Okay. It's time to go on record for or against the Bush Administration's proposed troop surge in Iraq.
I have been against the invasion of Iraq from the beginning for a variety of reasons:
For example, I thought the war against terror organizations needed to be fought by attacking their funding and through surgical military strikes against individually identified targets. I also thought international cooperation was critical. Declaring a costly, open land war against a country that did not attack us--without the backing of the China, Russia, France, Germany, Canada, or any Arab nation--was bad policy.
However, instead of creating coalitions, the US went against almost every major country in the world and invaded Iraq...and now we are left on an island. The deaths, the bloodshed, the $400 billion pricetag...all of it has led to this quagmire.
In addition, since this is primarily an ideological war, it must be fought for the hearts and minds of the people. Belive it or not, the Iranian demographic is fairly young and they want their iPods and blue jeans. They want to be friends with the West and we keep giving them the finger. In other words, the "war" with the Arab world is not being fought properly. Killing Arabs in Iraq, whether they be Sunni or Shiia, is not going to produce stability in the region.
Face it: The rehabilitation of Iraq has been poorly planned from the start. In other words, The Bushies planned for an easy win, but--like remodeling your bathroom--this project has been more difficult (and more costly) than expected.
That said, the US cannot simply walk away. There has been too much invested. Therefore, I support the proposal to send additional troops as long as there is a timeline. If, for example, there is no clear-cut progress by Labor Day, then "everybody out of the pool." They all come home. There's no more point in it.
I guess the thing that annoys me most is: What took them so long? Why is Bush talking about a troop surge now (four years into it)? Just because Republicans lost the elections? Is that what it takes to revise a strategy? For someone who can never admit a mistake, I guess it is. The man has mud in his ears.
So, there it is. Send in the additional troops and get the job done or get the fuck out right now. That's my position.
Sadly, I fear that more troops will be sent, more people will die, and the Iraq mess will not end until a new president takes office.
3 comments:
The only policy I agree with is the partitioning of Iraq into 3 separate countries. Anything else and we are kidding ourselves that we will accomplish anything.
I hear you, Stan.
My point is that this debacle needs closure, so if Bush has to increase the number of troops for one last push, then let's do it...with the understanding that funding is not open-ended.
I say fund it through Labor Day and that's it, unless clearly defined goals are met. And that's the biggest ongoing problem with this endeavor, isn't it? There does not seem to be an abundance of clearly defined goals.
Do you really think Bush will carve up the country? I see the wisdom, but do you really think it will happen?
I haven't seen any detailed strategic plan on what excess troops will accomplish. Until I see such documentation, I cannot support sending more "troops" which are comprised of human beings, to Iraq. As Dr. Dee stated, we really need a new plan. Unfortunately, I have no faith in our Commander-in-Chief, which I guess amounts to treason, but what the fuck? Why don't we scale back, come up with a new, more intelligent plan, and redeploy? As for the three-segment partitian, a lot of articles I've seen, seem to think that will eventually lead to genocide. That fact is (and what we've seen in Israel I think), is that you can't go back in time and re-establish borders for countries that time has passed by. We need to move on, respect the work that
Saddam has done, and figure out where we need to go from here. Bascially, I think we should find a country that has a similar make-up to Iraq, but is running a successful government, study it, and go from there. Any ideas?
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