The Perils of Micromanagement
David Aikman
Townhall
"President Bush told the nation in a prime-time speech that he had decided to order a significant increase in U.S. troop strength in Baghdad in order to quell the sectarian violence.
The president is fully authorized to order that troop increase. When he was elected president in 2004 he was also elected commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces. This is a one-person responsibility, and it is indeed awesome.
Many Democrats in the House, however, want to take over the job of commander-in-chief and micromanage the war in Iraq. This is a recipe for disaster. It was House and Senate tinkering with funding for South Vietnam that ensured Hanoi's victory over Saigon 31 years ago.
Disagree with the president, even vote against him by all means. But don't try to micromanage his command of the U.S. military."
Townhall
"President Bush told the nation in a prime-time speech that he had decided to order a significant increase in U.S. troop strength in Baghdad in order to quell the sectarian violence.
The president is fully authorized to order that troop increase. When he was elected president in 2004 he was also elected commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces. This is a one-person responsibility, and it is indeed awesome.
Many Democrats in the House, however, want to take over the job of commander-in-chief and micromanage the war in Iraq. This is a recipe for disaster. It was House and Senate tinkering with funding for South Vietnam that ensured Hanoi's victory over Saigon 31 years ago.
Disagree with the president, even vote against him by all means. But don't try to micromanage his command of the U.S. military."
posted by HeavyHanded at
9:32 AM
3 Comments:
The superficial Liberal response across the MSM has been that ‘we have tried this, (increasing troops), before and it hasn’t worked’. They completely ignore the substantive change in tactics for these additional troops that was the bulk of the Presidents ‘surge’ plans; relaxed rules of engagement; transferring more responsibilities to the Iraqi forces; leaving Iraqi forces behind in cleaned up areas to prevent ‘insurgent’ re-infiltration; commitment by the Iraqi government to engage Shiite as well as Sunni forces; not to mention the host of economic incentives and diplomatic initiatives contained in the Presidents plan encouraging the Iraqi’s to succeed.
All of these things can be argued against but to dismiss a troop level increase without acknowledging the new purposes to which the increased troop level will be put is just typical Liberal obfuscation of those facts that do not serve their political agenda and reduction of complex inter-related issues into quick shallow sound bites. Pity they don’t take the same view on the many failed Liberal programs for things like education, welfare, poverty and housing where they insist that success just needs ever more increases in Federal funding to be spent in the same old non-productive ways.
I don’t know if these new tactics will succeed or not. I do know that the world must find a way to effectively combat terrorists tactics. This is true independent of the nature and identity of our current enemies. If such tactics work there will be those who will employ them. Those who would employ such dastardly tactics as suicide bombings, IED’s and other indiscriminate killing of innocent friend and foe alike are not likely to do so for enlightened humanitarian causes. Why, what if the next time it is Pat Robertson seeking the elimination of the State of Israel, the extermination of all Jews, the conversion of the rest of the world to Christianity under penalty of death and the ultimate ruling of that world by the Vatican?
By
Anonymous, at 9:32 AM
Spot on, anotmo.
As we both know, war is not static. There is no guranteed "recipe" for victory. Bush has been villified for "staying the course" (which has an entirely different meaning than what the left and the media portrayed it as); now he is villified for changing strategy.
Like you, I don't know if the President's new plan will succeed or not, either.
But I do know that a defeat for us would be catastrophic; it's sad more don't grasp this.
In addition, 21,000 more troops may not seem like a large increase in boots on the ground. However, we need some context.
These 21,000 troops are GOING TO BAGHDAD to quell the violence there. We presently have 4,000 troops stationed in Baghdad. That is a SIZEABLE increase.
In response to your finding "a way to effectively combat terrorists tactics," I heard someone on the radio recently (I forget whom) giving a long laundry list of stupid courses being given at various U.S. colleges (of indoctrination) and one course was "How To Fight Terroism Without Violence."
What more needs to be said?
By
HeavyHanded, at 9:56 AM
Quite right H-H. I had not picked up on the increase of troops in Baghdad going from 4,000 to 25,000. Great point!
No more need be said but we need to keep saying it. The Democrats have nothing to say and keep saying it.
By
Anonymous, at 10:09 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home