Christian Democrats in the United States

Global Issues - Iraq

The U.S. mission should be to bring Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the table to stop the balkanization of Iraq. Front-line troops should be empowered with effective body armor, armored vehicles and more non-lethal weapons, as well as discretionary humanitarian budgets. Every single field soldier should be required to work on training courses for local languages and criminal justice, each at least a half hour a day five days a week.

The U.S. should loan against oil futures to Iraq for public works employment in the style of the New Deal, beginning with the Hanging Gardens, and should equip Iraqi police forces adequately with trackable equipment. Offensive sieges of Iraqi cities only serve to recruit more resistance and must come to an end by pushing Iraqi forces into greater responsibility now. The U.S. must develop a withdrawal timeline that allows us peace with honor in Iraq but will not leave the Iraqi people to suffer at the hands of religious terrorists.

World War I started in the Balkans area of eastern Europe when small fighting factions got the support of different major European powers. Because those major powers were ruled by short-sighted idiots with big egos and personal agendas who refused to talk directly to each other, all of Europe collapsed into war. We cannot let this happen anywhere in a nuclear age. The United States can talk civilly with its rivals without sacrificing our values. It is impossible to negotiate with terrorists, but nevertheless, lines of communication should not be closed, to leave the door open for reasonable people caught up in the war who want to return to peaceful society.

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Sunday, May 6, 2007 2:43 PM

language training

Making all troops practice language training a half hour a day five days a week is the key to any kind of success in Iraq. It is an inexpensive measure that could take the form of photo CD-rom trainers or even textbooks. There is no need to waste millions on high-tech 3-D simulation pork projects. All that is needed is leadership issuing this requirement. We believe in the human beings standing in those boots, and we should empower them to do their jobs. Talk of our democratic values is empty if the troops are blind, deaf and dumb to the world where we sent them.

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