Rumsfeld given Iraq withdrawal plan by General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq.
In the next few days, we're probably going to "find out" that Casey has long been a radical leftist, best friends with Al Franken, has a suspect military service record, and voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election. And if none of those statements are true, they likely will be once the Rove smear machine is through.
How many times must a reasonable person say, 'this war's going badly' before Republican leadership faces the facts?
Does this embolden terrorists? Actually, who is the White House really worried about emboldening--the terrorists or the doves?
Opposition to withdrawal is not based on a desire to stay for the sake of staying. It is based on a desire to stay until military force is no longer needed. So withdrawal should be done on the military's timetable, not one arbitrarily imposed by politicians in Washington.
ReplyDeleteThat the military is now proposing withdrawal is a sign of victory, not a sign of weakness. There is no reason for the GOP or anyone else to attack this guy (unless he says we can leave because Iraq is going well, in which case the Dems will attack him for being a BusHitlerMonkeyChimp shill).
Yeah, right on! Mission Accomplished!
ReplyDeleteWe should have left Saddam in power. Better him than the fascist imperialist Americans.
ReplyDeleteActually, if we hadn't invaded, Saddam would have remained an admittedly repressive but largely benign dictator. Iraq is considerably less safe and Islamic extremism is a more potent poitical force in the new Iraqi government. Our war has also aided in terrorist recruiting. Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before the invasion began. I guess my point is that the poster above is correct.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call him a benign dictator. I think the state of total internal war is in general worse than even a pretty bad dictatorship (except in the case of mass genocide, of course), but neither one is desirable, and there is the possibility, tenuous as it is, that this could turn out well for Iraq if we succeed.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, regime change was necessary. I don't believe this was the way to go, though.
That the military is now proposing withdrawal is a sign of victory, not a sign of weakness.
ReplyDeleteYep, it's pretty clear we've really cleaned things up around those parts. Might as well be movin' on. Yep. Not much left to do except say, "Mission Accomplished."
Using the term "regime change" just hands the cons the reigns in the framing battle. An election is a regime change. Let's call Iraq what it was: an invasion and occupation. People die in an invasion and occupations invite bloody resistance.
ReplyDeleteImposing Democracy through invasion and occupation was simply a bad idea in Iraq. There was no hope of its success. The cons invented this imperative to displace Saddam not because of he was the worst dictator controlling the most dangerous regime, he was neither. We were motivated by our economic interests and immature optimism of the neocons.
And even if this turns out well for Iraq (which is highly improbable) we've created many new terrorists during our little foray into Babylon. Every time we kill or torture one of these people, their cousin or sibling now has an emotionally charged reason to follow in their footsteps.
In short: we've fucked ourselves and everyone else up.