Monday Morning Generaling
Insurgents have figured out how to shoot down our helicopters. That is bad news. Worse news is that our response it to “adjust” our tactics when the only adjustment that makes sense is to adjust ourselves out of Iraq.
Tactics being adjusted after helicopters downed
Monday, 5 February, 2007, 08:34 AM Doha Time
BAGHDAD: The US military is adjusting its tactics in Iraq after four helicopters were shot down over the past two weeks, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said yesterday.
Caldwell said the helicopters had been shot down in four separate incidents in which 21 US servicemen and private security contractors were killed, confirming earlier witness reports and leaks from within the US military. Dozens of US helicopters have come down, some of them hit by missiles or gunfire, in four years of fighting.
But the unusually high number of helicopters lost in such a short time had raised questions about whether militants had changed tactics or were using more sophisticated weapons.
Instead of redeployment, brace yourself for the Bush administration and it’s apologists in the Washington Times (and right here in Delaware) to claim that this proves we need to bomb IRAN.
“CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.”
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
What is your point? That Clinton was wrong to use air strikes?
I doubt it. I’m sure you were a big Clinton supporter when Saddam stopped allowing the UNSCOM inspections. I bet you were just in love with the way Clinton’s air strikes and clarified Saddam’s thinking about the utility of inspections.
I bet you never said “wag the dog,” or any of that other nonsense that Republicans were spewing at the time.