Does 12 Captains trump 7 82nd ABN NCOs?

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Since the 7 NCOs from the 82nd ABN writing in the NY Times didn't trigger the cut & run required we now get to hear from the dozen Captains, I assume followed by a pack of privates and ending with "two turtlenecks and a beer in a tree"

I'll disclaim as usual, and the left will ignore that as usual, I believe these people have every right to voice their opinion. That is undisputed, the question is how much weight should their thoughts carry. Jules Crittenden points out what is likely the single biggest factor in evaluating them. Only one has been in Iraq since 2005, the other 11 all served very early in the war and obviously their experiences would have been largely negative. What would an OpEd from 12 officers currently serving in al Anbar, or Diyala sound like?

We had very little success prior to this Spring and these officers got to live through our mistakes and see friends and comrades die for what seemed to them little progress. But the fact that this group includes no one who has been in country since the surge began makes it clearly an outdated viewpoint. I don't dispute that many of the difficulties they catalogue still present problems, but to completely discount the huge changes in the security situation, the Anbar Awakening, and even more important the recent alliances forged with Shiia sheiks is patently unfair.

We have plenty of hard work left in Iraq, and to follow the advice of these 12 would ensure that the civil war they expect comes and with that the collapse of any influence we had in the region. Their plan? Oh wait they don't have one, beyond "Run!".

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

We will be conducting a scaled withdrawal because our plans are coming to fruition and we are winning. And although there will be more US casualties before we win, those will reinforce victory, not be added to the rolls of the defeated. Already much of Basra is pacified after the British have withdrawn, Al Qaeda in Iraq is crippled and has no prospects of re-building, casualties country-wide are at their lowest in years and momentum is solidly in our favor. I  know where these folks got their defeatism and it is sad that we have taken as long as we have to unscrew ourselves, but their voices sound eerily out of context and time. This OpEd should have been published last year.

Now we fight a battle scarcely recognizable from this trip down bad memory lane. They end with a fair statement.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

I choose Victory!

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Does 12 Captains trump 7 82nd ABN NCOs?

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Since the 7 NCOs from the 82nd ABN writing in the NY Times didn't trigger the cut & run required we now get to hear from the dozen Captains, I assume followed by a pack of privates and ending with "two turtlenecks and a beer in a tree"

I'll disclaim as usual, and the left will ignore that as usual, I believe these people have every right to voice their opinion. That is undisputed, the question is how much weight should their thoughts carry. Jules Crittenden points out what is likely the single biggest factor in evaluating them. Only one has been in Iraq since 2005, the other 11 all served very early in the war and obviously their experiences would have been largely negative. What would an OpEd from 12 officers currently serving in al Anbar, or Diyala sound like?

We had very little success prior to this Spring and these officers got to live through our mistakes and see friends and comrades die for what seemed to them little progress. But the fact that this group includes no one who has been in country since the surge began makes it clearly an outdated viewpoint. I don't dispute that many of the difficulties they catalogue still present problems, but to completely discount the huge changes in the security situation, the Anbar Awakening, and even more important the recent alliances forged with Shiia sheiks is patently unfair.

We have plenty of hard work left in Iraq, and to follow the advice of these 12 would ensure that the civil war they expect comes and with that the collapse of any influence we had in the region. Their plan? Oh wait they don't have one, beyond "Run!".

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

We will be conducting a scaled withdrawal because our plans are coming to fruition and we are winning. And although there will be more US casualties before we win, those will reinforce victory, not be added to the rolls of the defeated. Already much of Basra is pacified after the British have withdrawn, Al Qaeda in Iraq is crippled and has no prospects of re-building, casualties country-wide are at their lowest in years and momentum is solidly in our favor. I  know where these folks got their defeatism and it is sad that we have taken as long as we have to unscrew ourselves, but their voices sound eerily out of context and time. This OpEd should have been published last year.

Now we fight a battle scarcely recognizable from this trip down bad memory lane. They end with a fair statement.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

I choose Victory!

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