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Originally Posted by pgardn
Man when Senator McCain asked that General, when we first went in id he EVER consider that this might degenerate into a Civil War, and he paused what seemed an eternity and then answered with a meek, "no"... man o man. And this was the General that reported that in his opinion it could degenerate into a Civil War given the current situations.
Rummy and the boys vastly underestimated how many troops we would need. Thought the Iraqis would shower us with gifts. We could have easily had this country under control with 350,000 ground troops like that one General that got sent away stated we needed from the get go. And the send less than about 1/3. Further reinforces clearly that you need to go whole hog, or not go at all.
Israel faces the same dilemma. They have got to really do some damage on the ground with massive numbers of ground troops. And now it looks like they may have a short time frame. As long as the rockets keep reigning down on Israel I dont see how they leave without a throrough sweep of Southern Lebanon.
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Pgardn,
If you think there is any hope of victory in Iraq at this point, I must respectfully disagree. US military forces, despite their "good" intentions, will not prevent or decide the outcome of civil war.
Early on in this debacle, Rumsfeld was asked if this is a "quagmire".
He ducked answering that question three years ago when he had no clue of an "exit strategy". Same way he ducked Hillary's queston today, "Based on your track record, why should we believe you now?"
His answer, " My goodness! ...blah, blah blah...no answer." then a discourse about the history of wars..."the cold war lasted 40 years."
Truth be told, the civil war has been going on for quite a while now. Check it out if you read international press, not just US propaganda.
As far as Israel is concerned, they have a much smaller military than the US.
They are stretched very thinly now. They continue to create the potential for future reprisals. I'd really like for them to be successful and peaceful, but they are creating their own negative outcomes, and dragging the US (their main supporter and supplier) down with them.
Here's an article that the rest of the world has access to:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-02.htm