http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/11/24/who_is_us_kidding/US LEADERS continue to kid Americans about Iraq, and Americans kid themselves. General John Abizaid says the United States needs to get the violence under control in the next four to six months. Aside from the Vietnam-like repetition of a deadline for every US failure to date, followed by the next promise, his proposal for security in Iraq is flawed and unrealistic.
Abizaid wants to embed US trainers and military operators in the Iraqi security force to increase their effectiveness. Of course, that sounds familiar from Vietnam days. Don't we learn anything from history?
Problem one: timing. By the time the right US troops are found to embed and begin to be effective, if they can be, the four-to-six-month clock is up.
Problem two: cultural and linguistic knowledge (which has been a policy flaw for nearly four years). There aren't enough Arabic speakers in the military, so the military has to rely on translators. Time is lost as people simply try to understand each other. Worse, when the US military doesn't understand what is being said, it doesn't understand what is happening. And when what is happening in Arabic is in the hands of people who may work for the other side, the US military has permanently lost the edge. We are not inside the adversary's decision loop; he is inside ours.
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