Levin's Foxy Nonsense
On today's Fox News Sunday Senator Carl Levin took a logical stumble as he attempted to walk the party line on the Iraq War troop levels.
After Levin criticized the administration for not putting enough men into the Iraqi theater, the show's host, Chris Wallace, reminded Levin that the Democratic line now is that the troops need to come home. And then asked which is it, there are too few there, or we need to bring them home?
Levin responded that there were too few troops before, and too many now.
So, how did we get to a situation where he now estimates we have too many troops if we had too few? To accept Levin's conclusions one must then assume that we have achieved a military position over there where we now have too many because the force we had there has over-achieved and succeeded in its mission. I am certain the Secretary of Defense will appreciate the compliment, but, doubtless would point out that we never had too few in the first place.
I am equally certain that if challenged on his stumble, Levin would seek to re-balance with a reply that a too small force achieves more, and thus a draw-down to zero will cause us to achieve total victory. Nonsense. We have made progress with the force level the adminstration has provided. President Bush takes the advice of the Defense Department on this matter (troop level), and thus far has been well served. We are seeing progress in Iraq, even if the President's domestic enemies refuse to concede the point. I trust that we will draw down our force level in reaction to the increased stability in Iraq, but only after stability is achieved not as a method to achieve stability.
