Secretary of Garbage Production

by eriposte

Donald Rumsfeld on Faux News attacking Rep. John Murtha:

DONALD RUMSFELD…[W]e also have to understand that our words have effects, and put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we’re going to pull out precipitously or immediately as some people have proposed. Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they’re doing makes sense if that’s the idea, if that’s the debate…Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder, maybe all we have to do is wait, and we’ll win. We can’t win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States.

I've previously discussed the Bush administration's 'wait them out' theory of terrorist success before. Since this brain fart [thanks to Gen. Zinni for having created the phrase] is being recycled to attack Rep. Murtha, let's say it again - perhaps a little more slowly this time.

If we set a timetable, say, of 2 years for withdrawal, does anyone really think that terrorists in Iraq are going to sit around sipping tea and "wait us out" for 2 years?

After all, "waiting out" the American withdrawal would mean that the American forces would have ample opportunity to actually train Iraqi forces in the meantime, to fight the terrorists who would mysteriously scale down their operations while "waiting out" the American forces. Training that can occur without disruptions like daily suicide bombings and deaths of American troops, of Iraqi civilians and of Iraqi armed forces working with American forces. A "wait them out" lull would actually allow a modicum of security, democracy and reconstruction to get firmly established without a constant threat of bombings and killings.

So, it is decidedly against the interests of terrorists to "wait us out". If anything, a timetable announcement would only make them more desperate to try and prove that a withdrawal would leave Iraq destabilized. It is in their interest to keep Americans in Iraq because this would allow them to poison the Iraqi population against Americans and to continue their strong terrorist recruitment.

After all, here is what Paul Wolfowitz once said:

[The] presence [of American troops in Saudi Arabia] over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government...It's been a huge recruiting device for al-Qaeda.

(Not to mention, the whole point behind the "fighting them there so that we don't fight them here" brain fart from the Bushies, in response to concerns that the American presence in Iraq was turning out to be a terrorist-magnet, was that American troops there would attract more of the terrorists into Iraq.)

So, let's be straight with the American people on this. Whether or not a timetable based withdrawal is appropriate is worthy of discussion (and there are good reasons why a withdrawal - like the one suggested by Gen. Casey to Rumsfeld - may have more merit than keeping the troops in Iraq indefinitely). But let's not mix brain farts with facts.