From The Department Of Hey! Y’Never Know!

by tristero

From The New Republic:

No one is in a position to say for sure whether or not the new focus on counter-insurgency and its implementation in Bagdad and Anbar province is going to work.

Wrong. I’m in a position to say that it wont work.

How do I know? For an American escalation to have even the slightest chance of a positive outcome in Iraq, everything that history, psychology, and personal experience teaches us about human behavior would have to be wrong. Since that is not the case, the escalation will succeed only in increasing the misery of American and Iraqi mothers while exacerbating an intensifying civil war.

But if there is the slightest glimmer of hope in these grim times, it lies in part in the learning that has been going on in the army.

And the army, from single troops to generals, has learned – although truth be told, they knew this before the invasion – that an escalation will only make things worse.

It may be that the accumulated weight of past mistakes is too great to overcome. But perhaps not.

And it may be that I will lose the $50,000,000 state lottery. But perhaps not. Better buy $20,000 worth of tickets. Hey, y’never know!

Oh, and Jeff? Since you’re willing to entertain the notion an escalation is a good idea, why don’t you encourage your students at U Maryland to join the growing movement among privileged youth to enlist? They could come back from Iraq in one piece.

But perhaps not.