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UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@
U.N./
- 23 August 2007 – The
Associated Press has
run a story by its military writer Robert Burns making the claim that the
so-called "surge" is "working" in Iraq and now the war is
entering "a new phase."
Burns,
however, rather weakens his argument by conceding that, for all of US efforts,
the US can't guarantee victory -- "only the Iraqis can."
Then
he points out that "it is far from certain that they are capable" of
doing this because of "deep-seated sectarian loyalties", because of a
"deepening crisis" in the government coalition, and many related
issues, all leaving American commanders "clinging to a hope that stability
might be built from the bottom up .... "
According
to Burns, though, beyond the "clinging hope", there is another reason
why the US military chiefs do not want to give up -- "they feel that so
much has been sacrificed already that it makes no sense to quit now"
referring to the 3,665 US soldiers lost so far, and the current average of two
per day dead.
But,
of all the arguments for staying, this last one undoubtedly is the most
dangerous and most futile.
By
dint of this belief, the US should have remained in the Vietnam War indefinitely
since we lost 55,000 lives -- and Ronald Reagan should never have pulled US
forces out of Lebanon after losing several hundred US troops to a terrorist
attack.
America
cannot base its national security decisions on romantic fantasies but on
realities -- and the truth is that the US is embedded in an intervention it
should never have undertaken, caught up in a civil war that it cannot settle or
stop, and, most importantly, has lost the support of the only constituency that
counts -- the American people.
Labels: United
Nations, U.N.,
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