How long will the war continue? What would it take for its supporters (who are a minority in our nation and the world) to say, "Ya know, maybe this isn't the right answer?"
In the news:
WASHINGTON (AP) - A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday...
Also being drafted are several Republican-backed proposals that would force a new course in Iraq, including one by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would require U.S. troops to abandon combat missions. Collins and Nelson say their binding amendment would order the U.S. mission to focus on training the Iraqi security forces, targeting al-Qaida members and protecting Iraq's borders...
(CNN) At least one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, is "seriously considering" supporting an amendment calling for U.S. forces to be withdrawn from Iraq by next spring, her spokesman said Monday... in the past two weeks, three senior Republican senators have publicly expressed doubts about the president's Iraq policy, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a well-respected voice on foreign affairs.
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O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.
~Habakkuk 1:2
16 comments:
As I told you the day of the invasion, it is very difficult to stop a war gone bad. The majority of Americans had turned against Vietnam by 1966 and by '68 over 70% of the nation was against it--but it dragged on until 1975!!
Part of the problem is that, once you've committed to an ill-advised war like this one, there are no great answers.
Clearly, continuing is not a good solution, but any scenario does not seem likely to have a positive outcome, either.
Yet another reason for being conservative when it comes to war-making ("conservative," in the positive, prudent sense of the word, not the mockery that Team Bush has made of conservatism...)
There seem to be no conservatives left. It's not an argument of less government and less interference. It's an argument about *which* interference should be done and who gets the benefit and who pays.
Now lets think, who is benefiting from this? And who is paying. The most clever part of it all was taking it off budget. Then nobody had to feel the pain. At least nobody old enough to vote.
In essence, wealth is being transferred from our children to the military industrial complex forewarned by Eisenhower.
If the congress wants to stop the war, just vote to pay for it now. You need not defund the war, just pass a law making the industrial complex that is reaping the profit, to pay.
Can we fix it now? No. It's just a matter of how many people die before we pull out. Then the madness will really ensue.
Thanks for the dismal report, Dave. Wish I could disagree...
There seem to be no conservatives left. It's not an argument of less government and less interference. It's an argument about *which* interference should be done and who gets the benefit and who pays.
Maybe in your partisan mind. I'm a conservative who argues nothing but less government and less interference and I know many more like me. Maybe it would help to remind you that D.C. /= real life and Republican /= conservative.
Still, you could understand how, with the last three so-called "conservative" Republican presidencies being spendthrifts who increased the size of the gov't and our adventurism around the world, how one could wonder whether traditional compassionate conservatives in office might be just a myth?
Couldn't agree more Dan, real conservatives and liberals in D.C. are nothing but a myth with the rare exception, mostly in the House. I was merely taking exception to Dave's assertion that there aren't any left anywhere.
Fair enough.
So let's say we withdraw from this mess tomorrow. What do you think will happen next? What should our policy be with respect to radical Islam?
We don't really know, do we?
I suspect that if we stay there, people will keep dying. Iraqis will keep dying. The insurgents will keep fighting. American and allied troops will keep dying (or have all the allies gone, by now?)
And I suspect that if we leave, people will keep dying. The insurgents will keep fighting. Iraqis will keep dying.
When you mess something up bigtime with no clear idea of how to fix it, well, you mess things up.
Do I know a 100% foolproof way to fix things? Of course not. No one does. But clearly, continuing a failed policy is perhaps just about the worst thing one could do.
My thoughts would be:
1. Apologize for our hubris in invading Iraq in the first place. Explain that we had good intentions - we wanted to see a free Iraq and a deposed despot - but we just went about it all the wrong way.
2. Ask for world support in setting things right.
3. Transparently acknowledge and investigate any intentional wrong-doing on our part. If crimes were committed, hold the leaders responsible accountable.
4. Try to set up a peacekeeping effort in Iraq using world support.
Is that a good answer? No. It's horrible. But it's an honest starting point and better than staying a failed course.
Seems to me.
Thanks for asking and welcome to Payne Hollow, Neil.
For those of you who haven't met him, Neil runs a respectable joint over at the 4simpsons.wordpress.com blog. Like me, he's wrong a lot of the time, of course, but he's nice about it...
So pretend that the Iraq War never happened. What do you think radical Islam would have done after 9/11 and how should we have responded?
Thanks for asking Neil. Keep in mind that I'm just a half-wit boy from Kentucky offering free opinions, so we know what they're worth...
After 9/11, as you may recall, the world was united in support of the US and in horror at the actions of the terrorists. Muslim extremists were further marginalized. George W Bush and the US were in the thoughts and prayers of the whole world (with a very few exceptions).
I think we need to keep in mind that one of the strengths of Peacemaking strategies is the very horror of violence against innocent people. The people of the world are united in disgust over violence against innocents - this is common for Christians, Muslims, Jews, people of all faiths (except for maybe Molechites in the OT?) and people who are not religious at all. All peoples everywhere share a common revulsion over violence against innocents.
So, when violence happens - especially extreme violence such as displayed on 9/11, people are united in wanting to see the perpetrators brought to justice.
For that reason, there was global support for most of our actions in Afghanistan, which had a gov't which was actively supporting the very organization that committed the 9/11 terrorism. While there were some, such as myself and other peacemakers, who urged prudence in seeking justice in Afghanistan and in any violence directed that way, few questioned the legal or moral right of the US to chase the extremists there as well as the gov't that supported them.
But then, even before talk was directed towards Afghanistan, the specter of invading Iraq was raised. This was a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and little to do with terrorism.
That was where we went wrong. Where world support turned against us. Where Saddam Hussein was seen as the lesser of two evils over Bush! You'll recall that tens of millions around the globe took to the streets trying to prevent this invasion. This sort of peacemaking initiative was unprecedented in world history at that scale!
What we want to do with terrorists is marginalize them. Make them global pariahs that no decent human the world over would support. We had that on 9/12. We lost that with the invasion of Iraq.
For smarter folks' thoughts on Just Peacemaking initiatives, be sure to check out the Quakers' page here:
http://www.fcnl.org/ppdc/
Dave:"You need not defund the war, just pass a law making the industrial complex that is reaping the profit, to pay."
This is perfectly true. However I misdoubt that people have a concept of what this really means. Those profiting from the war, for keeping the US as sole broker in the world oil traffic, do not just stuff the ill gotten cash in their pockets and the world goes on otherwise unabated. That same industrial complex greases the mechanisms of which all of us(most of us) are but cogs and wheels.
That is, when people advocate that corporations pay higher income taxes, economists point out that corporations never pay any income taxes no matter how high they are. The cost is passed along to the consumer so in the end it is always the consumer who pays the tax. Like that, having the war paid for by the corporations profiting from it is the same thing as saying, let the consumer using the goods and services supported by the war pay for it.
Amen.
And amen.
I've always wondered why Congress just doesn't defund the war. If it's SO unpopular, why not cut the funds? Isn't that part of their job description?
Instead, they put together these unrealistic "benchmarks" for a fledgling government knowing full well the Iraqis have no chance at meeting them. Why? So Congress could blame someone else for ending the war, which makes no sense given the fact that 70% of Americans oppose the war.
Basically, they're making command decisions in a wartime situation, taking these decisions out of the hands of the military leaders. That is a dangerous thing. If they want the war over, then DEFUND it!
I agree.
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