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7 October, 2004
Most news outlets are reporting the new offensives in Iraq as leading
up to the January elections
planned for Iraq, but one could wonder if they are really targeting
the November elections in the U.S.
U.S. forces pound Falluja targets
Devastated by Kerry criticism of bad war planning and their own candidate's
self-destructive performance in the first debate,
the administration may be desperately resorting to campaign 'plan B'.
Certainly, if major new offensives were needed, wouldn't they have been
launched and concluded prior to the handover of sovereignty
in June so that the sovereignty would have been real?
The no-go zones must be tamed before
credible elections can be held.
We got in this mess knowing that house to house urban warfare is extremely
dangerous for our troops, but that only a soldier on the
ground can distinguish, one at a time, between enemy combatants and innocent children.
It can't be done in 3 months. And certainly not in 3 weeks to save
the presidents political *ss. And if it's done wrongly using gross,
indescriminate weapons,
we can be certain
that ordinary Iraqis will have some knowledge of who gets transported
to their hospitals. As a result Iraqi resentment
against us will continue to build.
If the administration is attempting to mop-up this problem more quickly,
the short-cut will cost far too
many innocent Iraqi lives, and any remaining Iraqi good-will towards
americans will be gone.
Iraq is not just a tinderbox safely insulated from the rest of the middle-east.
Iraq is burning.
And there's plenty of kindling nearby.
If more administration stubbornness, denial and bungling leads to an
unsuccessful end to this war, then the fire will
begin to spread throughout the middle-east.
We can only hope the administration's timing for escalation of
offensive operations in Iraq are
not Bush's 'plan B' strategy to capture good airtime on CNN after he lost the debate.
If the Iraqi people begin
to get the sense that their fate has fallen victim to american
election strategy, God help us.
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