So the out of power party wants the US Military in Iraq to assume more of a support role. You know providing only training, and logistics. Pull back into fixed bases and become targets, just like the 60's in Viet Nam.
Back in the Navy, there used to be a joke about the LST, that landing craft ship with the doors in the front. They are used to transport supplies to the beach in amphibious assaults. The Sub guys used to call them Large Slow Targets.
Now the opposition party leaders want to turn our forces in Iraq into the land based version of an LST.
Gone would be the 3 Humvee task forces that strike at terrorist strong points, taking out the bad guys, then pulling back. Gone would be the ability to mount rescue operations in force. Gone would be the knife edge training that soldiers require to be effective.
Instead there will be big trucks driven by folks who's training is good, but targetted towards delivering supplies, not fighting off attacks. They'll be guarded by MP's - who are usually more lightly armed than combat troops. On the evening news we'll be treated to pictures of burned out transport vehicles, blown up barracks and beheaded supply soldiers instead of combat pictures of successful attacks on the bad guys.
Just like we used to see every night from Viet Nam.
And of course, those opposition party guys want to set a final withdrawal date for "Operation Cut and Run."
The terrorist opposition in Iraq would then have a date so they could plan their final assault on the government. They would be able to husband their quickly depleting resources for the final pullout, waiting for there to be no force on the ground to repel the attacks. No combatants, just large slow targets.
The Iraqi security forces are starting to take a larger and larger role in building their country, but for a third party to establish a deadline makes the goal of a free Iraq, with an corresponding effective Iraqi defense force awfully hard to achieve.
What the Senators forget is that when we started the United States, it would have been awfully easy for that other George W - George Washington - to cut and run out to western Virginia and let the British have the colonies back.
That first George W had the courage to see that war through to the end. Maybe the anti-war, anti military crowd in the Senate should remember that.
