Bill Arnold wrote:
Gosh, I could have sworn I herd Donald Rumsfelt or President Bush
respond to a reporter's question the other day about whether we were
building permanent facilities in Iraq, in which the response
was "no we are not".
These reports talk about 14 permanent bases altogether
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040323-enduring-bases.htm
The above link is to an article published by the Chicago Tribune back on
March 23, 2004. A lot has changed since then, especially the level of
support from the American people towards the war/occupation in Iraq.
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
The French also had permanent bases and other facilities in South East
Asia, which the US later used, after the French abandoned them in her
pull out. I suppose these facilities are now being used by the
Vietnamese people, since the US has pulled out of South East Asia. The
definition of permanent bases is a little fuzzy given how a country can
change overnight, should a sudden change in leadership occur in either
Washington or Iraq.
This sounds like the Bush Administration has been talking to
the French
for instruction as to how the French Foreign Legions worked. Anybody
want to join the American Foreign Legions?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/howl
"Is the badly outnumbered American expeditionary force in Iraq
introuble? Is it in danger of being trapped? With all our firepower,
are we looking at the possibility of some kind of a military defeat?"
Over the last year or so, the war, or occupation, of Iraq has grown
steadily more unpopular with the American people. I think the Bush
Administration is going to be forced to make a substantial
withdrawal of American troop prior to the coming mid-term election, or
face a
Republican rout at the ballot boxes. Of course, the Bush
Administration's policy has long been that no date certain can be set
for withdrawal; because, it would provide a time table in which the
enemy could hunker down and wait the occupation out, but a troop
reduction is coming, and it will be sooner than later.
I'm trying to underscore the importance of coming to terms with the
truth: the real agenda versus the fake one in particular.
This is very important because the attitude of those in power is what
brought this crisis about, and outing and ousting them is more important
than pulling out of Iraq.
Why? Because pulling out is going to be extremely difficult without a
really good rationale and plan. The obvious 'best rationale' is to
discover/admit that we've been lied to all along and now see that we
must set things right vis a vis UN involvement. The UN (obviously) isn't
going to back us until the world is convinced we're on the right track,
and there's no way to do that by insulting them with more Madison Ave
trickery.
Sure, we can "stay the course" and try the gradual withdrawal approach,
but that has an ice-cube-in-Hell's chance of working. We don't know how
strong the enemy is, but we do know that he's not beaten, and that means
he will be emboldened by signs of weakness. We may not consider
withdrawal weakness, but he will. As the number of troops goes down, the
exposure to those remaining goes up.
Bring on air strikes and artillery to protect them, and the bad
situation gets worse.
The "gradual withdrawal" approach is the latest product of the gang who
can't shoot straight. They've gotten everything else wrong, and this is
just another ill-fated line of thinking.
How could they have been so wrong all along? Simple: if a person starts
with a lie, he then has to lie more to cover up the first lie, and so
on. What's kept us in the dark so long is the magnitude of the lies:
we're having a really hard time accepting that we've been lied to on
such a large scale.
The American people are still processing what has happened just as fast
as they can. The process goes in steps like 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3)
Bargaining, 4) Acceptance, a lot like someone who is dieing. Until
America processes through to accepting what has happened, not much can
be done, but in time the truth will need to be brought to light to write
a true history of this period in America.
I was stationed at Binh Thuy Air Base, Vietnam, during 1967 and 1968, so
I experience the TET offensive that started in early Feb 1968, very up
close and personal. It took the TET offensive before American began
coming to terms with the futility of it all and the Vietnam era was
written down in history for posterity. Here is a link as a little
reminder of the Vietnam era:
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/3219.html
http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-209.htm
"A Camp Divided. As U.S. tries to give Iraqi troops more
responsibility, clash of two American colonels shows tough
road ahead"
This reminds me a bit of my stay in Vietnam. I live about a mile off
base in quarter originally built by the French. The French Quarters
housed about 200 troops. The French Quarters were built right up
against the Mekong River at a point where another river "T"
into it, so the French Quarters were up against rivers on two sides.
My
room, which I shared with a roommate, had running water for showers,
and
I equipped it with a small refrigerator. Cigarette, beer and other
products were cheep at the base commissary, which made it easy to keep
the
room stock up, and still be able to send most of the paycheck back
home.
The rooms came complete with momma-sans to keep thing tidy and to
polish the
second pair of boots left under the bed each day.
The French Quarter came complete with an NCO club that served
drinks and beer, and had a number of slot machine, which never
interested me much. A patio of the NCO club provide a place to sit,
drink and visit after
work, and sometime movie entertainment would be shown with an old 8mm
projector out on the open patio. If I was sitting at a table by the
edge of the Mekong River, I could pick up a small twig, toss
it in the river, and watch as the twig hurry downstream in the
powerful
current of the Mekong, which steached miles wide.
I had a slightly different river view, but did see the same divide
between the locals and the occupier. How anyone would think we can win
hearts and minds with that treatment is totally beyond me.
Until we learn some basic and brutal lessens from History, the failure
of the past will continue to be repeated.
Bill
Regards,
LelandJ
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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