In response to Sam’s earlier post on the President’s new policy in Iraq, I just have one question. What would you have President Bush do?

This is where I go all neocon on you.

This new policy in Iraq is a course correction. Granted it is late, and mistakes have been made, but still it is an attempt at correction. One I hope succeeds. War sucks, and can never be perfect. Robert E. Lee put it best when he said, “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it.”

As for our soldiers in Iraq “getting picked off like they’re first prize in a turkey shoot” is just plain silly. I am not picking on Sam, but we need to discuss this plainly and simply. We have yet to experience major losses in the war on terror. In the Civil War we lost 365,000 men. In WWI, 116,00. 407,000 in WWII. 40,000 in Korea and 58,000 in Vietnam.

So the fact we have lost 3,000 men is not lining them up for a “turkey shoot”. Any death is tragic but we must put this war into the perspective of history. But at what expense? Yes our casualties are low (not by the left’s standards), but we also are not winning. So do we cut and run with our tails between are legs? Or do we correct past mistakes?

In my opinion 20,000 troops is not enough. We currently have 116,000 troops in Europe? Why? All they are doing is helping Germany’s economy. I propose cutting the European force in half and redeploy the rest to Iraq. Put a platoon on every street corner of Baghdad if we have to. Suffocate the insurgency. Of course this will never happen. This proposal would cause the death toll to rise, something the American people do not have the will to do and our Politicians know this all too well.

I believe it was the right decision to go into Iraq. Not for WMDs, or to over through a tyrant, but rather to draw out our enemies. To force them into a single front. That objective has succeeded. Now all that is left is to beat them. Will we win? I have my doubts. I have no lack of competency in our military. My doubt lies in the American people who do not have the will to stand up to Islamic Fascism. Our weak stomachs hamstring our politicians when fighting in a war. Especially a gorilla war like the War on Terrorism.

So what are we to do? President Bush has waged a war in which we did not have enough troops on the ground in Iraq and setbacks have occurred. If the troop surge is not the answer, what is? No one is proposing an alternative plan for success in Iraq. No one. Only defeat.