General Paul Eaton Developing Plan for Iraq
“We don’t need a victory; we need a crushing defeat of the Republicans next year” was General Paul Eaton’s message at the Eastside Democrats Dinner on Sunday evening, Oct. 7th. General Eaton, introduced by Darcy after a keynote address by Senator Patty Murray, told the crowd at the Bellevue Weston that the Republicans have ground down the Army to a level unseen in his lifetime. Eaton believes the Army is too small for our current foreign policy and what we need is more diplomacy not more troops. Tools in times of conflict need to be diplomacy, economic assistance, and use of the military in that order.
When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi went to Syria last April, she was doing what the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State should have been doing—engaging the countries in the region, Eaton said. He described how surprised he would have been years ago if he had known how totally incompetent the Republicans would be now. He also believes we need to go to Iran and talk with Ahmadinejad, crazy as he may be, because it just doesn't work when the President is unwilling to do business with our opponents.
Iraqis Will Never Live Together Again
The Iraqis are so fractured at this point they will never be able to live together again, Easton said. Nor do they want to. The Kurds have established their own government, security forces, and international airport as well as a growing economy. Eaton believes our job should be to help make separation work for the Iraqis, as General Wesley Clark did in the former Yugoslavia.
We Need to Leave Iraq Responsibly
Eaton told the crowd that walking away from Vietnam was embarrassing but did not have the negative impact on the world that walking away from the catastrophe in Iraq would. We have to adapt the mission to the reality on the ground now which is that someone “kicked over the anthill” and we cannot just walk away. He believes the consequences would be dire if we leave Iraq in the shape it has descended to now.
General Eaton addressed the issue of how we leave Iraq responsibly and talked about several proposals for disengagement. He pointed out that the grinding on-going presence we have now is not the way out and it would also be a big mistake to withdraw immediately. He explained that if we walk out today without developing the diplomatic background, there will be even more chaos and it will be very hard on our departing troops. The pullout must be managed diplomatically, economically, and militarily. At Darcy's request, General Eaton is in the process of pulling together a group of military leaders and diplomats to develop a plan for leaving Iraq responsibly.
Democrats Need to Stick Together and Sweep the Elections
Eaton says he wants Democrats elected to Congress and that means the Democratic Party needs to line up and stop the infighting. He wants competence brought back to Washington D.C. with strong support for the military and to do that the country needs the Democrats to sweep the election next year. General Eaton said that he believes in the motto of the U.S. Army War College, proposed by Elihu Root, US Secretary of War in 1901: “Not to promote war, but to preserve peace.”
