Spreadin’ Love

~ Laura

Sam Crane points to an article in the Washington Post about childcare in France and a TPM post on the state of childcare in the U.S.

I’m with James Wolcott on this one: “But it was a satisfying season overall, with Laura, in her pride, composure, classiness, and tough candor, leaving the most original, forceful impression.”

I’m spending a fair amount of time reading the political blogs today, because Iraq is such a freakin’ mess that even Bush is comparing it to Vietnam. Ugh. I’m not reading any post that talks about why this war was a bad idea and that the blogger knew it all along. Yeah, I wasn’t in favor of this war either, but now we’re here, and we have to figure out a way to get out with condemning villages of Iraqis to firing squads when we walk out the door. How do we leave without making life worse for the Iraqi people? Some like McCain are arguing for more troops. Others are debating reducing our goals and merely securing portions of the country. I don’t know. I don’t have a military background, so I’m open minded about the different solutions and am surfing around those blogs today.

(more later)

Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love”

  1. Hi,
    I’ll chime in for a grunt perspective(for non military types, the military is made up of trigger pulling meat eaters aka grunts who represent less than 20% of overall forces and everybody else that is in the military supports the grunts.)
    Anyhow, more troops is not the answer but how you use the tools. Think of troops as tools with differed skills sets that many hope to bring back to the civilian world after they get out(unfortunately for us grunts, the ability to shoot holes in quarters from 700 yards away is not a skill that will get you hired in most jobs.)
    The reality of Iraq is that its Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re carrying on two wars here where a majority of the trigger pullers are not going to just Iraq but to Afghanistan to go and take on a regrouping Taliban.
    We leave by restoring Iraq and leaving it better than we foudn, in this case we physicaly return it to what it was but without the Sunni minority running the show.
    1. start building roads in Iraq. Once the roads are underway, further help schools and give the local populos free reign to run and teach/develop and build. Buy pencils not PCs. Stick troops in smaller centralized bases within urban areas rather than outide the populous.
    2. Reduce casualites of combat resupply and patrol missions by restoring logistical components ASAP by using a smaller scale grid based solution. This is where the military becomes an NGO helping to restore their country(you would be pissed to if you didn;t have power for TV, air conditioning or water or a functioning toilet). This si not soemthing for Mr Cheneys old firm to handle as they need to be given an end of service notice with the US government. Send teh Sea Bees to do the job as we know the Army Corps of engineers are all working in New Orleans now.
    3. Start training medics and firemen rather than policemen. Nobody likes cops and adding more guns into uncertain hands never helps but medics are there to help people.It takes 6 months to get training to become a paramedic with just schooling alone. Let’s get working on this ASAP.
    4. Remove the green zone as that is but a total joke in terms of branching out or accomplishing anythign other than an East Berlin-esque type of scenario.
    5.Lastly, split the country up into 3 seperate nation states and not one Iraq.

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  2. With regard to the French paradise paradise that we keep hearing about every few years, does anyone have any information from on the ground? The question I have about it is, is the quality consistent, or does the French system have the immense variations in quality that we have in our public schools?

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  4. Thanks, kip. I would love for us to leave Iraq better than we left it, but I’m growing increasingly worried about that happening. I love your suggestions, but worry that we don’t have that kind of timetable anymore. I could definitely see the country get divided up, but I don’t think that there is any political will to do anything ambitious. I wish that we could have implemented your plan last year. Actually, I wish that we weren’t there at all.

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  5. Hi Laura,
    The Kurds basically run their own country now and have for the last 16 years. A further seperation of the two remaining components is likely inevitable as the sectarian violence will force this to occur. They won;t become nation states potentially but I would not be surprised to see some sort of concession occur. If we want to get out quickly after 1/9/09, its going to be the horrible medicine we’ll have to swallow.

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  6. Oh, yeah. I meant that I could see us dividing up the country, but not doing ambitious things like training medics or building roads. I wish we could have done those things last year.
    I hope that the Kurds get their own country. If we pull out without giving them some protections, they’re going to be dead meat.

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