Owen West, NYT: Why Obama’s Plan to Send Advisers to Iraq Will Fail
LAST week President Obama approved an additional 450 troops to join the roughly 3,000 already in Iraq. Living inside secure bases nicknamed “lily pads,” they will train Iraqi soldiers for a few weeks via lecture and drill instruction. The graduates will then be sent outside the wire to fight the Islamic State.
This strategy is no more resolute than a lily pad, and our generals know it. It is tokenism that reflects confusion at the top, and it will fail.
Mr. Obama has declared that advisers are not combat troops. But in fact, to influence battlefield performance, the adviser’s first job is to set the example in combat. The goal is to instill in the local force a sense of professional aggression — of seizing the offense — that must be demonstrated firsthand.
WNU Editor: You cannot win a war when much of the population and government does not want to fight let alone be trained .... Top U.S. Military Leaders Testify On The Crisis In Iraq.
1 comment:
US forces will continue to train the enemy. A US soldier fought in Afghanistan in the early days and was shipped out to Iraq to support that invasion. When he returned to Afghanistan he was amazed to see how efficient the Taliban had become over three years in strategies and tactics, many of which were US based.
The fact that so many trainees deserted, about 20% per year with their weapons and uniforms, and with the over all improvement in field performance, given the new acquired training and knowledge provider by the American tax payer, it would suggest that he was correct in his assumption that the US was training the enemy.
So train the Iraqi army at your own risk and hope that the young guys you are training are nursing a hatred for the US inspired by past actions. You know blue on blue.
Remember these are people who value blood feuds and pass on the obligation for revenge down through the future generations. I have heard it said that they inherit a blood feud with the same enthusiasm you or I might inherit the family cottage.
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