- BUSH TO EXPAND MILITARY RATHER THAN WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ
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- The sheer audacity of this globalist administration continues
to amaze me. In the face of an election defeat and a building national
sentiment demanding that Bush extricate America from Iraq, President Bush
announces the equivalent of "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
His call to expand the military and order another carrier Task Force to
the Persian Gulf reveals this administration's true intent to continue
antagonizing the Muslim world.
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- As the Washington Post reported, "In a wide-ranging
session in the Oval Office, the president said he interpreted the Democratic
election victories six weeks ago not as a mandate to bring the U.S. involvement
in Iraq to an end but as a call to find new ways to make the mission there
succeed. He confirmed that he is considering a short-term surge in troops
in Iraq, an option that top generals have resisted out of concern that
it would not help."
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- Obviously, if the president was really serious about
winding down the war in Iraq as soon as possible, there would be no necessity
for increasing the overall size of the military. A temporary surge in troops
is not all relevant, if the intent was really a temporary one. After all,
the quickest way to ease the manpower problems of combat fatigue and multiple
deployments to Iraq is to get out of Iraq. If the Bush administration had
any intention of doing so, he would not be pushing to expand the permanent
military.
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- Naturally, the interminable nature of the phony war on
terror provides an almost unlimited excuse to expand military power. Charles
Peña reports, "The U.S. Army's chief of staff, Gen . Peter
J. Schoomaker has admitted what many military analysts have been saying
for some time now: the active duty Army 'will break' as a result of the
Iraq deployment. But with roughly a half million men and women in the active
duty Army, how is it that 152,000 troops currently deployed in Iraq could
push the Army to the brink? The answer lies in troop rotations."
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- Yes and no. Troop deployments are tough on morale more
than anything - especially when few troops do not feel they are doing something
worth the sacrifice in Iraq. But deployments are especially tough on reservists
and the employers that have to keep jobs open for them to return. But will
the existing Army really "break" under existing circumstances?
Hardly. Few people realize that only a small percentage of troops in Iraq
are combat troops - some 25,000 out of 150,000. Even the Iraqi vice president
complained about this predominance of logistic, service, and administrative
troops in Iraq.
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- Ultimately, the mix of troops or their deployment efficiency
is not the crucial issue. The key issue is whether or not the Iraq problem
can even be solved with military power only. LA Times columnist William
Arkin says that Bush is addicted to the military option. That is only true
because of the hidden globalist motives that drive this administration.
Arkin either does not understanding what the globalists are up to or is
concealing his knowledge of those underlying motives to create worldwide
conflict [my comments in brackets]:
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- "More Troops? Come on. Five years after Sept. 11,
barely five weeks after a losing election, the President of the United
States decides America needs a larger military? These guys can't see past
today's events to craft a strategy for tomorrow. [On the contrary, they
see very well what they are doing (creating conflict) and its working].
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- "They say that the Army and Marine Corps has been
stretched to a breaking point, that more troops are needed to fight the
'long war' against global terrorism. I might be convinced that America
might need a larger (or different) military to address the challenges it
will face in the future. But what it needs FIRST is to get out of the Iraq,
a move that would instantly alleviate the pressures on today's military.
[Indeed! But that won't happen].
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- " ... Whether it's Iraq, drugs in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Africa, hurricane Katrina, or the increase in domestic crime it is so clear
only Washington can't see that our tendency to see a military solution
to everything is not only wrong but has had profound negative effects.
... Bush has ordered Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to develop a plan
to add tens of thousands of permanent 'end strength' to the Army and Marine
Corps. [This task was given Gates before he went to Iraq on his first fact-finding
mission, which is telling].
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- "News also came yesterday that Gen. John Abizaid,
the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, plans to retire
in March. The Arabic speaking Abizaid was once seen as a soothing tonic
after the bumbling Gen. Tommy Franks skedaddled from the scene less than
a month after 'victory' in Iraq in 2003. Culturally aware, politically
sensitive, polished, he has reportedly been offered higher posts in the
government. [Any highly placed general who leaves the military and doesn't
blow the whistle on what's going on over there still has aspirations to
be part of the globalist team]."
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- It was this same Abizaid who called for an additional
Navy aircraft carrier in Persian Gulf this week. This action was clearly
aimed at providing a show of force toward Iran. Abizaid claims it is a
"deterrent" and "not aimed at any particular county."
Really? As if Iran was going to pull off some major military attack on
Israel that needed to be deterred. Iran's president may be foolishly throwing
around end-times religious statements to provoke international wrath, but
he isn't stupid enough to start a war. He doesn't have to, knowing that
the US or Israel are intent on doing that soon. The military hardware is
quickly being positioned by the US for just such an attack.
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- Debka.com's analysis tends to agree: "DEBKA file's
military sources report that this request, revealed by a senior Pentagon
official, is the first time in four years that an American general has
asked for a special force as a deterrent for Syria and Iran. Our Washington
sources interpret the publication of Gen. Abizaid's request during the
visit to Iraq of the new defense secretary Robert Gates' and head of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace as indicating that the Bush administration
is heading for a major operation against the two key threats to Iraq's
stability: the Sunni insurgents supported by Syria, and the Shiite militias,
which receive arms, intelligence, and funding from Tehran.
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- "The application to deploy a third carrier in the
Gulf in late March 2007 is a pointer to the projected time line of this
operation. It will confront Tehran and Damascus with the option of direct
intervention to rescue their Iraqi allies, or standing aside. President
George W. Bush is officially reported to have not yet decided on the coming
steps in Iraq. However, the Central Command's application for another carrier
suggests that the decision is more or less final."
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- It does look like the US is going to tackle Iran and
Syria more or less simultaneously sometime this next year. The intervention
inside Iran by special forces is already occurring. But, as Muhammad Sahimi
of The Progressive points out, "If the Bush Administration attacks
Iran, it would be violating the U.N. Charter. And it would also be violating
the Algiers Accord that the United States signed with Iran in 1981 to end
the hostage crisis. Point I, paragraph 1, of that accord states, 'The United
States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United
States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily,
in Iran's internal affairs.'"
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- Syria, like Iran is the target of political intervention
and destabilization as well. Time Magazine revealed this week that "[a]
classified document suggests the Administration is considering a plan to
fund political opposition to the Damascus government. Some critics say
it would be an unwarranted covert action. ... The Bush Administration has
been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government
in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad. Parts of
the scheme are outlined in a classified, two-page document which says that
the U.S. already is 'supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora
Syrian activists' in Europe. The document bluntly expresses the hope that
'these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions
for all anti-Assad activists.'"
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- All the talk about a brief "surge" in troop
numbers adds more fodder to the calls for a larger military - even if no
one has successfully determined how a new massing of troops in Iraq would
accomplish anything different than the failed surge this past August. William
Arkin commented in a different article about this as well:
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- "The first thing that should be understood about
more [troops] though is that adding tens of thousands of troops to the
U.S. military isn't instant. Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that it would take two years
to recruit and train a new division. In other words, it is not about winning
in Iraq now." Correct. It is about getting ready for more military
intervention in the near future.
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- Even our own generals can't agree on a specific mission
such a surge would be applied to, let alone a longer-term coherent strategy
in Iraq. The current set of tactics contain a little bit of everything:
patrolling, checkpoints, training, and lots of logistics and administration.
As the AP reported, "Top generals have expressed concern that even
temporarily shipping thousands of more troops would be largely ineffective
in the absence of bold new political and economic steps, and that it would
leave the already stretched Army and Marines Corps even thinner once the
surge ended. They also worry that it feeds a perception that the strife
and chaos in Iraq is mainly a military problem; in their view it is largely
political, fed by economic distress."
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- Economic stress is certainly a factor and is getting
worse by the day, but it is by no means the main problem. Hatred for opposition
groups and the US occupation is the main issue in Iraq. As more ethnic
violence erupts, the US is increasingly blamed - both for what the US does
wrong (using excessive force in bombing civilians) and what it fails to
do (disarming the various armed groups). If the Iraqis only knew that US
agent provocateurs were secretly supplying the insurgency, directing some
of its leaders, and causing most of the "suicide" car bombings,
the Iraqis would erupt in total rebellion against the US presence.
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- Expect a shakeup in military leadership as a further
manifestation of the ongoing illusions of change in Iraq. According to
the AP, "A shuffle of top American generals in Iraq is likely to accompany
the shift in U.S. policy that President Bush is considering. Army Gen.
John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted
plans to go ahead with a retirement that is months overdue, according to
the U.S. Central Command.
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- "And the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George
Casey, has indicated in recent months that he also may not stay much longer
than the end of this year. Since they have opposed sending more troops
to Iraq, their departures could make it easier for Bush and his new Defense
Secretary Robert Gates to switch course in the troubled campaign, where
they are considering a short-term surge in forces."
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- HOLIDAY GREETING
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- I know the briefs always contain a lot of bad news. That's
the way the world is and you pay me to tell it like it is. Nevertheless,
I don't let things get me down or depressed and you shouldn't either. Our
job is not necessarily to win in the temporal sense, but to do our best
to warn our friends (at least those who sense that something is wrong)
about the grand deceptions of our day. Too many good people are supporting
evil ignorantly because they fail to be rigorous in listening to the promptings
of conscience warning of wolves in sheep's clothing.
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- Thanks to all of you for supporting my efforts to keep
you informed. I'd rather know the full truth and prepare for what's coming
than be happily naive and go cruising into the future blind. Next week's
brief will contain my annual Big Picture view of the world and where it's
headed. Don't miss it. Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.
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- Best, Joel Skousen
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- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com)
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