Reply #3: Oh, no, guys -- we totally agree on this!

[beachmom]

What I was giving you was the "military" solution for staying in Iraq and "winning". It's impossible. It'll never happen. What * is doing now is losing slowly. Kerry is suggesting that we lose more quickly with less casualties. If you are familar with Tal Afar (which was a success), you will see what was needed to secure one town -- 1,000 troops, and constant diplomacy by military officers. Even then, there was still incredible hatred between the Sunnis and Shiites. But they're not doing that in the rest of the country, which is why there is so much uncontrolled violence in Baghdad.

But you need to know the pro-war arguments. I am SO ready for somebody to say "we would be abandoning the Iraqis" if we pull out. Then I will recite to them those 6 things for their theory to work. How many people are going to say "oh, yeah, let's double the troops in Iraq". They won't. And as far as Vietnam goes, Kerry was critical because they didn't do ANY of those counterinsurgency tactics. They just went on the Swift Boats on pointless patrols and free fire zones shooting at anything, and alienated the population. Kerry could have done a "Tal Afar", and done a brilliant job doing it. But that's not what he was ordered to do.

In order to do real counterinsurgency warfare, you need a LOT of boots on the ground. NOBODY wants that. So that means we fail. And even if we DID boots on the ground, we'd probably also fail without an airtight agreement between the three parties.

The Sunnis and Shiites will continue to fight each other after we leave -- 100s of thousands may die AFTER we leave. And that will be our shame. Because we opened that can of worms. Even if every last foreign Jihadi goes home, the Sunnis and Shiites will still kill each other, and the criminals and terrorists (those who thrive on chaos) will run the place even moreso than they do now. Because you know the Iraqis have now learned the tools of the trade from the foreign Jihadis. THAT can of worms was also opened.