Surging

The American people have been hearing for weeks about this possible "troop surge" in Iraq. Surge, surge, surge. As if we're talking about electricity instead of human beings. Actual people. People who will be forced to return to Iraq, many of them for the second, third or fourth time. People who could be killed; people whose blood would further stain the hands of our president and his horribly misguided team of so-called leaders.

I don't necessarily believe sending more troops into a troubled area is a bad idea in a time of war; however (and that's a strong "however"), when there is absolutely no strategy in place for what those troops will be doing when they get there--that's when we have a grave problem. I'm not exactly well-versed in military operations, but the way I see it, the problem in Iraq is not (nor has it ever been) a lack of soldiers. The horrible situation we face there now can only be attributed to deficient strategy. And I believe that sending troops to war without basis or support or a clear plan is akin to murdering them yourself.

A young soldier facing his second deployment to Iraq was quoted in Mike Lupica's excellent column ("G.I. Deserves a Reason Why") in today's NY Daily News. If Bush & Co. won't listen to the American people on the matter of the war, perhaps they'll listen to someone who has lived it since its sad creation in 2003:

"We had a chance to do something that first summer [2003]," the soldier says. "But we dropped the ball. It wasn't the soldiers' fault. It was the fault of our leadership. That's what hurts the most now, that we did what was asked of us and weren't given the help, support or guidance we needed. And before long we weren't fighting foreign fighters and Saddam [Hussein] loyalists, we were fighting regular Iraqis."

He pauses and says, "And now they want to send us back, and keep sending us back, and for what? I see now that Bush wants to send 20,000 more troops, which is supposed to include me, and I want to know why? What's the strategy?

"You want to put me back in uniform and march me back into Baghdad, then you've got to do better than our President has in telling me why, telling me what this month's plan is, what our goals really are. Because those have never been defined, not for the people on the ground, and for that I don't believe I can continue to support this lunacy."

(emphasis mine)

These are questions our brave soldiers and every American deserve and are entitled to have answered. We are not debating our president on whether a change is essential in Iraq. But we want to know what good it will do to send more American soldiers to this volatile, unpredictable place. Please just tell us what this new surge of troops will be commanded to do differently than those who are already there.

Will we get answers from Bush tonight or just more carefully scripted rhetoric? Reports say he will acknowledge that mistakes have been made in Iraq; he will "attempt to justify the death of 3,000 American men and women and the wounding of 10,000 more." That's awfully kind of him, but what we Americans deserve to hear is Bush finally admitting that the mistakes in Iraq were made by his chosen leaders and not by the soldiers who are there fighting his unjustified war without the support they so deserve.

Posted by ayelet at January 10, 2007 10:11 AM