"US won't pull Marines from Iraq"
Dec. 6th, 2007 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersOkay, I know that my political posts are about as interesting as, oh, every other uninformed political post on the intertubes, but sometimes I can't help myself.
Anyway, a while back I read that the Marines had requested that there be a restructuring of deployments so that the Army handled Iraq and the Marines handled Afghanistan. I thought at the time that this was the Marines saying that Iraq was an idiotic waste of time and resources. Today the Seattle Times reports that the Secretary of Defense has turned down the proposal, and it contains some black comedy along with an interesting insight into the military perspective.
Marine Corps Commandant James Conway is quoted as giving several reasons for the proposal. First he indicates that things are getting so quiet in Anbar Province that "lance corporals are complaining that they don't have anybody to shoot." Ho ho ho! "But that doesn't drive strategic thinking, of course," he is quick to assure us. Nice to know!
Next comes a more feasible reason: "There's a little bit of a recruiting consideration here in this," he said. More baldly: "Switching to Afghanistan at lower numbers would give Marines more time between combat tours, while appealing to those potential recruits who like the idea of fighting in the country that gave haven to al-Qaida before it carried out its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Conway said." So it's apparently easier to motivate people to fight their actual enemies! How surprising.
Then comes the punchline: "He referred to the Marines' current duty in Iraq's Anbar province as almost like occupation duty." Yeah, almost! "Occupation is not the right word here, but the long-term security forces, that's not a Marine function," he said.
If "occupation" is not the right word, why is it the first one that occurs to him before he remembers the politically correct one? Still looks to me as though the Marines are saying that Iraq is an idiotic waste of time and resources.
Anyway, a while back I read that the Marines had requested that there be a restructuring of deployments so that the Army handled Iraq and the Marines handled Afghanistan. I thought at the time that this was the Marines saying that Iraq was an idiotic waste of time and resources. Today the Seattle Times reports that the Secretary of Defense has turned down the proposal, and it contains some black comedy along with an interesting insight into the military perspective.
Marine Corps Commandant James Conway is quoted as giving several reasons for the proposal. First he indicates that things are getting so quiet in Anbar Province that "lance corporals are complaining that they don't have anybody to shoot." Ho ho ho! "But that doesn't drive strategic thinking, of course," he is quick to assure us. Nice to know!
Next comes a more feasible reason: "There's a little bit of a recruiting consideration here in this," he said. More baldly: "Switching to Afghanistan at lower numbers would give Marines more time between combat tours, while appealing to those potential recruits who like the idea of fighting in the country that gave haven to al-Qaida before it carried out its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Conway said." So it's apparently easier to motivate people to fight their actual enemies! How surprising.
Then comes the punchline: "He referred to the Marines' current duty in Iraq's Anbar province as almost like occupation duty." Yeah, almost! "Occupation is not the right word here, but the long-term security forces, that's not a Marine function," he said.
If "occupation" is not the right word, why is it the first one that occurs to him before he remembers the politically correct one? Still looks to me as though the Marines are saying that Iraq is an idiotic waste of time and resources.
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Date: 2007-12-10 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 04:51 pm (UTC)