"The Iraqi "insurgents" are based among a minority of a minority, and are localized geographically, and have no steady source of external supply."
How do you equate that Hitchen comment with General Patreaus' comment that 99% of those arrested were Iraqis?
Wouldn't the two together suggest that some, at least, 90+% of Iraqis would have to be Al-Qaeda?
Now consider .. Hitchens .. and his contention that there are no parallels between Viet Nam and Iraq ..
"President Eisenhower himself had conceded that Ho would have won any possible all-Vietnamese election. The distortions of the Cold War led the United States to take over where French colonialism had left off, to assist in partitioning the country, and to undertake a war that had already been lost."
Re the first part, do you believe that the U.S. would even contemplate allowing full and free elections with no restriction on who can or who cannot stand? Politically they may not concede that the winner would not be their best friend, but certainly there is a case to be made that there is a parallel on that political solution score.
As far as the 2nd manner in which this war might be won there is a clear case of parallel there. Didn't General Eisenhower and General Petreaus say the same thing???
That's Hitchens and this is your TOP GUN, on the ground in Iraq General's sentiments accurately being expressed in your parliament ..
"General Petreaus has said the war cannot be won militarily, he's said that," Reid said.
while, as an aside ..
"And President Bush is doing nothing economically, he's doing nothing diplomatically, he's not doing anything even the minimal requested by the Iraq Study Group, .."
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