Posted by
Bloelfed on Monday, October 27, 2008 12:00:00 AM
Many have complained that President Bush screwed up the war in Iraq because he unwisely did not have enough troops on the ground. This is a common complaint of the left especially.
Why is it then that President Bush did not deploy more troops. The answer is; he was fighting a war that needed his father's military and instead he had the military he got from Bill Clinton.
In 1990 there were 2,043,700 active duty personnel in the US Military. In 2000 there were 1,384,300, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0501.pdf. Do you think that the war might have gone a bit better if there were another 660,000 warriors around?
The left seems to be incapable of seeing the consequences of actions they take.
President Clinton cut the size of government by cutting the guts out of the military. He then ignored his duty in not containing terrorists, he ignored his duty in protecting his troops around the world. He set them in harms way time after time without the proper equipment and support.
He then buggered off after pardoning a bunch of crooks, his staff trashed the White House, and he was forced to apologize to the nation for lying to Congress.
Almost instantly the roosters came home to roost. Terrorists, resident in the U.S. during Clinton's watch caused 9/11.
The country went wild. Someone, somewhere was going to pay a price for this attack.
Saddam was scoffing at 13 UN Security Council Resolutions. If UN Security Council resolutions are to be ignored, then what prey is the reason for the UN at all?
So President Bush, knowing that Saddam had already coined other permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council decided to stop Saddam in his tracks. In the process freeing 23 million people from Saddam's tyranny.
From 2002 through 2006 which is the best available data from the census bureau and this particular source
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0500.pdf one can see that while at war, 2,593 soldiers lost their lives to hostile action. By no means a trivial number, especially for their families and friends. Yet during the same period 2,688 members of the military died of accidental causes.
This should give some perspective of exactly how well the war has gone in comparison to both just military life, and to any other conflict of its scale.
The war has been costly, but what is the pay-off of a good result versus the cost of the Obama plan?
Again, the left simply will not look at the cost the actions they favour. This is why you will not find one person who protested the War in Vietnam and consider the defeat of America and the South Vietnamese a 'good thing' will not take responsibility for the 3,000,000 people that died in Vietnam as a result of that defeat. More people died because the Democrats could not be trusted to keep the word of an American commitment than died in the entirety of the war from the time the French withdrew.
What will happen if Obama does win and he leaves Iraq un-resolved and unsecured?
His idea is that anything can and should be negotiated. To a point everyone can agree. However look just at the result that has taken place when the E.U. has taken the lead in negotiating with Iran to keep that country from acquiring nuclear capacity.
The starting point for Iran was the claim that they needed nuclear power to generate electricity. One then should probably look at what Iran's energy needs are and what other resources they could use to generate power. Reality is, Iran currently flares more natural gas than it could use to meet its energy needs for the next two centuries. Perhaps in view of this fact, Iran is getting a little too far ahead of itself in going to nuclear power.
On the other-hand, if their intent is to build a bomb. They are well on their way thanks to the 'negotiations' taking place. In fact they are on a faster pace than when President Clinton send President Carter to negotiate with North Korea. North Korea took all the free money that the idiot President Carter offered and now has the bomb.
When Iran has a bomb, what then?
It is not unreasonable to think that Israel will strike a major Iranian city on a preemptive basis. Millions of humans will die. This is not by any means a good result.
The other result of that is at least 35% less oil and gas for America. It cannot be replaced.
This then forces the E.U. to negotiate with Putin for their energy, and particular natural gas supplies. If Obama thinks that Putin is anything less than a KGB psychopath he needs to take a harder look at history and particular what Putin's agenda is.
So, if Obama has to go toe to toe with the military he is getting handed to him from President Bush who has done no better with a recalcitrant Congress in making it bigger, he will have no ability to defend the E.U. from Russia (already on the move) and more particularly he will not be able to prevent disaster in the Middle East if he does not have a strong military presence there from bases in Iraq.
Cheers,
Bloefeld