Iraq and the coming civil war
Here's my plan for saving Iraq from all-out civil war, which the country is leaning closer and closer toward:
Step 1: Fire Donald Rumsfeld and his entire staff. Read Cobra II, Chasing Ghosts, or the recently released (and quite incendiary) Fiasco for any amount of detail as to why this step is necessary.
Step 2: Bring in a general, active duty or retired, to serve as Sec. of Defense. Shinseki would be a good choice. Even Schwartzkopf would be a better choice than Rumsfeld. I mean, that dude (Schwartzkopf, not Rumsfeld) already "won" a war in Iraq.
Step 3: Deploy 350,000 additional American troops to Iraq. Institute a draft if necessary. (I'm serious about this.)
Step 4: Go door to door, starting in Baghdad, and search every house for weapons. Confiscate them and destroy them.
Step 5: As sectors of Baghdad are secured, the US Army Corps of Engineers along with civilian contractors and Iraqi engineers and trainees will repair the infrastructure. Labor should be provided by Iraqi citizens, paid decent wages for their work. Fund these projects through a combination of Iraqi oil sales and US funds. Or petition the UN for financial assistance with the reconstruction. Invite other foreign countries to take part in the rebuilding efforts. Internationalize the reconstruction.
Step 6: Shut down the mosques that preach sectarian violence. (Hey, look! No First Amendment in Iraq! Sweet!)
Step 7: Leave a security detail in Iraq, move the bulk of the US Armed Forces to the next city: repeat from Step 4.
It's not a popular idea that we need more troops on the ground in Iraq. Most Democrats want to bring all the troops home. But allowing Iraq to spiral into civil war and chaos is not a good option. And the only way to ensure--really ensure--that doesn't occur, is to overwhelmingly pursue a policy of disarming and then employing Iraqi citizens. I don't know why this wasn't the plan from the beginning.
Companies that have been shown to be fudging their books with reconstruction funds should be fined heavily, and possibly brought up on criminal charges. (I'm looking at you, "we lost 6 Billion dollars" Halliburton.)
Step 1: Fire Donald Rumsfeld and his entire staff. Read Cobra II, Chasing Ghosts, or the recently released (and quite incendiary) Fiasco for any amount of detail as to why this step is necessary.
Step 2: Bring in a general, active duty or retired, to serve as Sec. of Defense. Shinseki would be a good choice. Even Schwartzkopf would be a better choice than Rumsfeld. I mean, that dude (Schwartzkopf, not Rumsfeld) already "won" a war in Iraq.
Step 3: Deploy 350,000 additional American troops to Iraq. Institute a draft if necessary. (I'm serious about this.)
Step 4: Go door to door, starting in Baghdad, and search every house for weapons. Confiscate them and destroy them.
Step 5: As sectors of Baghdad are secured, the US Army Corps of Engineers along with civilian contractors and Iraqi engineers and trainees will repair the infrastructure. Labor should be provided by Iraqi citizens, paid decent wages for their work. Fund these projects through a combination of Iraqi oil sales and US funds. Or petition the UN for financial assistance with the reconstruction. Invite other foreign countries to take part in the rebuilding efforts. Internationalize the reconstruction.
Step 6: Shut down the mosques that preach sectarian violence. (Hey, look! No First Amendment in Iraq! Sweet!)
Step 7: Leave a security detail in Iraq, move the bulk of the US Armed Forces to the next city: repeat from Step 4.
It's not a popular idea that we need more troops on the ground in Iraq. Most Democrats want to bring all the troops home. But allowing Iraq to spiral into civil war and chaos is not a good option. And the only way to ensure--really ensure--that doesn't occur, is to overwhelmingly pursue a policy of disarming and then employing Iraqi citizens. I don't know why this wasn't the plan from the beginning.
Companies that have been shown to be fudging their books with reconstruction funds should be fined heavily, and possibly brought up on criminal charges. (I'm looking at you, "we lost 6 Billion dollars" Halliburton.)