Please Sir, can I have some more...troops?

By -

Congratulations to Bill Richardson for calling out McCain for wanting to escalate in Iraq. I think the left-wing noise machine has got to start hammering "St. John" now, and this deeply unpopular war is an important issue on which to do so. (UPDATE: Atrios has been saying this for quite some time, and does so again here.)

As far as policy goes, I think this adding 20,000-50,000 more troops plan is stupid. According to the New York Times, we have about 17,000 troops "actively involved in the effort to secure Baghdad". A cursory Google scan puts Baghdad's population around 6-7 million people. This gives a ratio of troops to population of about 1:350. Adding even 50,000 more troops (and this is probably more than is presently possible) would improve that ratio to about 1:90. But according to this RAND review (and they can hardly be accused of being pacifist surrender-monkeys, although I'm sure they have been), past successful counterinsurgency operations have had a ratio of 1:50 or better (and I think Baghdad is now worse than Northern Ireland ever was, though I don't know for sure).

So even if Bush, McCain, and Lieberman somehow squeeze 50,000 more troops out of our already over-taxed military, they will still only have slightly more than half the troops they need to have a decent shot at providing stability. It's "just enough to lose" all over again. Of course, these numbers don't include any Iraqi police, army, or militia. But from what I understand, these Iraqi units are often part of the security problem, rather than forces of stability. So I don't think they can be counted.

I find it hard to believe that this adding more troops idea is getting any political traction at all. The American public is against it, if recent polling is to be believed. I don't see any strategic reason why it would work. McCain and Lieberman are just as deluded as Bush when it comes to the Occupation. I hawk a big loogie of disrespect on their alleged "centrism" and "moderation". They have their good qualities, to be sure. But recently they've been behaving like grasping hacks, toying with other people's lives for their own political benefit. Enough of them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Snarking The Odyssey (with AD&D)

By -
Image
WARNING: Those of you who are accustomed to pithy political remarks here on Internal Monologue should brace yourselves for a major dose of gaming geekitude. Here's a link to one "Jamie R." who does a very snarky close reading of Homer's The Odyssey (HT: Mad Latinist via email). I've only read book 1, but it's pretty funny so far. An excerpt: Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men… Sooooo, he’s in charge, and everybody dies. Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero and his colossal failure. What? … for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever rea...
Read more

Where is 56th and Wabasha? "Meet Me in the Morning" Dylan Mystery Solved

By -
Image
Short version The lyric is not "Fifty-sixth and Wabasha", it is actually "Fifty-six and Wabasha", referring to the intersection of old Minnesota Highway 56 and Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you listen, you can hear Dylan sing "fifty-six", rather than "fifty-sixth", particularly on the take that was released as the B-side to "Duquesne Whistle". Minnesota Highway 56 no longer intersects Wabasha Street, but from 1963 to 1974 it did intersect Wabasha Street, at what is now (in Feb. 2021) the intersection of George Street and Cesar Chavez Street in St. Paul, or possibly South Wabasha & Cesar Chavez.  Long Version "Meet Me in the Morning" is the first song on side two of Bob Dylan's celebrated 1975 album  Blood on the Tracks. In the opening lines of the song, according to the lyrics on Bob Dylan's official site (https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/meet-me-morning/), the narrator invites the listener to a rendez...
Read more

Victim or perpetrator? How about both!

By -
Remember in the movie Adaptation , the main character's brother has this idea for a screenplay called The Three? It's about a detective trying to track down a serial killer before he kills his next victim. Pretty standard, right? The twist is that the detective, serial killer, and victim, are all actually the same person . Whoa, dude. Fight Club 's got nothin' on that one. Well, this isn't quite that weird. But apparently, Utah legal authorities are somewhat perplexed by a situation in which a 13-year-old girl and her 12-year-old boyfriend are both simultaneously the perpetrators and victims of the same crime: having sex with each other (HT: Feministing ): Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old Ogden girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend. The girl was put in this odd position be...
Read more