There are some people who finally come around to the truth that the Iraq War was a bad idea executed horribly. Yet, they don’t believe we should leave and even slam Democrats for suggesting that. What’s the deal with that?
Even though I was against the war long before it became the national consensus, I was not in favor of just leaving. I thought “you broke it, you bought it”, but I gave that up about a year and a half ago. We invaded Iraq over three years ago, Saddam has been caught, and really the ball has just not moved. In fact, it’s gone backwards. It’s foolhardy to say we need more troops in Iraq, because the people will not support it and not even Republican politicians are dumb enough to propose it.
The only two options are to “stay the course” and keep saying “victory!” (thumb through the administration’s laughable Iraq “Victory” strategy for an example of this) without it having any meaning and getting people killed day-in and day-out, or… leave.
The argument against leaving boils down to:
a) We’ll look weak
b) Iraq will be in chaos
Well, Iraq is already in chaos and in civil war. And keeping up appearances is no excuse for getting good people killed for no moral reason. Since when have the Bush Republicans ever been concerned about how we look to the world, anyway? We already lost goodwill by invading Iraq in the first place, and our post-occupation policies have just made it worse.
So neither one of those is an argument that holds water. There’s no good reason we shouldn’t leave Iraq, and a lot of reasons we should.
AFTERTHOUGHT: In Googling for this entry I found a prime example of how the mainstream media cheerleaded for the right and this war without thinking critically. Washington Post, April 2003: “Rumsfeld Stands Tall After Iraq Victory”. The byline is by Thomas E. Ricks, who you may recognize as the author of the recently released book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq“. Perhaps if the establishment writers at the Post and in the rest of the mainstream press had been a little more skeptical back in April ‘03 they wouldn’t have set such a fertile environment for the fiasco that followed.
We’ve killed 600,000 Iraqis in a hopeless, failed attempt to satisfy Bush’s ego. Everyone knows it. Even the right-wing trolls around here know it — they’re just lack the spine to admit it. But the dam’s breaking. Soon we’ll just be arguing about how to withdraw. Bush will be all alone 6 months from now. Dugger and Jay will deny they ever voted for him.
In the meantime, the head of the British army has called for a withdrawal. Watch the right-wing armchair generals criticize his qualifications and his motives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410163&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5
Just for the record, that paper you linked to is generally the favourite pamphlet of the right-wing armchair generals over here.
Dannatt only just got the job two months ago, so he’s stamping his authority.
I guess I should’ve gone with the financial times instead, Nimrod. Anyway, well put Oliver.
By the way, Dugger, would you mind providing those statistics on civilian deaths under Saddam vs. civilian deaths since his fall of which you’re so enamoured? I’d like to see them. Unless, of course, you’re not confident that they hold up…
If we were truly responsible citizens, we’d be joining Dugger in his annual vacation plans to Iraq, for goodness sake! It really is an excellent way of helping to rebuild the country … if the Iraqis see how blissfully happy we are in our comfortable cradle of democracy, surely they would embrace the concept and The Decider … right …?
“a) We’ll look weak
b) Iraq will be in chaos”
You say this is what the argument against leaving Iraq boils down to. I say thsi is yet another example why progressives are clueless on foreign policy.
How about genocide? How about greatly increased terrorism worldwide. How about much greater instability in the Mideast? How about greatly invigorating autocratic dictators worldwide (’Saddams and Saddam wannabes). How about endangering Israel and the small sheikdoms. Think about any of that?
Dugger, since you’re such a serious-minded steward of our national interests, no doubt you’ll find it easy to show how our presence in Iraq is preventing any of those consequences from happening now, either because a) they’re already happening, or b) they won’t happen either way.
But I suspect you’re just spouting this meaningless bluster to cover for the hundreds of thousands of souls you’ve got on your conscience. You have my pity, Dugger.
Dugger | Oct 13, 2006 7:57:16 AM
“How about genocide? How about greatly increased terrorism worldwide. How about much greater instability in the Mideast? How about greatly invigorating autocratic dictators worldwide (’Saddams and Saddam wannabes). How about endangering Israel and the small sheikdoms. Think about any of that?”
Weeks ago in a separate thread, you finally conceded you don’t actually KNOW what terrorists think. You admitted you were judging, you were speculating.
It is laughable to hear you spout Decider administration soundbites. YOU have no fucking idea if any of this will result from the US withdrawing from Iraq.
Once again, YOU are judging, speculating because YOU believe:
Loyalty.
To.
The.
Decider.
At.
Any
Cost.
The fundamental issue is that the Bush worshippers who’ve been proven wrong again and again in their speculations and projections, are now asking the American people to once again trust in their power to speculate. What’s serious about that, Dugger?
Ah, just saying, it’s come to something when the Mail isn’t tearing this guy a new one. November 4th 2004, they ran an enormous gloating headline saying “March of the Moral Majority”.
The point has been made elsewhere today in the blogoshere that Bush’s cynical reason for staying the course is to delay withdrawal from Iraq until his successor takes over, thereby making plausible the argument that he didn’t “lose Iraq.”
“Think about any of that?”
Oh, Dugger, you’re just priceless. Did you not notice that every potential danger you listed is actually a direct result of our CURRENT policy in Iraq?
“How about genocide?”
The Sunnis and Shiites are currently killing each other dozens at a time.
“How about greatly increased terrorism worldwide.”
Annual worldwide terrorism is up since we invaded Iraq.
“How about much greater instability in the Mideast?”
Tell me again how stable is the Mideast now?
“How about greatly invigorating autocratic dictators worldwide (’Saddams and Saddam wannabes).”
Ya, because what would happen if Iran and North Korea were emboldened to restart their nuclear programs?
“How about endangering Israel and the small sheikdoms.”
Sheikdoms? Were defending sheikdoms now? What happened to spreading democracy?
In short, Dugger, everything you claim is a reason to stay in a Iraq was presented as a reason not to go in before the invasion and you dismissed it all as liberal appeasement and political correctness. Now its already happened because we went into Iraq in the first place and you attack liberals for not caring enough about these things.
Your idiocy is outmatched only by your craven hypocrisy.
Well put, Frame. Dugger and hs ilk aren’t actually interested in policy outcomes, just political ones: that Bush and the GOP stay in power.
All of those things and worse, much worse, frame – is a distinct possibility. For we know, before we went to Iraq, there was genocide of the Kurds. Use of WMDs (gas) in a horrible, deadly war that dwarfs ‘ours’. Who knows, if the great Satan is defeated, maybe the Ts and some of the other area despotic, now-encouraged regimes will take on the ‘final solution’ to the Israeli problem. Certainly, the terrorists will be able to go out and say to the undecied: see all we have to do is fight hard and stay the course and the US will fold. Are progressives willing to fight for Israel – preemptively? At a higher casualty rate than Iraq?
Aagin, Dugger, all the terrible prospects that you sugest compel us to stay in Iraq were held out as reasons for not going in. You dismissed those reasons then. You didn’t care about the possibility of genocide, instability, the threat toi Isreal, emboldening terrorists or radicals or exposing the limits of American power.
But our invasion of Iraq has accomplished all those things.
And now you sit there offering defense after defense for the people who brought about everything you claim to be concerned about.
If you want to bluster about consequences, you’re too late to the party, Dugger. Way too fucking late. All you are offering now is more of the same recklessness, more of the same partisanship, more of the same failure.
“a horrible, deadly war that dwarfs ‘ours’.”
Cite?
And where are these ironclad statistics that you’re always yammering on about that prove Saddam killed more Iraqis than the war we’ve unleashed has, Dugger? Are they real or did you invent them?
Hey, frame, your typing is near being half as bad as mine. My master plan is working.
And you have no idea what I did or did not dismiss at war’s inception. No clue. AS i have consistently said here, I probably would not have gone in. I say probably becuase I was not privy to everything the Admin and Dems and Repubs who voted for war saw (classified). And regardless, we are there now. Period. Any action we take, will be from that perspective, not a hypothetical we should not have been there. And the killing was much worse under Saddam than it is now. (I’m just not sure its our job to get rid of all the evil people in the world)
“a horrible, deadly war that dwarfs ‘ours’.”
Again, against Iran. With Reagan/Bush I’s blessing. And with munitions sold by Rumsfeld/Cheney.
Oops.
Who knows, if the great Satan is defeated, maybe the Ts and some of the other area despotic, now-encouraged regimes will take on the ‘final solution’ to the Israeli problem.
Who knows? Who KNOWS?!?
For “who knows” we should keep 140,000 troops occupying a defeated country? For “who knows” we keep bringing our sons and daughters home maimed or killed? For “who knows” we energize the global jihadist movement?
Perhaps it’s time to try a different course, yes?
“And the killing was much worse under Saddam than it is now.”
Show me the statistics, Dugger. If you’re so sure the numbers bear you out, why are you hiding them? Did you invent them?
We can’t simply leave for the reasons that you quoted, Oliver. There is not a civil war going on, because of us currently. The reason why we are here is irrelevant at this point…let’s debate that later. The fact of the matter is that there are good people in Iraq, whether they like us or not, that depend on us to set things as right as possible before we exfil the AO.
Gas he very probably got from the United States. 50,000 people murdered in a single incident politely ignored by the major powers because Saddam was still our mate at the time.
Not a very good example to bring up, Dugger.
“There is not a civil war going on, because of us currently.”
Cite, Dkelsmith? Cause I think you’ve got it backwards. There is civil war there, and we are exacerbating it.
“Any action we take, will be from that perspective, not a hypothetical we should not have been there.”
Sorry dipshit that’s not why you’re a moron. You’re a moron because you wrote this:
Weak on foreign policy? Really? Critics of the war were right on every count, our invasion of Iraq has been an umitigated disaster that has sparked genocide, an increase in terrorism worldwide, increase instability in the region while emboldening Iran and North Korea.
You can’t sit there and attack the left for being “weak on foreign policy” when the left was entirely correct in its assessment of the invasion’s impact on the region and the world.
The administration that you supported than and now was wrong on every count. Dead wrong. Their foreign policy has weakened our position in the world military, diplomatically, politically and morally.
They’re allowing that position to weak even further because are DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to correct course and change their policy. All they’ve done is ramp up the rhetoric of “stay the course.”
Being the good lickspittle that you are, you have repeated it ad naseum whiel attacking liberals for “having no plan.”
It’s been clear to a majority of the American public for overa year now that Bush has no plan for Iraq.
The Dems have a plan: redeploy from Iraq and reapproach our war on terror.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that we shouldn’t look at how we got in this mess as we look for a way of getting out. The people who got us in are still in charge and still hold some sway in the national debate. They all ought to be run out of town on a rail and new leadership brought it. Hopefully we’ll get a good start in that direction in November.
In the meantime, it’s time to listen to people like the new head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt:
“History will show that a vacuum was created and into the vacuum malign elements moved.
Exactly why we didn’t storm Baghdad in 1991.
I’m sorry but how the fuck can you write something like this:
“And the killing was much worse under Saddam than it is now.”
Just after writing someting this:
“And regardless, we are there now. Period. Any action we take, will be from that perspective.”
Dugger, people are dying right fucking now by the dozens every day in Baghdad. Are you telling me you have the balls to tell their families to stop their bitching and moaning (and retaliatory killling) because they had it worse under Hussein?
Like I said, Dugger, anytime you want a trip to Baghdad, I’ll spot the ticket.
Doc, step lightly with Smith. I believe he is currently serving. Note also that he writes, “The reasons why we are here…“