Correspondence
Correspondence Al Qaeda's Vietnam? In "No Third Way in Iraq" (Nov. 13) Frederick W. Kagan mischaracterizes those who have advocated a policy of strategic redeployment as a way to deal with the...
...and, most ominously, 61 percent approve of attacks on Americans...
...Frederick W. Kagan responds: Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis have given up on Iraq...
...troops are not the main irritant is demonstrably false...
...Additionally, 78 percent believe the U.S...
...forces back to bases will accelerate sectarian violence, he ignores that the pullback is already happening and that much of what Kagan suggests will happen is already occurring, even with U.S...
...Korb and Katulis offer no evidence that anything good will come from a withdrawal, because there is no such evidence to be had...
...troops present...
...Their discussion of "incentiv-izing" Iraqis is simply cover for accepting defeat...
...Their numbers can be drawn down simply by not replacing units on a one-to-one basis when their tour in Iraq is completed...
...13) Frederick W. Kagan mischaracterizes those who have advocated a policy of strategic redeployment as a way to deal with the quagmire in Iraq...
...As seen by the recent battle for Baghdad, where only two of the six Iraqi brigades showed up, without an Iraqi government that the Iraqi public and its security forces believe in, more training or more American logistical support will have little effect...
...Today's Arab terrorists are not the first to encourage children to take part in violence...
...When Kagan argues that pulling U.S...
...Most major surveys of Iraqis show an increasing number of all Iraqis approving of attacks on U.S...
...But what would happen if we left...
...The United States is not simply dealing with only one security challenge in Iraq but five: a Shiite-Sunni civil war in Baghdad and Central Iraq, intra-Shiite conflict in the south, a Sunni insurgency in the west, Arab-Kurdish violence in the north, and instability on Iraq's northern border...
...71 percent want us out within a year...
...military presence is probably causing more violence than it is preventing...
...At a press conference in 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt pointed out that one of the most frightening omens of German aggression was the message of militarism and martyrdom the Nazis were imparting to German children...
...They point out that sectarian violence is already rising even with U. S. troops there...
...Penn's Halloween Party Your Nov...
...Ed Koch New York, N.Y...
...13 Scrapbook item about a University of Pennsylvania student who dressed up for Halloween as an Arab suicide bomber mentioned that "sympathizers of suicide-bombers in the Middle East routinely show solidarity with their 'freedom fighters' by dressing children up in the same type of costumes, complete with plastic dynamite and fake AK-47s...
...Not many people paid attention to those warning signs in the 1930s...
...Rafael Medoff The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies Washington, D.C...
...The Army has even struggled to maintain its enlisted numbers, lowering its standards and granting waivers to almost one out of every five recruits and cutting in half the number who wash out in basic training...
...Kagan's claim that the U.S...
...We may or may not win if we stay in Iraq...
...They're the ones who can't leave and can't win," because 94 percent of the Iraqis do not support them...
...and coalition troops constitute the majority of all attacks, and that there are more attacks on coalition troops than in the past...
...If we leave now, we will definitely lose...
...Lawrence Korb Brian Katulis Center for American Progress Washington, D.C...
...Will our generation repeat that mistake...
...The recent testimony of the CENTCOM commander and the directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency—and ample evidence from countless soldiers now in Iraq—make it clear: Sectarian violence will soar, the government and army will collapse, and regional chaos and conflict will ensue...
...The purpose of redeployment is to give the Iraqi political leaders the incentives to make the political compromises necessary to, as Kagan notes, "undertake painful and difficult political bargaining" that will create an Iraqi government that the Iraqi security forces will be willing to fight and die for...
...Quite right—because the coalition is making no direct effort to establish security that would halt that violence...
...To illustrate his point, FDR told an anecdote about a little German boy so inculcated with Nazi propaganda that each night he prayed, "Dear God, please permit it that I shall die with a French bullet in my heart...
...Kagan underestimates the impact of the war on the U.S...
...Redeploying from Iraq is in our national interest: Not only will it allow us to put more forces into Afghanistan and ensure that we have a military option for dealing with Iran and North Korea, it will weaken al Qaeda...
...The failure of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army to adequately "stand up" is a direct result of our open-ended commitment to fostering a culture of dependency...
...Furthermore, the recent GAO report on Iraq shows that attacks on U.S...
...troops leave (this is especially true among Sunni Arabs...
...national security...
...troops and believing the security situation will be better if U.S...
...Two-thirds of the active U.S...
...Kagan also overstates the logistical difficulties of redeploying American forces...
...Army combat units are currently classified as not ready for combat, and the Army National Guard is in even worse shape...
...As Ralph Peters wrote on November 2 in USA Today, Iraq is "al Qaeda's Vietnam...
...Army and overstates the impact of a strategic redeployment on U.S...
Vol. 12 • November 2006 • No. 11
