By Marty Salo
News Correspondent
Well, folks, if you missed it today, there was a ceremony held at MacDill Air Force Base, in one of the hangars, to formally hand over control of Centcom from General Abizaid to Admiral Fallon. Supposedly there were many four star generals there, as well as lesser generals, and various other high ranking officers.
One of the officers said something to the effect that the turn over of command while we are actively involved in war is something that the American System of military leadership can do well. Me? I'm not so sure what this portends for the future of the conflict in the region.
The fact that parts of the Third ID (out of Fort Hood?) are getting ready to return to theater a bit earlier than they were initially scheduled to may indicate an upswing in tempo and timing.
The fact that the 21,000 combat troops needed to help secure Baghdad does not include the support personnel, is also interesting. The democrats who are wanting to bring our troops home in defeat at any price would be amusing were it not so tragic.
John McCain said that he thought unless we stopped them over there, terrorism and methods employed by insurgents over there, will follow our boys home, and will lead to trouble.
Marty Salo, News Correspondent:
Can We Talk About This?, published every day to Gather Essentials: News is about current news. Marty is 36 years old and lives in sunny Tampa, FL.
You can find all of Marty’s Can We Talk About This? columns at Can We Talk About This?
Keep up with Marty’s other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network -- just click here martysalo.gather.com and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page.
You’ll find Marty and other News Correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of other News experts at News.gather.com
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 11
Great article Marty
1. Oil money is huge. Oil incomes, for countries that have oil, are staggering.
2. Governments are less than stable, and corruption is endemic (and that's being kind).
3. Huge amounts of money, uncontrolled, are available for funding of Islamic extremism.
4. Complete nuclear warheads are available from the broken-up USSR on the black market for around $3 million.
5. It is a stated goal of al Qaeda to set off six simultaneous thermonuclear explosions in six major American cities.
So tell me again how you don't see that bringing about a more stable and less corrupt Iraq could be of benefit to the rational world.
A stable Iraq is only desirable if we are interested in oil. An impeded Al Qaeda is what is needed here - not nation building in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter.
Sure, maybe it would be nice if we had China willing to step up and handle some crises, but be careful for what you wish for.
You're correct in your response to Joe above. All freedom- and peace-loving civilized countries of the world with balls should be working toward a stable Iraq in particular and a stable middle east in general. Those countries without balls refuse to recognize the threat.
Just because I'm against war doesn't mean that those who want to kill me are. Nor does it relieve me of the responsibility to fight or die should they choose to engage me, which, by all outward appearances, they are going to.... Seeing as I have a pair of my own, I will choose to fight in an effort to avoid dying.