Sometimes being right is no fun at all. Two weeks ago I wrote,
It is extremely worrisome to see two helicopters go down in Iraq in just the past week . . . part of the cost of occupation is a gradual leveling of the military playing field. The enemy is learning while our government forces our troops to remain with no objective, no coherent plan, and no exit strategy. Without our operations in Iraq, it would take anti-American fighters years, perhaps decades, to try different tactics against our forces and technology. Instead they're getting those opportunities in days or weeks.Yesterday a helicopter was shot down for the fifth time in just 18 days, indicating either profoundly bad strategy by U.S. leadership, increased tactical capabilities by insurgents, or some combination of both. The U.S. is now investigating the trend and apparently is altering regulations, but the broader point remains: the situation in Iraq is not at its nadir, not by a long shot, and the enemy can train and adapt faster than we can because of its familiarity with the territory and the flexibility granted by being decentralized rather than bureaucratic.
Our continued presence enables this training and terroristic evolution . . . and to what end?
