7 May 2009
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Using Trained Killers to Improve your Economy | |
General Petraeus succinctly captured the progress and challenges of the US military surge in Iraq, and afterwards, in his remarks published in the December 2008 edition of ARMY magazine (I get the news a little late here!). I found particular relevance in his observation:
Certainly it’s a good thing that we didn’t suddenly pull out of Iraq in the midst of gaining momentum, the upward spiral! And we do have some hard deadlines we’re meeting in accordance with the Iraqi legislation and at the request of our Iraqi partners, including a requirement to have combat troops out of the cities by the end of June. The amazing part to me, though, is that the US Military, trained in the management of violence, is making a real difference in the economic stability of this country. In 2003, the objection was that “we’re not really trained to be economic development agents, we’re trained to kill” but the answer really is, “Who else is capable of pulling this off?” You need a huge force to squash the violence, but do so in partnership with the host nation, and phase your own withdrawal so that more and more, it is the host nation that is taking care of itself. “But we’re Americans! We want a quick fix! Isn’t there a pill we can take? Can’t we just get out of there?” Well, no. We can’t. We’re Americans, and we’re trained to do the right thing. |
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Army Deployment , General | |
posted by henry at 04:08 | trackbacks [0] |