Video: Vets for Freedom co-founder Wade Zirkle on “freeSpeech”
posted at 8:08 pm on October 10, 2006 by Allahpundit
Anyone with a resume like this is worth hearing out. Thirty thousand more troops, he says, and we should be able to finish the job.
Fareed Zakaria says it’s too late:
President Bush says that if America leaves Iraq now, the violence will get worse, and terrorists could take control. He’s right. But that will be true whenever we leave. “Staying the course” only delays that day of reckoning. To be fair, however, Bush has now defined the only realistic goal left for America’s mission in Iraq: not achieving success but limiting failure.
Michael Yon told me the other day he wouldn’t be surprised if one of our forward operating bases in Afghanistan were overrun sometime next year. A reporter from NPR relayed that opinion to Gen. David Richards, the NATO commander, and Richards reportedly told her yeah, he wouldn’t be surprised either.
Is the U.S. finished as a serious military power? Steyn raised this point in his interview with Driscoll yesterday and it’s worth considering. I don’t mean versus conventional armies, none of which would face us given our track record. I mean versus guerrilla armies. We failed in Vietnam and now we’re on the verge of failing in Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming we haven’t already. Future enemies will follow the same tactics until we prove we’re capable of not only defeating them but defeating them quickly. Americans might have the patience for long slogs if there are tangible signposts of progress along the way (i.e., territory conquered), but in grab-and-hold campaigns like we’re in now, I think we lack the will. Even with historically low casualty rates. In the future, I suspect, most of our fighting will be done from the air a la Clinton in Bosnia
Our military readers should consider this their opportunity to sound off. What am I missing here?
Update: Can this possibly be right? 655,000 dead — “excess” dead, actually — in three years?
Blowback
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Thirty thousand troops will: secure Baghdad, close the border, and help the Iraqi Army? And how long do they stay there? And how many of them are killed? And where do we get these troops?
We should be concentrating on withdrawal, not additional commitments.
GregH on October 10, 2006 at 8:31 PM
True American Heros.
This terrorism has been brewing for many, many years.
It’s gonna take many, many years fighting it.
We’d better have the will to fight it, else I’d hate to consider the alternative.
Kini on October 10, 2006 at 8:31 PM
The Iraqis have to win this war. We need to stay long enough to help them win. 30,000 more troops will help temporarily but keeping our troop levels steady or slowly declining – forces the Iraqis to step up and fight this fight.
We need to get 60,000 more Iraqis trained.
Marvin on October 10, 2006 at 8:43 PM
Powell was a sane man in his younger days and was right in his doctrine:
As I understand things:
Iraq -mission accomplished- render Saddam impotent and secure his stash of WMDs. No WMDs? Game over -go home.
Afghanistan -mission incomplete- remove the Taliban from power, remove terrorist training camps, and get Bin Laden “dead or alive.”
Then we wait for our national security to be threatened again, formulate a new plan based on the principles above, and kick ass. Failure should never be an option for the United States because we define what success is. We never defined success in these conflicts.
Valiant on October 10, 2006 at 8:45 PM
Greg H-once again I have to ask you who do you know over there? Here’s a surprise for you Grego, we’re still in German and Japan as well as South Korea. What do you think about that? Of course I am sure you have no real answer but using your logic we should be out of there too. Have you served, just a question because I am curious.
My husband says basically the same thing but he says 40K would be better. I’ve said this before that the fact that we live in an fast food, Sesame Street, game-boy world leads many to believe and think that if it’s not done in a few months or years we need to give up. I know History is something we don’t focus on too much anymore (well at least early US History) but it was 13 years from the Dec. of Independence until George Washington became President. We also had a few experiments in between time (Articles of Confederation government) for example.
Catie96706 on October 10, 2006 at 8:49 PM
Typical Lib. Question, after question, after question, but never an answer or a solution. Oh yea, I forgot, Greggy had that favorite of all solutions ….. cut and run.
fogw on October 10, 2006 at 8:49 PM
The closest I ever got to General Officers was when I saluted them. And some rather rare handshakes. But I’m always ready with an opinion.
I don’t think you’ve missed a thing. Our most glaring weakness is well and truly exposed and it will continue to be exploited.
Worse, until recently I had an unshakable faith in America’s Jacksonian spine if things ever got “real”. But that faith is badly shaken now. WTC & DC are not real enough to an astounding number of my countrymen. I honestly despair at WTF it will take for these people to ever get their backs up.
Statements like GregH’s illustrate why I despair.
There is no withdrawing into Fortress America as a tactic against TerrorWar. And there’s no consideration whatever offered in that statement to actively dealing with the reality of a clear threat. Ostriches & children are not safe hiding their heads no matter how much they believe.
Stephen M on October 10, 2006 at 8:51 PM
Please ignore GregH and he might go away. He is singing the Troll Song while you frantically respond.
Valiant on October 10, 2006 at 8:57 PM
Ahhh, I was wondering where Mr. defeatist attitude has been hiding.
I think a combat Marine would know how many troops are needed to perform a military task, Greg. Liberals are great at armchair quarterbacking.
They stay there long enough to stop the insurgency, while allowing the Iraqi soldiers/security to grow in numbers and take over more and more responsibility, which they have been doing. I do think it could be faster. Of course, you’ll never hear about that watching anything but FoxNews.
Hopefully very few of them die, Greg. But, the people in the armed forces VOLUNTEER, knowing full well they will go into harms way. It’s called sacrafice. It’s how this country was founded. That is, unless you’re Ehren Watada, then you turn yellow and run AFTER knowing you’d be going into harms way.
We get these troops from right here in the USA. They’re called heroes by some, scorned, laughed at, and spit on by others. They fight for freedom, Greg. Not only ours, but someone elses freedom. Doesn’t that make you want to say, “You’re a better man/woman than I”
While you have every right to disagree about the war on terror, and the war in Iraq, don’t be so quick to dismiss the herosim of my brothers and sisters in uniform, in harms way. Thankfully, they don’t have to get your approval first.
rightside on October 10, 2006 at 8:59 PM
You’re not missing anything, Allah. I started writing on the old blog two years ago that we’re not good at the long slog, and that the Gen. Giap Vietnam playbook was in effect again in the Middle East wars. They’re wars of resolve where you can’t define victory easily or in a soundbite (take this city, take that hill), and because of that and the corrosive press and political criticism combined with the absence of serious ideological leadership at the top, we’d be losing ground in our resolve the longer the wars rage on.
And here we are.
Bryan on October 10, 2006 at 9:00 PM
Isn’t there more to it than that, though? Aren’t we coming up short tactically, too?
Allahpundit on October 10, 2006 at 9:02 PM
The U.S. never HAS been a serious military power when faced with guerilla armies or any sort of enemy that doesn’t recognize any rules.
We’re too soft, too obsessed with our own navels and preaching how even the loss of the entire planet is preferable to ever give up one quarter of an ounce of our precious “moral high ground”, even temporarily, a commodity that never served any nation or any people at any point in all of history.
In short, we’re a nation of hypersensitive, puling wankers.
Well-meaning and frightfully Holier than Thou wankers, to be sure, but don’t even waste your time thinking that anybody will bother adding that to our epitaph.
They’ll be too busy pissing themselves with laughter at how we destroyed ourselves because we thought that it was better to be popular than to be alive.
Misha I on October 10, 2006 at 9:04 PM
I didn’t, and wouldn’t do so. Don’t be so quick to misinterpret my concern for peace as a show of disrespect for the men and women risking life and limb in this battle.
GregH on October 10, 2006 at 9:08 PM
In a few spots we’ve come up short tactically–like letting Mookie al-Sadr continue to live–but the war in Iraq is not a tactical fight for the most part. If it were, the terrorists/insurgents would have given up a long time ago because they have no hope of defeating us tactically.
They continue to fight because they believe they can outlast us. Iran continues to supply the terrorists with men and arms because it believes the same thing (and not facing down Iran on this issue is another tactical mistake we’ve made). Our own internal squabbles, which are seen and to some extent misunderstood by the entire world, play into that belief. They believe they can outlast us by causing enough mayhem to get us to conclude that the war is lost, so we leave and then they take over. So that’s what they’re doing and have been doing since the Fall of 2003–trying not to outfight, but just to outlast, us.
Iraq is a post-modern war, which means that the battlefield isn’t the entire battlespace. We can win every single battle, as we have, and lose the war. And we may get to the point in Afghanistan where we actually lose a battle.
We lost several battles in previous wars that we went on to win. They were tactical fights, and we eventually took the upper hand and won those wars. This is not a tactical fight, though. It’s post-modern, mostly non-tactical. One real battle loss may be enough to get a majority of Americans to decide that the entire war is lost. And then we actually lose.
Bryan on October 10, 2006 at 9:15 PM
Wouldn’t dream of it. We have the best soldiers in the history of mankind, and they have the best tools ever known to man.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there is not an enemy on this planet that they can’t destroy, if they’re allowed to.
Problem is, the American Idol generation here at home are so thoroughly emasculated and pussified that they won’t ever BE allowed to.
We truly have an army that we’re not deserving of.
Misha I on October 10, 2006 at 9:15 PM
I don’t think we have lost yet AP. We held our own in Afghanistan, losing a couple dozen to the Taliban’s hundreds (maybe thousands).In Iraq, the white hats are winning the hearts and minds. I think it all depends on our staying power and our resolve. If we must leave, this is the way to go.
Dawnsblood on October 10, 2006 at 9:16 PM
As long as they are continuing to throwing martyrs at our troops and breeding new martyrs, this problem won’t go away soon. The Iran Iraq war is an example of how they fight.
They need to unleash our troops on the bad guys.
Kini on October 10, 2006 at 9:28 PM
What I am wondering is why thie dumba&& GregH is usually the first one to reply to serious blogs with completely leftwing idiotic questions. Dude stop hating Bush and read what your small brain is writing, or pull a crystal ball out of your ass and tell us the answers to questions no has legitimate answers for. You live is a defeatist world and I hope to God there all of your kind stay home for mid term elections. It is an insult to say you respect the troops but not the mission. I have read your other ridiculous post and your views are not patriotic or intelligent.
riccangolf on October 10, 2006 at 9:29 PM
As I recall, the NYT and MSM said we were losing after the end of WW2, too.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
.
GT on October 10, 2006 at 9:29 PM
that sums it up.
Allah, I don’t think we’ve lost YET. But, we’re damned close.
And GregH, enlighten us:
Please explain to us how “leaving Iraq” is going to make this go away. Should we just hole up within our borders, stick our heads in the sand and say “la la la la la la???”
Honestly, Honestly, Honestly, do you REALLY think that would WORK???? HOW can you truly believe that the war will just “end” if we leave Iraq? You amaze me with your naivety.
pullingmyhairout on October 10, 2006 at 9:30 PM
GregH, oh yea, I forgot. let’s just talk it out. is that one of your “solutions?”
pullingmyhairout on October 10, 2006 at 9:31 PM
Allahpundit- I do think we are capable of winning this an future wars, but we need to be clear of who our friends and enemies are, and who it will be that that has the bases overrun.
I spoke to an Army Captain (Mountain Ranger)serving in Afghanistan. He patrols the Pakistani border. He is returning on Thursday to finish the last 4 months of his 2nd tour.. I asked him many questions but I walked away with this…
1. The 1st time he was shot at was by our “friends” the Pakistanis.
2. The Taliban is not coming back to the degree that the MSM wants us to believe..yes they are there, but it is under control.
3. NATO is in the process of taking over operations right now.
4. Although many of his fellow soldiers feel they are fighting the forgotten war, they still believe in the mission and what they are doing. They know OBL is in Pakistan, but they need to play nice with our “friend”
So from this I offer that maybe it is Gen. David Richards that is not up to the task before him.
Pam on October 10, 2006 at 9:46 PM
Wade is a good man, and a good friend of mine. (I’m also a vetsforfreedom founder.) Just wanted to give my attaboy to the ole jarhead.
E5infantry on October 10, 2006 at 9:55 PM
Has the perky one had ANY onservatives on since limbaugh?
Defector01 on October 10, 2006 at 10:09 PM
Bullseye.
It’s not that we can’t win – it’s that our leaders, left and right, won’t let us win. Adding 30,000 or 200,000 or even 1,000,000 more troops won’t do a damn bit of good if we’re not willing to use the requisite force required. We cannot expect our military personnel to win when we continue to place overly restrictive rules of engagement on them and thus cause them to always look over their shoulders not for the enemy but for the media and the next Jack Murtha smear campaign. Our soldiers have almost as much to worry about from the their own country as they do from our enemies.
In the end, this really isn’t a difficult question, and there are thousands of years of recorded history that show us how it’s done. But we are too timid to do it.
Misha, several months ago you wrote a blog post entitled “We need to quit playing at war”. You should post it here becuase that sums it up perfectly.
thirteen28 on October 10, 2006 at 10:10 PM
All the comments above have been really enlightening. The overthrow was so easy that tactically I wonder why we didn’t immediately overthrow Syria as well. I think it might have been a mistake to have left two enemies bent on Iraq’s failure as a pro-Western democracy standing as neighbors, with Iraq right in between them. We should have approached Iraq was part of a World War, in which the enemies were Syria, Iraq, and Iran in the Middle East front of the war. We should have immediately taken out two of them: Syria and Iraq. We should have let Israel immediately clean up Lebanon. The reason we are having such a hard time now is because we started a job but did not finish it. This has been a problem with the Bush administration (Dems are far worse), as evidenced in restraining Israel before they finished the job in Lebanon.
januarius on October 10, 2006 at 10:25 PM
well GregH, is from the “Cut&Run / Surrender / Raise The White Flag ” Party
Starblazer on October 10, 2006 at 10:48 PM
Thank you, thirteen28, I appreciate that.
It’d be quite a chunk of a post to put here, though, not to mention that it would be rude and against even the most basic foundations of blog etiquette.
I don’t suppose it’s overly rude to post the link, though, in case anybody is interested. If it is, please feel free to remove it, Allahpundit. It’s your house and your rules, after all.
We Need To Stop Playing At War
Misha I on October 11, 2006 at 12:03 AM
Wade’s my new hero! Hear, frickin hear, Wade!!
tickleddragon on October 11, 2006 at 12:14 AM
AP wrote: “We failed in Vietnam.”
Not exactly, and from a military point of view, quite incorrect. In point of fact we won the war on the battle field at least 3 times: The Idrang Valley in the central highlands, 68 Tet, and after Linebacker I&II. And maybe one or two more besides these.
Each of these battles was a knockout blow to the NVA and/or the Viet Cong. The first two would have resulted in the North’s surrender had we aggressively dealt with Ho and the North the way we did with Saddam’s regime — outright invasion. In both cases, the NVA has stretched too thin and redployed too far south, or too badly broken to resist a US invasion of the North.
The Johnson administration, with McNamera as SECDEF pissed away these victories, being more interested in “sending messages” than in victory. And the North rebuilt their army and resupplied it in the south.
Linebacker (ordered by Nixon) did result in the Paris peace treaty, signed in Paris by the USA and the government of North Vietnam. Why? Because at the end of Linebacker, North Vietnam had no anti-air defenses, their main shipping port was blockaded, trapping shipping and preventing reinforcement, and their army would have been incapable of resisting a US invasion, had Nixon pulled that particular trigger — AND EVERYBODY AT THE TALKS KNEW IT!
The treaty required the United States AND North Vietnam to withdraw their forces from South Vietnam, but the United States retained the right to re-intervene with military forces and reinforcements upon any further agression from the North.
We “lost” Vietnam when the McGovernite doves, having a majority of DEMOCRATS in Congress, *prohibited* any US reinforcement, or resupply, of the South in December 1974.
We watched, with our hands tied by the DEMOCRATS, as the North Vietnamese government blatantly *VIOLATED* the Paris Peace treaty and invaded the south in 1975. Our hands were *deliberately* tied by the McGovernites running DEMOCRAT PARTY in Congress because they had wanted all along the North to prevail.
So, for lack of ammunition for their artillery, and spare parts for their armor and aircraft, and even small arms ammunition, the ARVN was effectively disarmed and unable to repell the invasion.
THAT is why the sacrifice of 58,000 men for South Vietnam’s freedom was wasted, and it is all thanks to the COPPERHEADs running the Democratic Party.
That is how we lost Vietnam.
And if we allow useful idiots like GregH have his way, the Democrats will repeat their mistaken ways and sabotage THIS war if they get control of the government, the way they sabotaged the Vietnam War.
Which is why I take strong objection to your and Michelle’s comments the other day to SIT OUT THIS ELECTION because you didn’t get the “perfect” immigration bill, or for whatever.
If people like you and Michelle sit out the election, America’s Copperhead surrender monkeys will piss away the liberation of 52 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like their “fathers” pissed away Idrang, ’68 Tet and the treaty obtained in Paris at the cost of 58,000 Americans.
It really IS up to you and Michelle and the rest of us to vote and insure that the Democrats do NOT get control of Congress.
As to the contents of the video…
Lt. Zirkle is exactly correct about the importance of this war. Fools and useful idiots like GregH are working overtime to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Leftists like him have taken over the once proud party of national defense that the Democrats used to be.
About Lt. Zirkle’s main point: He calls for 30,000 more troops. I think that number should be 50,000, with at least half being dedicated to dealing with the sectarian militias and remaining dedicated sealing the borders.
Interviews, and polls that can be found at the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, as well as statements by the Iraq government, all converge on the idea of retaining American troops in Iraq until the Iraq Army is fully capable of putting down the insurgency AND the sectarians cease trying to forment a civil war. That is, IMHO, at least 10 months away.
Within 2 or 3 months, Sen John Warner promises a review and a strategy beyond “stay the course” or “cut and run” if the situation is not under control. Well, I can’t imagine any scenario that doesn’t devolve into one or the other.
Advocates of cut and run, like GregH, do not want to see America succeed. They have been working overtime since 9/12/01 to lie, give aid and comfort to our enemies, and to do everything short of armed insurrection to sabotage the war.
They throw up bullshit excuses such as “Iraq is just making more terrorists” and “Iraq is the terrorist’s boot camp” — as if Al Qaeda wasn’t recruiting America-hating jihadists long before we invaded Afghanistan, and training them there long before they attacked America on 9/11/01.
Author, blogger, former Army Lt. Col. Austin Bay, who helped develop the operational plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom, wrote:
This is the only way out of Iraq (and ultimately Afghanistan) and the only way to stop Islamofascism and end the GWOT in our favor; that is to complete the destruction of Al Qaeda whenever and whereever we find them.
georgej on October 11, 2006 at 4:21 AM
AP regarding the Lancet study estimating 655,000 excess dead – head over to Tim Blair’s site for the comments section eviceration of this claim. Hint: WWII Germany 539,000 civilian deaths after four year sustained bombing campaign deliberately targeting civilian populations. Firebombing of Dresden anyone? Lancet is full of s–t. This isn’t even possible, let alone plausible.
The Apologist on October 11, 2006 at 6:48 AM
Thanks for posting the link, Misha.
People, you need to read this gem of unvarnished truth.
thirteen28 on October 11, 2006 at 12:20 PM
30,000 more troops sounds about right. If we put 100,000 more around the country I think it would anger the Iraqi people.
I also think that the Iraq war has become a war with Iran by proxy. It’s a perfect wedge, and it’s working just like flypaper to attract militants to the war zone. Unfortunate for the civilians who live there…
It’s getting annoying hearing the dem operatives say things like “we should’ve been dealing with the REAL threats, NK and Iran, the past 6 years…”
There’s some major short term memory loss among those folks, apparently.
NTWR on October 11, 2006 at 2:37 PM
Thanks for the link, Misha.
AllahP- We aren’t losing tactically. Everytime we take on the bad guys in a direct fight, we slaughter them. So, they hide among civilians and plant bombs by night.
We are being prevented from winning by the lack of political will and the failure of the President to evoke a spirit of sacrifice from the American people. I’m not sure he would have succeeded in calling for sacrifice, but until we are all invested in the war, it really isn’t a war – it is a police action.
We are pursuing a policy that is based on Iraq and Afghanistan taking responsibility for their own nations. That is the only possible policy given that we really don’t have 20-30K soldiers sitting around ready to go to the fight. I don’t know if the policy will work unless we are willing to take the fight to Pakistan, Syria, or Iran if that is needed.
I pray for our troops everyday.
old_dawg on October 11, 2006 at 3:35 PM
Roll the clip from the opening of “Gladiator”…
“At my signal, unleash Hell.”
That’s how you conduct a war.
Freelancer on October 11, 2006 at 4:51 PM
Well maybe. I think it’s impossible to look at guerrilla warfare outside of specific political context. If the guerrilla warfare is a manifestation of the political will of the overall population–Cuba, Algiers, Indochina/Vietnam–then it’s tough to beat.
honora on October 12, 2006 at 1:06 PM