Senior Diplomat Accuses U.S. Of Stupidity In Iraq
Alberto Fernandez told al-Jazeera today that, “We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism, because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq.”
Is anyone even slightly upset over this guy’s statement? Frankly, with over 3000 U.S. servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Fernandez’ statement makes me sick. Perhaps I don’t quite understand what he was trying to say, but then again, maybe I do.
Mr. Fernandez, I’m proud of our men and women in uniform; I’m proud of the job they’ve done. They’ve given so much, and for you to make a statement like that …
Alberto Fernandez is the director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
How do you feel about it? Sound off.
Source: al-Jazeera
(Update 10/22/2006 2:17pm): Michelle Malkin has much more on this guy; check it out: al Jazeera’s pet State Department mouthpiece
Oddly enough, having worked in Iraq on-and-off for two years & being a retired US Marine, much of what the article points out is true. Paul Bremer started it all off with the usual DoS arrogant attitude & set the stage for consecutive DoS blunders (They are absolutly terrible at nation building). The military brass has no room to escape accusation either. They continuously refused to bring in adequate troops (some estimates say we needed 350,000) to contain the situation & saturate the country with a military presence (this is currently being supported by Intel officers assessments that perhaps we need even more troops, up to Division strength, in order to succeed at this point, & that is just in Al Anbar province alone). Instead all we received was an almost reversal of the Vietnam strategy (less troops to do an overwhelming job vs. Westmoreland/LBJ’s ‘send more troops & we’ll be home by Xmas…’), but with the same results. “What the Hell are they teaching at the Command & Staff College these days.” Yes, overall I would have to agree with the article’s conclusions…we, as a country, have been very arrogant & have made some really stupid blunders in Iraq. The biggest one seems to have assumed that this “Emergency” would be over in a short period of time (partly to blame is the American people’s short attention span), instead of the actual 12 + years that a counter-insurgency/terrorist action really takes to succeed. Who has suffered from this poor leadership…the American fighting Man & Woman mainly, but with very large losses to the Iraqi population & U.S. credibility in the Mid-East.