It's hard to tell what progress means in Iraq — it's an emotionally and politically charged issue that stretches from Baghdad, to Congress, all the way to your dinner table. Tom Ricks, who's so easy on the ears that getting information from him is actually fun, returned from a May trip to Iraq with fascinating details, and his own report card. He'll talk to us today, and rounding out the military perspective is retired Major General Mike Davidson as well. Let us know what you think about the changing goals in Iraq.
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Do we even *have* real objectives in Iraq? The current one seems to be "build democracy", which is great as an overall goal, but terrible as an objective. You might as well tell a general that the objective of his next campaign is to "defeat the enemy".
Building democracies is a noble thing and takes years and decades. But doing so in regions which have no concept of freedom - will not work.
America's view of the world is far too idealistic. There is a reason why so much of the world is controled by military power- Control of freedom's. We are not free from a government that is waging control on other people- If we are having to Mandate freedom and Democracy- It sounds like hipocracy.
I would like to hear you discuss the "enduring" or permanent bases in Iraq such as Balad which is enormous and has some 250 aircraft assigned to it. Why is such a huge investment being made to a base that will be abandoned soon? Unless of course there is no plan to leave....
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