FOURTEEN YEAR OLD BOYS AND THE GENERAL

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bob Mulholland
Campaign Advisor,
California Democratic Party

General David Petraeus will issue a report in September claiming that the “Surge” (which in late 2006, Bush Jr. had led us to believe was just a temporary increase in troops) is “working” in some areas because it has reduced violence. Sure! Petraeus knows his report means little in the BIG scheme of things, but he is under orders from Karl Rove to spin, spin, spin!

In reality, the Surge is nothing but a smokescreen. The real issue, after almost five years in Iraq, is, when will our U.S. troops be redeployed out of Iraq?

It’s time to take the training wheels off the elected Iraqi government – who (despite this September deadline) are taking a vacation for the entire month of August to go somewhere cool (perhaps Paris or London), because it’s just “too hot in Baghdad!”

My own view is that the Iraqi Parliament is just another smokescreen – one that is covering up the fact that Iraq -- a country created by British colonialism, with Kurds (non-Arabs), Sunnis and a plurality of Shias (only 15 percent of the one billion plus Muslims in the world are Shias) -- needs an international political solution with adult supervision, something Bush Jr., Rove and their team are incapable of providing. A military solution will never work, as General Patraeus himself has said.

American “military intelligence” is an oxymoron. To best understand the insurgency we should hear from average Iraqi boys – some separate focus group of 14-year-old Sunni and Shia boys, especially those who have mothers and sisters at home – it would benefit all of us. Put these Iraqi boys in a comfortable studio for some Q&A with people they respect and trust and General Petraeus would get the most accurate and honest analysis of what America’s occupation of Iraq really means -- and what the future holds for Americans in Iraq.