Like the phony “we had Osama trapped in Tora Bora” accusation, I’ve also heard sKerry (well, actually both GWT and the PP have said it–if they only had a brain. Sing it!) sound out about not patrolling the Iraqi border to prevent foreign terrorists from entering. See the map below. The “unsuitable” (for military action) areas around the Syrian and Jordanian borders are filled with wadis (think S.W. USA border “arroyos”), where they are not arable land. sKerry’s a doof. And he thinks you are too. It would take the entire armed forces of the U.S. along with the entire population of our domestic law enforcement to make a dent in “patrolling” such a border.
But why do so in order to keep terrorists out? First, isn’t it better that they are there, where much of our armed forces are concentrated and large numbers of the population are both armed and largely hostile to foreign terrorists? (See recent developments where armed Iraqi terrorists have been killing Al-Zarqawi group members… ) As one letter I recently read from a U.S. marine in Iraq said, send ’em more so they can kill them there, not here.
Second, notice the only areas through which foreign terrorists were likely to have been able to enter.: Syria and Jordan. Forget entering through the Kurdish-controlled mountains to the north. That northern third of the country is not only safe, it is deathly dangerous to armed thugs. Even Saddam knew it was only “safe” to mess with the Kurds from a distance and with weapons like dropped poison gas and explosive bombs. The lesson of history: the Kurds are people you screw with at your own peril. Even the Turks fear them, for good reason.
So, now we know where the foreign terrorists entered, and which states (Syria and Jordan) are likely to encourage such incursions in the future… except that… Syria has been making roll-over-and-exposed-soft-underbelly noises after seeing the reslove of this administration…
Patrol Iraq’s borders and keep foreign terrorists out? Impossible and undesirable, both.
