You’ll have to read the article to figure out what the above means.
What are we going to do about free Iraq? Our government is basically at war with itself. In Congress the Democraps are doing their utmost to stymie any proposal put forth by the administration in the hopes they can keep us poor and stupid and thereby undermine any recent achievements and ride the wave of dissaffection to success in 2004. Naturally they’ll lose but, in the meantime, we stay poor and stupid. For an excellent example on how far these cowards are willing to go to stymie anything and everything put forth by the conservative national majority see the ongoing troubles in Texas.
And it’s not just Congress, the administration is at civil war. The State Department has done everything it possibly can to undermine the goals of the President. From botching the Iraq job at the UN (which they pushed for), to propping up the Saudi regime (look where that’s got us), to refusing to deal strongly with North Korea and Iran, to doing everything possible to confuse and slow down the reconstruction of Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been trying to move things ahead, to project American will through American power and make the whole world a better, safer place for all peoples. Of course, the Pentagon’s not perfect either, I’ve read some condemnations of Sect’y Rumsfeld for sending an undermanned force into Iraq and then trying to pull them out before the nation-building job is done.
Basically it comes down to this – things can’t be done by half measures. You’d think people who were so terrified of the spectre of Vietnam would have learned that by now. What do you get when you try to limit the impact and footprint of operations? A bloody damned mess, that’s what? So, what’s wrong with stationing half a million troops in Iraq? Order through force, it’s what empires do, and make no mistake – we’re an empire now. A benevolent one to be sure, but we’re definitely an empire. We bring order out of chaos and leave places better than we found them, that’s the idea anyway.
What a great big crap sandwich we’ve got to take a bite out of. So, what do we do now? I say enough higgledy-piggledy: station troops at street corners to control the population, take a firm hand and put people back to work – clearing debris if nothing else, take power out of the hands of Iraqis until they’re ready to exercise it – in a year or more. Stay the course, shock and awe and don’t hesitate to throw your weight around to accomplish our goals.