Or at least the Marine Corps. For most of the day today, the front page of Arianna's Huffington Post had a stock picture of U.S. Marines under the headline "Marine Corps Wants Out of Iraq." The headline stems from an interesting story in today's New York Times describing a debate within the Pentagon as to whether the U.S. Marine Corps might better serve their country by withdrawing from Iraq and redeploying to Afghanistan.
There are a couple of reasons to think this might be a good idea. First off, the Marines have had tremendous success in Iraq, specifically in Anbar province, where they are concentrated. The insurgency has all but petered out in Anbar--it is literally in its death throes, as concerned local citizens groups and insurgent militias have broken with al Qaeda and helped restored security. But it is the Marines that have pacified the province, and one can imagine that their commanders would like to see them move on to the next trouble spot with another notch on their belt. Also, as the article points out, the number of Marines in Iraq is roughly equal to the number of U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan. So the Marines could take over responsibility for that theater, along with their own air support elements, and leave Iraq to the Army and Air Force, which may be better suited to the job.
But we don't really have enough information to know if this is a good idea, and at the end of the day, it will come down to finding the best way to allocate our scarcest resource--manpower. But we do know one thing, the Marines are not looking for an exit from Iraq because they believe it's a lost cause, or because they're cowards, or because they're defeatists. That's merely Arianna & Co. projecting their own feelings onto the Corps. Let's look at what the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, has said about some of the issues that have inspired this defeatism on the left...and keep in mind, these quotes are from the beginning of the year, when the situation in Iraq was actually quite grim, particularly in Anbar, where his men were stationed.
On casualties:
Conway said "the casualty issue" is "driving the thinking of our country." But he argued the United States has "lost perspective" when considering the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I have gone to way too many memorial services and written too many letters to families to dismiss this lightly," he said. But he said U.S. forces are losing "on average about two soldiers, or Marines, maybe sailors, a day," compared to 302 casualties a day during World War II. "We've lost just over 3,000 now, in the entirety of the war," he said. "Since we invaded Iraq we've lost 43,000 young men of military age on the highway of this country. . . . That does not transmit to our country. I've got to tell you, it just doesn't stick."
Conway added, "My view is, if it's important to the country, we should be able to sustain whatever it takes."
On the insurgency:
"I'll tell you, these people have a plan," Conway said. "And the plan is to boot us out of the Middle East, destroy Israel, take charge of the oil supply and then strangle us to the point where we'll have no choice but to go back in."
And on the Marines:
Conway also said he wants every Marine in the existing force to get combat experience. He said he issued a directive Jan. 19 to implement this goal, which will affect about 35,000 Marines that have not seen combat. "I just think we need to give every Marine that opportunity," he said.
This man wanted to make sure that every one of his Marines had the opportunity to serve in Iraq. If the Marines are pushing to get out of Iraq, it's because they see an opportunity to better serve their country elsewhere. It is not, as Arianna would have her readers believe, because they are a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys like her Hollywood friends.
