Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Fox Force Five Goes To IraqI'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY: Well, I’m not an expert in nation-building, and I don’t think our military is either. I do recognize that we have a responsibility for this nation, and for the world for that matter, to be successful in Iraq, and what that means to me is permanently assuring that Iraq will never be a state sponsor of terror.

[...]

At the same time, I do believe in something which I described as a “special partnership force.” Let me describe what I have in mind. In nations like the Philippines, where Abu Sayyaf was increasingly successful in established a beachhead there, we put in place army special forces personnel, which worked together at the invitation of the Philippine government and military to help rid the country of Abu Sayyaf. And we not only advised on military matters, but we put in place water projects, we built bridges and so forth. We strengthened the local community such that they rejected the extreme, and ultimately Abu Sayyaf is down to a couple hundred members today.

So I have proposed that we would, in fact, create an entity, which I would call a “special partnership force,” which comprises both the expertise of our CIA operatives, as well as our special forces personnel, which could be called upon by a nation to help them reject the extreme and the violent within their midst. Now, I don’t consider that nation-building, but I do consider that smart military tactics to help a nation rid itself of al Qaeda or the like.