Pinkerton :U.S. needs to drop go-it-alone policy

[jbfam4]

U.S. needs to drop go-it-alone policy
James P. Pinkerton

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin063742771apr06,0,2985865.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines


April 6, 2004


One who knows both wars well is Bill Cowan, who spent two decades in the Marines, including 3½ years in Vietnam at the peak of the fighting. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1985, bringing home three Purple Hearts and 14 personal commendations. He has worked in the counterterrorism field ever since; he is also a military analyst for the Fox News Channel (where I, too, am a contributor).

So what does he think about the situation in Iraq right now, as Americans confront insurgents all over the country? "The bad news offsets the good," he answers. Applying his warrior's wisdom, Cowan is particularly critical of Sunday's military operation in Baghdad, in which U.S. troops shut down the offices of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In the fighting, seven Americans were killed and another two dozen wounded.

"It was a big mistake to send Americans to directly confront the Iraqis. If you send Americans into situations like that, you will create more enemies than you destroy. You have to use Iraqis against Iraqis."

Some might protest that the United States was not successful in Vietnam, to which Cowan responds that the war was lost at the negotiating table, not on the battlefield. That's a debate that's raged for three decades now - but in the meantime, it's hard to argue that the current Iraq plan is working well.


Cowan knows combat and counter-insurgency, firsthand. So when he warns against the current tactics in Iraq, one might expect the war hawks to pay him heed. Unless, of course, he is correct in his assessment of the American civilian leadership in Baghdad, which seems determined to pretend that failure is success. That's what happened before, back in 'Nam.

[DEM FAN]

1. What's Up With Pinkerton. He Is A Repub Right. He Seems To Be On

Our Side Lately.

[teryang]

2. There is no technical solution

There has been so much death and bad faith there is no fix, at least none short of something Alexander or Attila might use.

You can't do what we did and then expect a socially engineered outcome. We have no political constituency in Iraq. We only have enemies and sychophants. In that sense, it's worse than Vietnam. At least there we had the remnants of the old colonial regime the French left and the Catholics. That is what allowed the war there to be so prolonged. The deterioration in Iraq is accelerated because we have nothing to work with. We worked on the destruction of that society for over twelve years. We succeeded.

What he's suggesting didn't work in Vietnam. Marines and merceneraries don't do utopia.

The so called experts are all wrong on this. I've heard it all before.