I couldn't agree more....

"Wise thinkers prevail everywhere."
-- Sophocles
"When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I just read Yoan Hermida's most recent post and think it is excellent! I think it is worth the space here, so here it is...

2005-10-01
Smash the Insurgency or Get Out
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I respect my chain of command, and I have a moral and legal obligation to carry out all legal orders given by it. That being said, I do have very personal opinions regarding what's going on in Iraq, which are probably quite biased because of the position I'm in right now, but which I hold with conviction nonetheless.

The Libertarian Party has come out with an "Iraq Exit Strategy (PDF) that has caught my attention. The paper makes certain points that, quite frankly, are naive and wrong. But I do agree with its central point: we need to accelerate the transition.

The LP argues that the Iraqi security forces are strong enough to fight the insurgency. Furthermore, they argue that the strongest and most troublesome insurgent faction are the local Sunnis. Wrong and wrong, and I have seen first-hand evidence to the contrary. The security forces can't even defend their own compounds and the most hardcore and dangerous faction is the one made up of foreign terrorists.

Now, how do we speed up the transition?

My solution is too radical to have any real chance of being implemented on a national scale, but most of what I will propose has already been tried in Fallujah and more recently, Tal Afar. But I'll share it with you anyway: seal the borders, declare the country a free-fire zone, arrest all radical clerics, ban loudspeaker prayer, and close all mosques for the duration of the operation. Iraq will not be free as long as the insurgency is not smashed once and for all.

If this is not done, we must pursue some variant of the Libertarian proposal because military resources must be freed up in Iraq so that we can pursue Islamofascists in other lands. The only way to win the War on Islamofascism is to eliminate their will to fight. And the only way we can do that is by making them understand that we, as free men and women, are prepared to take any measure, and endure whatever sacrifice, to make sure they are destroyed physically and ideologically.

I couldn't agree more! BTW... I just couldn't bring my self to include his ending ... I decided to put it in, but revised it somewhat and hope that he won't be too offended :-Þ

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PS-GO RED SOX!!! 2004 WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!
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Stay cool and safe!