Responding to an Email

Can you believe GB is sending 22K more troups, I am
sickened...what are your thoughts, I might just vote
an independent ticket next time.  People are starting
to protest even here in Flagstaff.

Dear XXXX

The weather is indeed a headache this year, and not making adaptation any easier. I'm getting by, and any time there's this crap with wind thrown in, it makes power iffy, even here in XXXX. I am hoping that we return to a more normal cycle, but this seems typical of our periodic odd years up here...and it's been long enough since we did it last, we're probably about due.

Come the spring, we're looking at getting a *real* slab-mounted diesel generator ($6950, 35kw, 12hr under full load before fueling) mounted out back with the appropriate isolation switch installed to give the folks a more reliable electrical situation. As they age, this could become increasingly important, and I rather tend to favor dealing with the notion while NOT in crisis.

The job hunt continues.

As far as GB's "surge" goes, the primary fault that I find is that it is much, much too small (much as was our initial investment of troops). 20,000 troops does not overwhelming force make.

I would argue that since "we broke it, we bought it" we are more or less morally obligated to a departure strategy in Iraq more closely comparable to that of the Marshall Plan and W. Germany than to repeating the Vietnam Debacle.

That said, if we're going to be mucking about over there, let us emit the necessary shrill scream and activate more of the Guard, Reserve, and the Individual Ready Reserve - because to successfully and in an organized and low casualty fashion depart Iraq, we need to summon truly overwhelming force - much as the more honest and less political generals have been telling us from square one.

Post-scream, we need to task roughly 150,000 to 200,00 ground troops to Iraq (or more) and rather ruthlessly crush the insurgents while strongly reinforcing the Iraqi economy. At the same time, we would be well-served to re-implement the Liberty Pistol program of WWII over much of the Middle East and Korea. (I.e., 2-3 really cheap single-shot pistols for every house, making tyranny a bit more exciting for those that would practice it.

Finally, I favor partitioning Iraq into three nations - Kurdestan (hell, we could pull out of there yesterday with darned few concerns), a Shiite sector, and a Sunni sector. The last two are likely to love each other about as much as India and Pakistan do, but the upshot is that by largely separating the combatants and giving them their own turf, they are likely to be far to occupied w/ domestic issues to get adventuresome. Iraq has always been a bit of an artificial construct held together by force and guile in any case...let us simply remove the force.

Best,