We're Not Winning... We're Not Leaving

Well, that's my interpretation of new Sec. of Def. Robert Gates' statement

"All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again. But as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for decades to come."

On NPR this morning, their Pentagon reported made the point that Gates, despite years of government experience, is not especially knowledgable on defense matters and has been out of government for over a decade. Gates is likely to be reliant on his generals and, in contrast to Rummy, has said that he would be more defferential to their opinion. I've heard news reports saying that some generals favor a temporary surge in troops. Bush seems to favor the idea.

The typical range of the troop increase seems to be between 18,000 and 25,000 troops. Most commentators speculate the surge would be accomplished by extending the deployment of divisions already in theater and maybe accelerating the deployment of others. All seem to agree that it will be temporary. A few military men interviewed have said that to accomplish any good that the surge would have to be in place for 12 months or more. That certainly doesn't jive with Senator Harry Reid's opinion to have the troops home in early 2008. An idea backed by the Iraq Study Group.

I support leaving Iraq now because I don't think the United States has the wherewithall to win this war. We went in for the wrong reasons. We bungled the entire operation (other than the blitzkrieg like congering of the nation). The current administration has no clue how to win and no competency to implement a winning strategy assuming one exists.

We fucked up and we lost. That is painful to say and admit but I believe it is true. We have precipitated a greater regional war. It is likely to spiral out of control and involve more and more nations. I've yet to read any ideas that are anything more than face-saving means to an exit. And while we save face more American service men and women will die. In exchange for our lives we are slowing the murder rate of Iraqi civilians. A mass murder that our invasion kicked off. But we can't stop it and ultimately we are leaving.

I don't want to trivialize the Iraqi deaths. Estimates of Iraqi deaths range from around 52,000 to 655,000. Something our country is morally responsible for. Unfortunately, for reasons stated above, I don't think we have the ability to prevent the forthcoming deaths. All we can do is delay them. The one course of action we may have left to us is to evacuate as many Iraqis as we can and offer them political assylum. And maybe, ultimately, that is why we should sacrifice more of American lives and treasure.

UPDATE - Right after posting I found this on TNR about which generals support the surge and those that don't. Not encouraging. But that should be expected with anything involving the clusterfuck that is Iraq.