president said, in trying to secure a country that may be headed for the brink.

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Cool it with 'We told you so'

Congressional Republicans, quite predictably, are now declaring “We told you so!” while insurgents storm Iraqi cities and threaten to launch an all-out civil war in a country once occupied and governed by the United States of America.

Let’s cool it a bit, ladies and gents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/john-mccain-iraq-criticize-barack-obama-107780.html?hp=t3_3

Sunni Muslims — from the very same sect that gave us Saddam Hussein — have launched full-scale attacks on key Iraq cities. They’ve taken Mosul and Tikrit and are believed to be headed toward Baghdad. The Iraqi armed forces are trying to defend the cities, but so far with little success.

The Iraqis are asking President Obama to supply air power to strike hard at the insurgents. Republicans are demanding it, too. That might be a good option for the president to employ if we can bring enough air power to bear.

Republicans opposed the president’s withdrawal from Iraq, contending that the country wasn’t yet ready to defend itself fully against terrorists and insurgents.

Thus, they’re yelling it loudly that they were right and Obama was wrong.

Sen. John McCain — who never met a war he didn’t want the United States to fight — has demanded the resignation of the president’s entire national security team, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Let’s look back, though.

* Was it prudent to launch a war against Iraq in the first place back in March 2003, when President Bush declared to the world that Saddam had chemical weapons and was going to develop nukes to launch against Israel? It turned out he had neither.

* Did the Republican president misread more than a decade ago the Iraqis’ ability to transition from totalitarianism to democratic rule when they had no history ever of living in freedom and liberty?

* Remember when Vice President Cheney said we’d be greeted as “liberators” and not “occupiers” when we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein? It didn’t happen. The war continued for years afterward, costing us more than 4,000 young American lives.

* And aren’t Americans just sick and tired of war? Don’t public opinion surveys tell us over and over that we no longer have the stomach for wars with no end?

The Iraq War went bad from the get-go. President Bush made a colossal mistake in linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks and that, I submit, is what we are reaping today.

So … the current president ought to order air strikes at the insurgents and try to put down the attacks without the use of ground forces. We’ve got plenty of ordnance we can drop on the bad guys.

As for the carping and chest-thumping on Capitol Hill, how about speaking with one voice and letting that voice belong to the commander in chief, who’s got to make the tough calls?

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Thornberry preps for center stage

In what might be the least surprising critique of President Obama’s decision to accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry has begun taking the first baby steps from the back bench to the center stage of American foreign policy debate.

Thornberry, the 13th Congressional District representative since 1995, said the president’s decision is too much too quickly. Imagine my surprise: a Republican congressional committee chairman in waiting second-guessing the Democratic commander in chief.

Lawmaker: Obama’s ‘heart really isn’t in it’

Thornberry made his remarks to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank full of Obama critics. He was preaching the choir, of course, which is what Democratic and Republican politicians always do. They look for friendly audiences where their applause lines will get the loudest response.

I am left to wonder whether Thornberry — the likely next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee — thinks it’s always prudent to deploy American forces into every battlefield that erupts. Barack Obama reiterated this week that the U.S. military remains the strongest in world history, but that it need not be deployed as the “hammer” to pound down every crisis “nail.”

As the president said today in his commencement speech to West Point cadets, the United States stands ready to use force only when it is in our national interest. Of course, that won’t satisfy the armchair hawks on Capitol Hill who cannot quite grasp the idea that sometimes diplomacy and seeking to build international coalitions is more suitable than charging in all alone.

The Iraq War? Remember how we were told we’d be greeted as “liberators” when we plowed across the border in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein? It didn’t quite work out that way.

Well, Thornberry likely will cruise to re-election this November against a token Democratic foe. He’s been in the Capitol Hill background for his entire congressional career. When Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., retires at the end of the year, he’ll likely hand the gavel over to Thornberry, the panel’s vice chairman.

I’m hoping for a bit more bipartisanship from the new chairman. We’ll likely not get it.

Still, I’ll await with interest Chairman Thornberry’s entrance onto center stage.

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West questions Duckworth's 'loyalty'

Allen West served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives before losing his bid for re-election in 2012.

Yet, the Republican keeps making waves. I wish he’d keep his trap shut.

West has implied that a decorated — and seriously wounded — Iraq War veteran might be more loyal to the “Democrat Party” than she is to her country by agreeing to serve on a House select committee charged with examining the Benghazi controversy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/22/allen-west-tammy-duckworth_n_5375138.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

He’s talking about Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both of her legs while flying a helicopter for the Army during the Iraq War. Her ship was hit in 2004 by a rocket-propelled grenade. Duckworth received the Purple Heart as a result of her injuries.

“I just don’t know where her loyalties lie,” West said in a radio interview. “You know, for her to be a veteran, a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know this is not the right thing,” he said. “And hopefully … she’ll remember the oath of office she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat Party.”

Good grief.

Congressional Democrats have said the select committee hearings on Benghazi are a sham. Duckworth is one of five Democrats named to the panel. Her office pledges that she’ll take her responsibilities on the committee seriously, which all 12 committee members from both parties have vowed to do.

Allen West’s comments about Duckworth’s “loyalties” should be scorned and condemned.

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Cheney makes my head spin

My head is spinning.

I just caught up with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on “Face the Nation” in which he ridicules the Obama administration’s efforts to manage the crisis in Ukraine.

President Obama is weak, indecisive, he’s lost the confidence of our allies, he’s wrong to take military options off the table — those are just some of the things Vice President Cheney offered in his assessment of Obama’s handling of the crisis.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/03/09/cheney_no_question_putin_thinks_obama_is_weak.html

I want to declare that Dick Cheney has no credibility — none whatsoever — on matters relating to managing international crises. How he can assert the things he does blows my ever-lovin’ mind.

Let us remember that Dick Cheney was in the Situation Room when President George W. Bush decided to go to war with Iraq in 2003. Cheney had declared time and again publicly that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed chemical weapons and that he would use them on our allies in the Middle East. Cheney made the case for war, argued that the United States had to invade a nation, topple a sovereign government, rebuild a nation, and create a more democratic society where none ever had existed. We would be seen as “liberators, not occupiers,” he said.

Well, Mr. Vice President, it didn’t quite work out that way.

The weapons were nowhere to be found. We toppled the government and installed one more to our liking. The war went on even after Saddam Hussein had been hanged. We lost more than 4,000 American lives.

Let us also remember that Saddam Hussein played no role at all in the 9/11 attacks. Our “allies” in Saudi Arabia are far more complicit in that heinous and dastardly act than the Iraqis. Why didn’t we topple that government, too, Mr. Vice President?

It’s almost laughable how Cheney glossed over the U.S. response to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, saying that it occurred near the end of the Bush administration and as the Obama administration was preparing to take over. What’s the implication, Mr. Vice President? Might you be suggesting that Russia’s brass felt more comfortable invading Georgia as President Bush was about to leave office?

The Bush administration was as powerless to stop the Georgia incursion single-handedly as the Obama administration is now with the crisis in Ukraine.

My next task is to get my head to stop spinning.

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Former president takes up cudgel for vets

My goodness, we have come so far as a country in lifting awareness of the needs of our military veterans.

Take the latest initiative headed by former President George W. Bush.

The 43rd president talked today on ABC’s “This Week” with correspondent Martha Raddatz about a effort he has launched through his presidential library in Dallas in conjunction with Syracuse University.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/02/president-george-w-bush-fights-to-take-disorder-out-of-ptsd/

His intention is to help veterans returning from combat reintegrate into civilian life. The former president told Raddatz about the “military-civilian divide.” Civilians, said the president, don’t understand all that veterans have endured fighting for their country.

He talked of the emotion he feels when he is in the presence of these heroes, many of them he sent into combat during his two terms as president.

How far has the nation come? Many, many figurative miles.

We can go back to the Vietnam War. Did returning veterans get this kind of attention when they returned from that conflict? Hardly. They were ignored and often scorned. No need to rehash that sorry episode.

It all began to change when the Persian Gulf War vets returned home from that brief, but intense, conflict in 1991. Then came the 9/11 attacks, which led to the war we have been fighting against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.

Bush wants to remove the “D” from the PTSD label. Post traumatic stress isn’t a “disorder,” said the president. It is a condition that requires the nation’s attention.

President Bush has made quite an effort to stay out of the partisan political battles that have raged since he left the White House in 2009. This battle, though, is worth his time and effort.

I am glad he is willing to fight it on behalf of our veterans.

This veteran thanks you, Mr. President.

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10 combat tours are more than enough

President Obama introduced the nation Tuesday night to a young Army Ranger, Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg, who is recovering from grievous wounds he suffered when a roadside bomb exploded in Afghanistan.

But then the president said something that took my breath away. He said SFC Remsburg was injured on his 10th tour of duty in the war zone.

Tenth tour!

Think about this for a moment. We are sending young men and women repeatedly into harm’s way. Is this how it’s supposed to be? Is this how a nation is supposed to buy into a conflict when we depend on so few of these brave warriors that we have to keep sending them back into battle?

Cory Remsburg suffered near-fatal wounds. As was quite evident at the State of the Union speech Tuesday, while he has come a long from where he was, he has a long and difficult road ahead.

A member of my own family, a young cousin, also is in the Army. She, too, has answered the call multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s still serving our country and I’m so very proud of her.

Still, I cannot help but wonder whether we’re asking too much of these young Americans. I feel to compelled to bring up something that has next to zero political support, but I cannot get the image of SFC Remsburg out of my mind.

Mandatory military service would be one way to spread the burden to more young Americans, just as we did during all our wars until near the end of the Vietnam War. The draft became wildly unpopular back then mostly because of the deferments that were granted to those who had connections, leaving the war-zone experience to those who didn’t qualify for any of the deferments that were available.

The only way conscription could work — if hell were to freeze over and we would bring it back — would be to eliminate all deferments except for those who were physically unable to serve in the military.

Cory Remsburg came within an inch of his life of paying the ultimate price, as have so many others who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ten combat tours is far more than enough to ask any brave American warrior.

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Health care rollout no ‘mission accomplished’

ABC News correspondent Jon Karl sought to pin White House spokesman Jay Carney down on whether the tinkering of the once-crashed health care website produced a “mission accomplished” moment.

Carney didn’t take the bait.

Nor should he.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/02/abcs_jon_karl_to_carney_is_it_mission_accomplished_for_obamacare_website.html

The reference, of course, is to the famous photo op of President George W. Bush landing aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003 after the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. Then the president stood before the world — and in front of a banner hung across the conning tower of the carrier — that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It turned out the mission was far from accomplished. Many more Americans would die in battle before the Iraq War came to an end. Anyone with half a memory of that event knows the folly of declaring victory too quickly.

I’m quite sure the current president, Barack Obama, is aware as well.

The Affordable Care Act rollout was a disaster for the White House. The computer program meant to handle all those applications for health insurance crashed and burned. The White House took it down. Health officials throughout the administration began feeling intense pressure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could have done an honorable thing by resigning, given that it all happened on her watch. She has stayed.

The healthcare.gov website has been updated, tweaked, nipped-and-tucked and is working a lot better than before. Is it perfect? Has the administration accomplished its mission? No on both counts.

But the administration is making strides, which is about as good as it can get when you take on such a huge enterprise as trying to fix a broken health care system.

The mission is not accomplished — at least not yet.