Would you follow your Senator into battle?

This article can be found at the Christian Science Monitor. Congress has decided to form a bipartisan panel to determine a course of action for the ongoing conflict in Iraq. This is the ‘plan’ that everyone so highly speaks of. The consensus seems to be that there must be a middle-ground compromise, somewhere between our current situation and outright withdrawal of forces, and this committee will somehow discover that compromise.

I want the reader to look at the members of the panel that are listed. Read it two or three times if necessary. What’s missing? How about military expertise. Of all the members of the panel the closest thing to military expertise is a former secretary of defense. This is quite revealing.

I wonder if Congress ever got involved in the decision making of World War II. Who played a bigger role in planning the invasion of Europe…Congress or Ike? Did Patton and Montgomery get their orders from a senator or a ‘blue-ribbon panel’? This is insane. It confirms that this war is becoming more and more political. Has Vietnam taught us nothing?

Politics has no business in war. War is about killing people and destroying things, and doing it better and more efficient than the enemy. Politics is about pleasing the voters and trying not to anger too many people. Can you see how the two shouldn’t be mixed? And now we’re supposed to buy into this ‘blue-ribbon panel’ who is going to come up with an ideal plan for Iraq without any input from our military leaders?

The ones who should be developing a plan for Iraq are the Generals and Colonels who have done this all their life. They have the answer, not Congress. If we trust our politicians to achieve victory then we should expect disappointment with the results…we should expect defeat. Our politicians are 0-1 when it comes to waging war. Let the military fight their fight. Turn them lose on the enemy. If we do this, then outright victory won’t be far off.