Firing back at a white flag

At the risk of violating Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, I received a pair of letters from Congressman Gilchrest during the last week or so. They both explained his thoughts on the situation in Iraq and addressed to some extent my reaction to his vote on H. Con. Res. 63. My reacting to this in a public way may not make my cohorts on the Central Committee happy but it’s time for me once again to put principle above party.

However, I realized upon looking at both of them that one is on Congressional letterhead (thus a public document) and the other is “Authorized by Gilchrest for Congress” so it’s more of a personal nature. So I’m only going to retype the Congressional one and post my thoughts on it, plus this will also likely serve as part of my response to the other one. The fact I had two different letters didn’t occur to me because these went to two separate addresses (one went to my old address and was forwarded) and arrived a couple days apart – I just assumed they were two copies of the same letter until I looked closer. Regardless, most of you know I’m passionate on the issue and occupy the opposite (correct) side. The letter reads as follows, the only exception being I cannot underline passages on WordPress thus those underlined parts on the original will be in bold font. Italics on the original are in standard font on this post.

February 27, 2007

Mr. Michael Swartz

(address)

Dear Mr. Swartz:

As you know, I recently cast a vote on the floor of the United States House of Representatives in favor of a resolution that both expresses my complete and unwavering commitment to our American troops, but also to signal my opposition to a surge in troop levels in Iraq.

I understand that some may disagree with this vote and the potential implication it has both domestically and internationally, which is why I wanted to give you my detailed thinking on this issue.

Before we can discuss the implication of the recently passed resoultion, it is important to understand the exact text of the resolution which simply states:

“Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops in Iraq.”

This vote had absolutely no impact on funding for our troops.

This is a message to the Administration that we need to go back to the drawing board. I have spent the last several months meeting with Middle East experts, military leaders, Administration officials, soldiers just back from the field, and my constituents. After a long period of prayer, soul searching and sitting through the funerals of many, many of our local fallen heroes, I reached the conclusion that an escalation of military force in Iraq is not in our best interest.

First, it is important to understand that the proposed “surge” is a misconception. We are not adding fresh troops into the picture. We are accomplishing the “surge” through the early and redirected deployment of troops in other areas, and by involuntarily extending the stays of troops already in Iraq. This strategy will depart from the traditional rotation and deployment procedures that are designed to prevent udue burdens on our servicemen, and to ensure adequate troop training and equipment preparedness. I have concerns that extended and altered deployment rotations will put an even worse strain on our soldiers already on the ground and on our already overextended military.

Second, I believe this “surge” is ill-advised on a military level. By comparison, when I served in Vietnam, a country half the size of Iraq, a “surge” of troops meant more than 100,000 new soldiers at a time. In Germany during World War II, Allied forces comprised nearly 3 million men in a nation roughly the size of Iraq. A proposed “surge” of only 20,000 troops will have minimal impact on our ability to operate in that theater, yet will ceratinly result in the unnecessary loss of additional American lives.

Third, this “surge” sends the wrong message at the wrong time and will embolden the insurgents who use the American occupation as their most effective recruiting tool. Under the current circumstances, we are spending most of our time fighting militant factions of an old Saddam-led Iraqi army that are angry over losing their power to brutalize the people of Iraq. To increase troops would only enflame those factions and cause more unrest in the region.

The purpose of our involvement now should be to eliminate any possibility of Al Qaeda and other radical terrorist groups from gaining a foothold inside Iraq – but instead we are being drawn into and distracted by an Iraqi civil war.

The sad fact is that more and more Iraqis see American troops as occupiers, not liberators. The proposed increase in troop levels provides an even greater rallying point for insurgents, and by sending a message such as the recent vote in Congress on that resolution, we can help dispel our image as occupiers and begin to break down the best recruitment tool of the terrorists. Therefore this vote in fact may be the best message to end the violence in Iraq.

The reality is that the U.S. made a grave miscalculation from the beginning. It was not a military miscalculation, but a cultural miscalculation. Iraqis have little historical basis or understanding of a democratic form of government. Thousands of years of history in that region have sent the unfortunate message that you are either in power and you rule with an iron fist, or you are not in power and you are slaughtered. There is no experience in shared government, and after decades of brutal leadership under Saddam Hussein, there is no motivation for the minority Sunni insurgents to lay down arms and participate in the Iraqi government.

Now the country has escalated to the point where the country is threatening to come apart at the seams. And unless we change our policy and begin to talk to Iran and Syria, we will see these neighboring countries come into this civil war to protect their own interests and security. We cannot in good conscience stand by and enable this continued sacrifice of American lives on a policy that is destined for failure.

I recognize that after all of these serious considerations, there may be some who say that while they may agree with our reasoning, it is not right to disagree with my party or our President during a time of international conflict. But we should never fear to exercise the freedoms that make our nation so great.

I have strongly believed that debate and discussion of this critical issue in our Congress is a show of seriousness and resolve to protect our troops and advance the interests of our great nation. We are a nation of liberty and freedom. Only in tyrannical dictatorships such as North Korea and Cuba is debate suppressed. We must embrace and exercise our freedoms, with the understanding that all sides of this important debate love our nation and support our fighting men and women.

I know that when I was sitting in the jungles of Vietnam as a soldier, my greatest hope was that our leaders back home were informed, responsible, and honest enough to find a way to end the horrible war in which we were engaged while protecting the people of the United States. And after many visits with American troops both in Iraq and in the United States, I am convinced that our soldiers want nothing more than the same thing today.

I disagree with the notion that debating this resolution somehow harms our troops or sends the wrong message to our enemies. Supporting our troops is about sending them into a situation where we have a viable military strategy, a clear set of goals that can be accomplished.

I will continue to support full funding for our troops at home and abroad. But without clear signs of progress, I cannot support sending more of our young men and women into the battlefield without a viable plan.

It is time to honestly and responsibly evaluate our original mission, and realize that we accomplished our task of ending the brutal reign of Saddam Hussein and provided the basis for a functioning, democratically-elected government, but that Iraq is now engaged in a civil war U.S. military force alone cannot resolve.

In the end, I understand that we may not reach the same conclusion and that some in my party may continue to disagree. But this is an issue that has and will continue to literally determine the fate of thousands of American lives, and the future security of our nation.

The U.S. is at a critical juncture in Iraq. I don’t believe that the current policy can yield the results we desire, and that an escalation in military troops to police a civil war would be a mistake. Our next step requires more than just an increase in troops, but demands new tactics and a reformation of strategic, political, and diplomatic efforts. My vote last week was the first step for a new direction.

I thank you for taking the time to read this message, and I appreciate your advice, counsel and feedback on this or any other issue.

Sincerely,

Wayne T. Gilchrest

Member of Congress

As you may guess, I still have several objections to this well-meaning and well-argued communication I received.

First, let’s look at the resolution as it was presented. While this is true that it did not affect funding for our troops, many Democrats considered this just the first step in eventually dictating terms in such a way that President Bush had no choice but to withdraw from Iraq in defeat (much like Vietnam.) By proving with his vote that they’ll cross the aisle to support this first measure, Gilchrest and his sixteen Republican cohorts that voted for the resolution create a crack in the GOP’s traditional support for the Long War. Moreover, there are many other devious ways that progress toward our goals in the greater war may be impeded which have nothing to do with funding. Gilchrest alludes to them when he writes about troop rotation and other personnel issues.

Wayne is correct in a historical sense when he opines that the sheer number of troops that would comprise this surge are rather small. What’s not apparent in his argument is that we do not have to subdue nearly the geographical area in this case. The majority of Iraq is peaceful by most accounts – the Kurdish area in the north is well-behaved, and the partial British pullout in the south around Basra is possible because conditions there have improved to a state where withdrawal is possible. When we speak of Iraqi problems, they usually occur within a reasonable radius of Baghdad proper. So 20,000 troops can go a long way there.

I also have an issue to a point with Gilchrest’s assertion that we are hated as “occupiers”. There will come a day when we can withdraw our troops and return them to America. But in this soldier’s view, we are hated less than the Iranians who provide support and a number of personnel to the opposition are feared. Memories are still fresh in Iraq of fighting the Iranians for most of the decade of the 1980’s, and not only would a U.S. pullout align with Osama bin Laden’s portrayal of America as a “paper tiger”, but leaving would likely create a similar situation to that which Lebanon suffers at the hands of neighboring Syria – Iraq as a puppet state of a much more powerful Iran, with the Iranians gleefully taking their revenge out on the Iraqi people as a ghoulish bonus for the Tehran tyranny. (I find the omission of Iran as a tyrannical dictatorship interesting as well. While Iran may be more of an oligarchy than a true dictatorship, it’s very much the same style of tyranny.)

Probably most of all, I disagree with the Congressman’s thought that we need to talk to Iran and Syria about this situation. He cannot have this both ways: portraying the situation in Iraq as a civil war, yet wishing to discuss things with two countries that have been proven to provide aid and comfort to our enemies. There’s too many fingerprints of Iranian involvement of supplying weaponry to the insurgents for me to doubt that we’re not fighting Iran by proxy, and I’m still of the mind that Syria is complicit in helping Saddam hide some of his WMD stockpiles. Neither of these two countries wish us well, and diplomacy only works well for a party when it is dealing from either a position of strength or, less effectively, as a rough equal to the other party.

Further, in advocating talks with Iran, we’re showing a willingness to discuss this with a country that has thumbed its nose to the United Nations and flat-out lied about its nuclear intentions. Do you, Congressman, really feel they would bargain in good and honest faith with us? By voting for this resolution, Gilchrest has helped to undercut any leverage we would have at the bargaining table. The enemy knows that, in dealing with a group of Americans who don’t have the stomach to stick out this situation when it becomes difficult, they only need to bide their time until they get all that they want and more by outlasting our diligence.

We fought and retreated from the Vietnam War in this manner. It “only” cost 58,000 American lives to achieve what turned out to be a mild defeat (not quite the “domino effect” some predicted) but the effects that followed in the Southeast Asia region led to the slaughter of millions of innocent people.

By voting for the original resolution, and despite the fact that it failed to achieve cloture in the Senate, Gilchrest sent a message to our enemies that our country doesn’t have the stomach to pursue this course regardless of cost. The pullout Democrats truly desire would only lead to a return to Iraq as safe haven for terrorists. And with a nuclear-capable Iran as a terrorist sponsor, I fear we may see events in the next decade that make the tragedies of 9/11 pale in comparison.

Editor’s note: Just looked at the two letters again to file them, and aside from a paragraph at the opening of the letter from the “Gilchrest for Congress” committee (citing me as an opinion leader in the community, no less), the contents ARE the same. So my original thinking was right that I did in essence get two copies of the same letter!