Before a troop surge, a competence surge

Nothing in the past 4 years has given me any hope in the competence of the Bush Administration to deal with the situation in Iraq.

What, therefore, would a troop escalation help?

I have played chess before, and had occasionally played with a new learner by giving him a distinct piece advantage. You know, playing without any queen, or no bishops or knights, that kind of thing.

And the first couple of games, I win, because I am competent even though I am at a technical disadvantage. Conversely, my opponent loses despite a considerable advantage in firepower because he is incompetent.

Something similar is happening here. Despite how important winning this conflict in Iraq is, how critical for the safety of the world, yadda yadda yadda, terrorist on our doorstep, yadda yadda, mushroom cloud, yadda, fighing them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, etc., the incompence is ongoing.

If it was so important, Mr. Bush should have done a better job in the first place. If he couldn't do a better job, he should have realized HE and HIS adminstration was the problem, and stepped aside. He should have said "For the sake of the security of America, I realize I have made a mistake I cannot fix, and indeed by me trying to fix, only makes it worse", and stepped aside. Ask Cheney to resign, appoint Gore to the Veep, then resign himself.

Not only is Bush dangerously incompetent, he is unable to realize he is the problem, not the solution.

If most other people had decided to do what he did (invade Iraq), it would have been a competent invasion, one with enough troops, a post-invasion plan, and legions of civil-service workers and military policemen. Iraqi hearts and minds would have been won with employment, basic and advanced public services and utilities, free elections and fair political politices and policies, and law and order in general. The Iraqis would feel empowered and free, not exploited and terrified. They would feel liberated, not occupied.

It could be argued whether invading Iraq in the first place was the act of a competent man, but regardless, it would have been an unwise decision carried out competently and effectively, with a good end result achieved at the end of a short and popular journey.

Mr. Bush, YOU are the problem. You are burdened with the wrong idealology, the wrong advisers, the wrong cabinet members, and the wrong temperment to pull a success out of this. You were burdened with this when you went in, and you remain burdened with this now. In fact, your burden only increases day by day as your credibility and popularity erodes.

Now this cannot be fixed without a massive committment of US troops.

We would need a half-million troops in Iraq for a decade. This means we would need to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to at least 1.5 million men under arms just do deal with occupying Iraq and the required troop rotation.

This would mean we would have to institute a draft. It would mean we would have to increase taxes to pay for the war. It would mean we would have to outlaw war profiteering. It would mean we have to strictly monitor the private contractors to ensure our vital resources are not being wasted. It would mean strict limits on the price of defense hardware to feed the beast in Iraq that consumes men and materiál at a fearful rate.

And it would mean that, after a decade, we would have tens of thousands of dead Americans. Maybe a hundred thousand. About eight million war veterans, a surprisingly large percentage of whom will have mental health problems. That is above and beyond the shattered, damaged, and missing limbs, organs, and minds that will require partial or full disability care, and in some cases, complete nursing home services.

The damage to the Iraqis would be far more immense. We would be fighting them to help them, and millions would die.

And what, by the year 2017, whould we have accomplished?

Why, pretty much exactly what was there March 19, 2003!

We can achieve the exact same result, sooner and cheaper, by withdrawing out of Iraq now, over the next 6-9 months, and letting the Iraqis come to their own system of governing. By the time they settle things down, it will be 2009 or 2010. A new, Democratic president will be in the White House, and the Democratic White House and Congress can work together to re-establish economic and political ties with the new Iraq. With a shiny new "Under New Mangement" sign waving gently in the breeze, and generous villinization of the Bush Adminstration (including orange jump suits and public trials), America can profusely and generously apologize to the Iraqi people. US aid can flood Iraq, funding the Iraqi economy to provide for it's own resurgence and revitalization.

And by 2017, Iraq and America would both be much richer, more populous, and stronger than after an enforced military occupation.