From the current Weekly Standard: "Among the many intelligent and forceful criticisms of the meretricious Baker-Hamilton report, THE SCRAPBOOK's favorites have been from soldiers, ranging from lieutenant colonels to sergeants…. First, listen to T.F. Boggs (check out his blog), a 24-year-old sergeant in the Army Reserves, back home from his second deployment to Iraq:
After watching the Iraq Study Group press conference today, I am a firm believer that all politicians are idiots. Okay well not all of them but they all have a problem understanding reality. . . . The Iraq Study Group's findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant 'Death to America' and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorist-supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism! If I am the only one who finds something wrong with that, then please let me know because right now I feel like I am the only person who feels this way. Not only are the findings of the ISG a joke but the people who led the group (Baker and Hamilton) treat soldiers like they are a joke. One of the main recommendations of the ISG is to send more troops to Iraq in order to train Iraqis so they can secure their own country. But they don't feel that we are doing a good job of that right now because training Iraqis isn't an attractive job for soldiers to do because it isn't a 'career advancing' job. As someone who trained Iraqis from time to time I take personal offense to this remark. In my experience soldiers clamored for the chance to train Iraqis. . . . I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24-year-old, but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn't fast food--you can't have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in its entire history takes time, and when I say time I don't mean four years. Talking doesn't solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do, and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofascists sucks more.
Then there were these thoughts emailed to a friend from an active-duty Marine lieutenant colonel now serving in Iraq:
From what I see here in Iraq, the rats are abandoning a sinking ship. Rummy has cut/run, and us slobs out here are on our own. Saw the Iraq Group's recommendations. Sure would hate to be one of these 'embedded' trainers in an Iraqi unit when the support of U.S. forces leave. Can you say POW??? These clowns, especially Hamilton, are clueless. Either we stay and fight, or we leave with everyone. We lose Marines everyday. It sucks. But we're kicking the sh-- out of the Muj when it comes to combat. They don't have a chance if they stand and fight. IED's are their only real hope. I see only a small slice of the war, but for my money, more troops is the answer. It's a shame to think that after all the blood and effort here, we're going to walk away with our tails between our legs, just so that the Dems can say 'I told you so,' and get their man/woman in the White House in '08.
True, they don't offer 79 recommendations, but we'll stack the wisdom of these two up against any number of Washington eminences."