TO THE EDITOR:
Your piece on the Iraq War was well-timed and, I am sure, well-intended. Here are a couple of important items you overlooked.
1) Donald Rumsfeld is the chief architect of the disastrous campaign. He did not dedicate enough troops to hold taken territory. The subsequent power vacuums were quickly filled by mujahideen, and those territories had to be re-taken again and again (i.e. Fallujah). This failure is further underscored by the success of “The Surge” under Robert Gates.
2) The Saddam Hussein regime served an underappreciated role in keeping Iran’s regional ambitions in check. No sooner did the Baathists fall, then the Ayatollah began to rattle a long-silent saber.
I have long believed the greatest enemy of America today is America 50 years ago. Current global hot spots are the toxic residue of McCarthy-era America’s ham-fisted attempts to stall the march of communism (i.e. Central America, Korea). I wonder now if we have sown the seeds of the next 50-year American headache. I served in Afghanistan and am proud of my service. It was the right call to drive the Taliban, and their twisted theology, out. It was also the right call to drive Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, but that action (and the Saudis refusal to accept his help) served as the catalyst that drove Osama Bin Laden to launch his campaign of terror against America mostly while sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan ... a country they took over after America intervened ... to stall the march of communism ... leaving a power vacuum.
Ed Purchase
Department of Public Safety
