Iraq - The bandaid solution
By Libby
I put up my review of our president's Adventures in Blunderland speech at Newshoggers this morning so I'm going to take a quick look at the White House apologist's excuse for an editorial in the WaPo this morning. To be fair it does make a token attempt at berating the gross lies and omissions contained in that dreary ode to delusion but the money quote is at the end.
Sometimes I wonder how much the White House pays this guy to write this drivel. Five years of pretty much trying to paint abject failure as progress and our leading editorialists are still pitching the conventionally wise punditry. These people that are so relentlessly and glowingly cited as serious thinkers have been wrong about everything they predicted from the outset.
Every predicted development by the vaunted foreign policy clerisy has failed to come true. So why should anyone still believe a word they say? Considering their track record, if the serious pundits are predicting mayhem if we leave, chances are they would be wrong again.
Surely an orderly and total withdrawal of our troops in a reasonably speedy manner won't magically solve the problems in Iraq. But considering the magnitude of the current disaster there, it's difficult to imagine that it could get all that much worse and allowing it to run its course and come it its ultimate end sooner still seems to be a better option to me, than perpetuating this endless cycle of violence and suffering for another ten years, only to be faced with the same bad choices at the end.
The choices we face aren't so unlike the choice of whether to peel a bandaid off a scab. Do you do it slowly or just yank it off. Either way, you still suffer the pain and it will still bleed, but it will never truly heal until you do it.
Me, I'm ready to yank it and get it over with. At least it will save lives over the long run.
I put up my review of our president's Adventures in Blunderland speech at Newshoggers this morning so I'm going to take a quick look at the White House apologist's excuse for an editorial in the WaPo this morning. To be fair it does make a token attempt at berating the gross lies and omissions contained in that dreary ode to delusion but the money quote is at the end.
...But according to Gen. Petraeus, Mr. Crocker and the consensus view of U.S. intelligence agencies, if the U.S. counterinsurgency mission were abandoned in the near future, the result would be massive civilian casualties and still-greater turmoil that could spread to neighboring countries.
Mr. Bush's plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It's not necessary to believe the president's promise that U.S. troops will "return on success" in order to accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: "Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse."
Sometimes I wonder how much the White House pays this guy to write this drivel. Five years of pretty much trying to paint abject failure as progress and our leading editorialists are still pitching the conventionally wise punditry. These people that are so relentlessly and glowingly cited as serious thinkers have been wrong about everything they predicted from the outset.
Every predicted development by the vaunted foreign policy clerisy has failed to come true. So why should anyone still believe a word they say? Considering their track record, if the serious pundits are predicting mayhem if we leave, chances are they would be wrong again.
Surely an orderly and total withdrawal of our troops in a reasonably speedy manner won't magically solve the problems in Iraq. But considering the magnitude of the current disaster there, it's difficult to imagine that it could get all that much worse and allowing it to run its course and come it its ultimate end sooner still seems to be a better option to me, than perpetuating this endless cycle of violence and suffering for another ten years, only to be faced with the same bad choices at the end.
The choices we face aren't so unlike the choice of whether to peel a bandaid off a scab. Do you do it slowly or just yank it off. Either way, you still suffer the pain and it will still bleed, but it will never truly heal until you do it.
Me, I'm ready to yank it and get it over with. At least it will save lives over the long run.
posted by Libby Spencer at 9:38 AM
3 Comments:
I've come to terms with the massive finacial loss. don't even care about that anymore. the loss of life you can never get back though, iraqis and ours.
almost equal to that though is the fear that they will escalate to iran. There is a bizarre sort of manifest destiny for Bush to completely drain the entire country on war. he's a war a holic
I remember the smug, self-impressed look he had on his face when he first announced that he was a "warpresident" pronouncing it like one word.
Any war will do, and when it stops being fun - well then, you start another one. . .
The two of them, Dick and George have gone batshit crazy. I can't believe the Dems are letting them get away with it. If the situation was reversed the GOPers would be on TV every day denouncing the regime.
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