A Plea for Help and Iraq Quandry In a Nutshell
I feel really bad to not have been able to post in nearly two weeks. However, I really am just barely keeping my head above water between work, home and mom. So, seriously, if anyone knows a good, experienced networking and Windows server operating system tech, they should get in touch. If that person is not from the Clinton area, that's okay, I can sic the Clinton Area Development and Chamber People on him/her to give the hard sell on why living in Clinton is so great.
A ommenter on Andrew Sullivan's blog writes in with what I feel is the most forthright description of the horrible no-win situtation we are in in Iraq.
That, in a nutshell, is why I still can't fully get behind any of the let's-just-wrap-it-up-and-get-the-hell-out-of-there, plans being espoused (mostly) by Democrats. Because that would evade our responsibility for the monstrous fuckup that we have created there and surely condemn to death thousands of the people we allegedly went there to rescue from tyrrany.
Leaving now (or in six or nine months) even with the very persuasive logic that accompnies it -- e.g. the Iraqis don't want us there anymore, they really do need to work it out for themselves, still leaves us scot free and poor brown people on the other side of the world holding the bag for our mistakes.
And really, isn't that the sort of stuff that got us here in the first place?
None of this should in any way be construed as endorsement of any sort of the halfwitted policies of this Administration or it's lackeys. There isn't going to be a happy ending in Iraq. Americans need to learn to man up and swallow the bitter pill.
Iraq is just the first of many coming down the pike in the next few years.
A ommenter on Andrew Sullivan's blog writes in with what I feel is the most forthright description of the horrible no-win situtation we are in in Iraq.
I just read your post comparing the tragedy at VT and the daily terror in the lives of ordinary Iraqis. This kind of observation seems to summarize a lot of my anxiety over the future of our involvement in Iraq. Along with many Americans I wish that we could extracate ourselves from Iraq and get our men out of the way of an inevitable civil war. At the same time I hear the words of men like John McCain and am forced to remember that the cost of leaving Iraq would be an increase in the chaos within Iraq. I also know that our absence from Iraq wouldn't remove our responsibility for the violence that we helped seed in 2003.
What if a Shia vs. Sunni civil war were to progress unchecked in our absence were to progress into genocide? One of America's great sins is its blind eye to the kind of terror that is occuring in Darfur today. Thoughts like these often lead me to think that the only morally right move in Iraq is to commit ourselves totally to the future peace of that nation. I want so much to wash my hands of Bush's war, but in a democracy all the people must take responsibility for the actions of our government. It is our responsibility to restore the peace that we stole from the children of Iraq, even if it costs us even more than it already has.
That, in a nutshell, is why I still can't fully get behind any of the let's-just-wrap-it-up-and-get-the-hell-out-of-there, plans being espoused (mostly) by Democrats. Because that would evade our responsibility for the monstrous fuckup that we have created there and surely condemn to death thousands of the people we allegedly went there to rescue from tyrrany.
Leaving now (or in six or nine months) even with the very persuasive logic that accompnies it -- e.g. the Iraqis don't want us there anymore, they really do need to work it out for themselves, still leaves us scot free and poor brown people on the other side of the world holding the bag for our mistakes.
And really, isn't that the sort of stuff that got us here in the first place?
None of this should in any way be construed as endorsement of any sort of the halfwitted policies of this Administration or it's lackeys. There isn't going to be a happy ending in Iraq. Americans need to learn to man up and swallow the bitter pill.
Iraq is just the first of many coming down the pike in the next few years.
Labels: Iraq
posted by -cman- at 4/18/2007 08:53:00 AM
4 Comments:
That commenter makes the assumption that our redeployment from Iraq will make things worse.
It's our mess alright, and the best remedy is to get the American "flag of empire" out of the picture.
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Ah, the old pottery barn sentiment of "you break it you bought it".
I’ve always felt that was BS. When Colin Powell said it, I thought it was true in the sense that if you break it, you own the reputation and guilt for having broken it. It’s also true that we are and will continue to “pay” for it for generations to come.
But if someone broke into my house, drank my liquor cabinet dry, threw a wild party, killed two of my kids, raped my wife and daughter, razed the garage and tool shed, blew the middle 50’ out of my 65’ driveway, and half burned my house down, I wouldn't say, "you break it, you own it, so you better clean up before you go."
No.
I would simply say get the fuck out.
And that's what the Iraqis are saying to us, but no one in Washington wants to hear it.
I'd like to think an early 1960's Vietnam style "training force" would be enough to keep Iraq from descending into a complete free-for-all. But, I don't know. We may end up going through three or four governments before finally getting some sort of strongman, not too far removed from Hussein that can finally put the genie back in the bottle.
But what we simply cannot allow is for Iraq to become a failed state on the level of Afghanistan pre-2001 or Somalia or even like Sudan. That just won't do.
We have to stay long enough to get some (lots) of other people -- who do not have the baggage we have -- to come in and help restore order. Sounds like a perfect job for the Chinese. :D
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