Facing reality
By Libby
My friend Michael van der Galien posts on an issue I've been thinking a lot about for a while now. What can we anticipate will happen if the US withdraws its troops?
Mchael takes an informal poll among a very small sample in Holland but they reach the same conclusion that I've seen embraced on both sides of the fence. Genocide. It's going to be a bloodbath and the US will be blamed. I have to ask what do you call what's going on now? Why is everyone assuming that it will get worse? How much worse could it get?
An average of what, 100 people a day, are dying in Iraq right now. The world already blames the US. The terrorists are there because we, according to the old flypaper theory, drew them in to fight them there, so we wouldn't have to fight them here. Meanwhile, the intercine sectarian conflict is ongoing and has been going on for at least two years at the most generously low estimate. At this point we're arming both sides of it and our "collaborators" are already being targeted and die daily. Not to mention, the collateral damage we're causing by defending the dysfunctional government.
Michael says withdrawal will make us look weak but our weakness is already exposed. We're being held hostage, locked in mortal combat, by a ragtag band of a few thousand terrorists whom we haven't been able to eliminate in five years even though we possess the mightiest military machine in the world. And every day that we stay wears down the utility of that machine.
Michael says it would be dangerous to our standing in the eyes of the world to withdraw. But it's more dangerous to our national security if we stay. I'm not saying that it will be rosy when we leave but then again, I never bought the idea that we would greeted with sweets and flowers when we arrived either.
The reality is we were screwed the day the tanks rolled into Baghdad. There's no way to take it back and no way to really fix it. No choices are good, but the least bad one is to bring the troops home and let Iraq's destiny run its course -- sooner than later.
My friend Michael van der Galien posts on an issue I've been thinking a lot about for a while now. What can we anticipate will happen if the US withdraws its troops?
Mchael takes an informal poll among a very small sample in Holland but they reach the same conclusion that I've seen embraced on both sides of the fence. Genocide. It's going to be a bloodbath and the US will be blamed. I have to ask what do you call what's going on now? Why is everyone assuming that it will get worse? How much worse could it get?
An average of what, 100 people a day, are dying in Iraq right now. The world already blames the US. The terrorists are there because we, according to the old flypaper theory, drew them in to fight them there, so we wouldn't have to fight them here. Meanwhile, the intercine sectarian conflict is ongoing and has been going on for at least two years at the most generously low estimate. At this point we're arming both sides of it and our "collaborators" are already being targeted and die daily. Not to mention, the collateral damage we're causing by defending the dysfunctional government.
Michael says withdrawal will make us look weak but our weakness is already exposed. We're being held hostage, locked in mortal combat, by a ragtag band of a few thousand terrorists whom we haven't been able to eliminate in five years even though we possess the mightiest military machine in the world. And every day that we stay wears down the utility of that machine.
Michael says it would be dangerous to our standing in the eyes of the world to withdraw. But it's more dangerous to our national security if we stay. I'm not saying that it will be rosy when we leave but then again, I never bought the idea that we would greeted with sweets and flowers when we arrived either.
The reality is we were screwed the day the tanks rolled into Baghdad. There's no way to take it back and no way to really fix it. No choices are good, but the least bad one is to bring the troops home and let Iraq's destiny run its course -- sooner than later.
posted by Libby Spencer at 9:01 PM
4 Comments:
Well, where have we heard that pathetic excuse to continue with insanity before? You're absolutely correct when you say that we were screwed when the tanks first rolled in. We americans and the Iraqis were screwed, that is. The war mongering psychopaths were going to profit very, very much by continuing the occupation, hence the lame excuses to do so.
It's also always been racist to maintain that our presense is the only thing stopping the local Hottentots from slicing each others' throats. I imagine that's what the Brits were harumphing to each other before they finally quit their Jewel in the Crown.
Well said Nolo.
It's a good bet that whatever the asshole neo cons say is going to happen will not happen. So it looks like a cakewalk post withdrawl for iraq.
That's my thinking Lester. I'm betting things could get better.
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