More troops ... for forty years?

President Bush has said he wants to increase the size of the U.S. military, obviously with an eye toward sending more troops to Iraq. If we are going to try to bring a degree of sanity and peace to that region, that's a necessary step. However, he fails to mention how long he believes those troops will need to stay in Iraq. I would say about forty years might do it. That's how long it took Moses to raise a new generation, capable of self government and military action and, I believe, that's how long it will take the U.S. - with generous contributions of military and financial aid - to allow a new generation of Iraqis to mature and come to power. Hopefully, this new generation would be able to leave terrorism and partisan conflict behind them and govern and protect their own country.

Then, and only then, could we hope to depart Iraq and not leave a bloody civil war in our wake. As I've pointed out before, there's historical evidence that only such a measure will suffice - witness our "successes" in Korea, Japan and Europe where, decades after military victory, we still have thousands of U.S. troops stationed.

Speaking of which, instead of spending billions of dollars on expanding our military, why not consider taking 30 or 40,000 of our troops out of Europe and sending them to Iraq? World War II and the Cold War are over. We won. Surely the time has come for a reduction of our troops in Europe.