Letter to the Editor

I strongly agree with this article. It directly relates to the paper I wrote last week about learning from the past. History repeats itself and it seems as though rather than these government officials admitting that they made a mistake and learning from it so it doesn’t happen again in the future, they decide to just point fingers at other officials at different branches of government so they don’t get the blame. I thought it was interesting when the author says, “The army wasn't ready to train Iraqi security forces, or to handle the thousands of Iraqi prisoners detained in places such as Abu Ghraib. “ This is a very true statement, our US forces were unprepared for a lot of the moves that the government threw at them but they definitely did a good job of learning how to cope and then ultimately being pro-active in the situation in the middle east. I also like the part of the article that mentions that, “the army learned from its mistakes. Rather than sulking about the Iraq mess, commanders made necessary changes.” I like it how this statement gives the army credit for being productive in this situation rather than pointing fingers, trying to blame someone else for the mess. I found it very intruiging that the current commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, took a doctorate in history at Princeton. That is most likely one reason why the army is being more productive by learning how to manage the situation rather than trying to blame others for the rash decision our governmental officials made to invade Iraq. This article definitely points out some of the facts that people should know about this war that’s going on. I believe that there is so much to learn from the past that we can’t dwell on who’s fault it was, but we need to focus more on how to deal with the situation and make sure the same problem doesn’t happen again.