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Edited on Mon May-12-08 09:14 PM by happyslug
An old joke about the Vietnam War went this way. The US set p its line, the center passed the ball to the Quarterback, who passes for a 100 yard touchdown.... The Viet Cong, picked themselves up, set up the tables and started to deal from the bottom of the deck. The Viet Cong came to play all night poker, the US Football and given the nature of the two games the Viet Cong let the US win its great Victories in South Vietnam, taking huge areas from Viet Cong Control. Then the Viet Cong slowly took back the areas one day and one village at a time. Within several months the area was again under Viet Cong Control. The Viet Cong knew the war would be a long term political fight, like an all night poker Game, which will be over when it is over not before. The US went into Vietnam with a plan to win the war with one great campaign, the football play that wins the game, but a game that only last technically one hour (yes I know that is the Time Clock only, football games can last 3 hours).
The same with Iraq, the US is NOT ready to fight the insurgents at all levels, including setting up schools, fixing the infrastructure, sewerage, water, electricity etc. That is where we are losing the war in Iraq and Bush is incapable of understanding it. Bush is a free market Right wing Republican, those are to be provided by private Enterprise NOT the Government. Private Enterprise sets up the stadium, the runs the Concession stands. The Government only runs the terms, and then only for the duration of the game. The idea that part of the MILITARY PLAN TO DEFEAT THE INSURGENTS MEANS TO BUILD UP THE INFRASTRUCTURE IS FOREIGN TO HIS MINDSET. I would blame the CIA, but the CIA knows better, the CIA has blown up infrastructure in countries it wanted the government overthrown. No this is far Right Wing Incompetency, that separates anything dealing with the economy from Political or Military objectives.
Once you understand that we can only defeat the insurgents by building up the infrastructure of Iraq and to make sure the Iraqi knows we are doing it, i.e. Military protection for the projects and immediate repair if it is damages no matter what the costs. Once we start to do that we can defeat the Insurgents, but it will lead to much higher US losses as more US troops will be needed to protect the projects AND TO BUILD THE PROJECTS. This will require massive US spending of US money in Iraq, money the US does NOT have. Once you realized what is the cost to win in Iraq and understand we can NOT afford it, in terms of lives or money, then you understand why we must withdraw.
We are like that US Football Term, won every football play we ran, but lost all of our money to the card sharks at the tables AFTER the Football game had ended do to time, but before the opposition had decided to call it a night of all night poker. My father always said, play a game you can win, not one your will lose. We are losing Iraq and can not win, we need to pull out.
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