Say Anything Blog

Which is a headline written to make you think that this guy is angry that they’re still in Iraq, but the reality is that this commander thinks his troops can come home because the war is won.

WASHINGTON – Iraq is stable enough to allow the roughly 22,000 U.S. Marines there to withdraw, the service’s top general said Friday.
“The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq,” said Marine Corps Commandant James Conway.

That war has become largely a nation-building mission rather than the pitched fighting in which the Marine Corps excels, Conway said.

Conway said he wants to see up to 20,000 Marines deployed instead to the building fight in Afghanistan, especially in the south where insurgents and the Taliban and al-Qaida benefit from both a nearby safe haven and booming trade in narcotics.

“When you’ve got those two elements you’ve got the potential for a long-term insurgency,” he said. “That’s where the Marines ought to be. That’s what we offer the nation,” he said.

Re-deploying Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan seems like a smart move to this observer, but let’s pause for a moment and appreciate why these Marines are able to leave Iraq and go to Afghanistan.

We won in Iraq by ignoring the incessant defeatism of people like Barack Obama and liberal talking heads in the media and following the leadership of President Bush and people like General David Petraeus.  To put it bluntly, we won despite people like Obama and Pelosi and Harry Reid and because of people like President Bush and David Petraeus. 

But the latter will never get the credit they deserve.