Time magazine’s Joe Klein makes a good point in this column about all the passionate discussions of whether President Bush intentionally misled the country into invading Iraq: “They are a waste of time. Two questions need to be addressed: Will an American withdrawal from Iraq create more or less stability in the Middle East? Will a withdrawal increase or decrease the threat of another terrorist attack at home? It does not matter whether you believe the war was right or wrong. If the answers to those questions are less stability and an empowered al-Qaeda, we’d better think twice about slipping down this dangerous path.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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61 Comments
Face it, we’ve got ourselves into one intractable mess. Without question, we were bamboozled into a needless war. We can argue all day about what got us here, but the real question is, what are we going to do about it? Considering the situation WE caused, don’t we owe it to the Iraqis to at least leave them in a condition where they can defend themselves? If we pull out now, we leave a situation that nobody will be able to live with. Iraq will decend into civil war and will become another powder keg in an already unstable part of the world. Until we achieve some stability, bugging out isn’t a very good option, IMHO.
This is a tough question, to just pull out would be more harmful to Iraq then if we had left Sadam in power. But us being there is killing more Iraqics everyday.
A real plan, one that will build a better Iraq is needed, staying the course is just stupid. The problem is there is no course at persent.
Rhonda, while reading time you might also want to read, “Beware the Iceman” Detailing how an Iraqic prisoner at Alba gra had been murder by the CIA, then the body was placed on ice to hide the fact. But why waste a pefectly good dead Iraqic? So they carried the body around and took pictures.Posing the body and smiling as they held him up.
You know we still have the moral high ground. At least we are not beheading our Prisoner while video taping it. Not that I know of?Yes we have the moral high ground, but it seem that maybe it is not as high as we thought.
Staying is a bad option, making the situation even worse everyday.
A bad idea doesn’t get better with more time.
The only good option is to leave now. That saves lives.
Cheney said Democratic critics of the war are lying when they say Bush lied about prewar intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
He’s crazy.
Moves our troops back to periphery and see what happens. At least our troops won’t be getting killed there.
Something wrong with that?
Make us safer? We won’t know until we try it.
Making new enemies everyday isn’t working. How could that be better?
Hitler didn’t want to quit either.
Ed! But Leftist sure want to quit. Not because they think it is the right thing to do or that it will make us safer. It is because the sithing rage of hate they have for President Bush.
I have no idea why you guys do. You don’t have to like him, but hating him this much is scray.
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. The chaos Bush deliberately created is consuming Iraq and bogging our troops down in a quagmire of Bush’s creation. While an orderly pullout might be terrible the alternative, an permanent military occupation in a hostile country, will even be worse.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!
The Iraqic are asking for a timetable for us to pullout. Bush said if asked to leave then we would leave.
Quick, somebody need to plan the Second American Revolution, and deliver the coutry from the unjust and oppressive tyrants back to the people! Well, I thought that was the spirit behind the Declaration of Independence anyway…
Roo, considering the political division in this country, that might not be as far-fetched as one might think.
Joe
This isn’t a “left” or “right” issue.
This isn’t Liberal V Conservative.
This is about fighting “The New World Order” which destroys America.
That’s scray.
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Bush and those few in the White House are not Rebublicans.
They’re Neoconservatives which is a whole new and different breed, who are just using the republican base. And Bush.
Joe
This is what they say they are.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
A part of what they are.
http://www.pnac.info/
A case for what they really are.
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm
I concur with Ed. Between the use of white phosphorus against civilian populations in Fallujah and the implementation of torture here and abroad, what is being pushed in Iraq and elsewhere is ABSOLUTELY a new form of global sovereignty. It’s all and nothing: BushCo wants to take it all and leave us, the ordinary folks around the world who do the living, working, loving, and dying, nothing.
CF
Bush is only a “pawn” in all this.CF and JOE
As as soon as Cindy mentioned “PNAC” Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post had her shut-up for good.
The “press” won’t her any more. Not because of the war, but for exposing PNAC
Notice this about those who want to stay in Iraq.
They’re not argueing about the lies that got us there, but now they’re so “worried” about the Iraqis.
That’s their “new talking point.”
Straight from PNAC.
We should quit. That will send a powerful message to Al-Queda about America and her resolve. It’s all about the next election…just make life miserable for a couple years and they’ll cut and run to win a couple Congressional seats. Pathetic this is even being discussed by serious people.
Ed, I don’t think anybody really wants to be in Iraq except for the pres and Co. But the fact is, we are there and we’ve done a lot of damage. I wonder what world opinion would be if we just pulled out and left a mess?
Joe Blow, “That will send a powerful message to Al-Queda about America and her resolve.” Right on the mark.
“That will send a powerful message to Al-Queda about America and her resolve.”
Yes. That “our resolve” is the rule of law that we preach.
That’s the “right” message, not the barbarian message we’re sending now.
PNAC wants to stay forever. That’s their plan. Do we go along with it?
The world hears us demanding to leave right now. Does the United States ignore the “will” of its people?
What kind of “message” does that send?
It was a mistake to go there and we can’t correct our mistakes?
I don’t think Al Qaeda responds to anything we do or don’t do.
They “hate us for our freedoms” remember.
Why should we let THEM dictate our decisions?
Why don’t you try becoming an American instead of staying scared of shadows, Joe Blow?
Did the VC attack America after we pulled out of Vietnam?
The PNAC’ers don’t want to leave, or their lackies.
What we’ve been led into in Iraq is a classic lose-lose dilemma. We can never win, because we are an infidel occupying force that a majority of people there will never accept. We can’t leave without making the situation there worse for the people and us. We should never have gotten in this mess in the first place. The best we can do now is to turn Iraq over to some coalition of neighboring states. if any will, to reconstruct, and resign ourselves to the fact that we will never have a friend in Iraq, and a lot fewer in the middle east as a whole. As far as a war on terror, we haven’t fought one yet, but we’ve made one a lot harder to win when we do!
Jed….Well Said.
That was pretty good, Jed. But where do we go now? Without question, I’d like to see our troops out of Iraq. But we know what happens if we withdraw now. Seriously, what is our moral obligation to the Iraqis? Near as I can make out, our peoblem was with Saddam, not the people of Iraq. Now that we’ve completely destabilized their country, do we have an obligation to at least try to put it back together? Is there a coalition of neighboring states willing to take on the reconstruction of Iraq? I can see a benefit to that. At least they wouldn’t be able to complain about “Infedels”. A problem I see: in that part of the world, life is tribal based. Anyone from farther away than over the next hill seems to be a potential enemy. The only country in that region that seems to have any influence in any part of Iraq is Iran. Can you imagine any senario where we’re going to give any control to Iran? I think most of the nations in that region are content to watch us cook in our own stew.
Falcon
Bush is bombing Iraqis every single day, and every single night, killing men, women, and children.
How does that help Iraqis or our “morality?”Are you going to talk him out of doing that?
We need to be out of Iraq, and crazy goofy Bush needs to be out of the White House.
Agreed Ed, but Iraqis are “bombing Iraqis every single day, and every single night, killing men, women, and children.” Last I read, they’re killing a lot more that we are. That wasn’t happening before we invaded. It’s a byproduct of the invasion. I don’t know what we can do about that besides using massive and overwhelming force. We don’t seem to want to do that and I doubt if we have that kind of numbers, anyway. We can stop the killing of Americans by pulling out, but it won’t solve the problem and it’ll only get worse. Like it or not, we have a stratiegic interest in that region and we can’t stand by and watch it disentegrate. Leaving an unstable situation isn’t an option. Bad as it seems, we can’t do without the oil. When those folks get mad at each other, the first thing they do is blow up the oil wells.
Falcone, do you have any idea how much money we’ve put into “rebuilding” Iraq? Do you know how much rebuilding we’ve done? Pretty much zilch. And we’ve had plenty of time to do it. Electricity is still close to non-existent, clean water is hard to come by. The unemployment rate is holding steady at 60%. From the mouth of a U.S. soldier there: “The only thing we’re building in Iraq is U.S. bases.”
Maybe the Iraqis can rebuild with a lot of help from other countries. I’m sure there are several that would like to show up the U.S.
The fact is, no matter what we do, there will be civil war in Iraq. It’s already begun. Iraq was and always will be a trouble country, thanks to the theocratic division there. The U.S. will be blamed, as well we should, and the country will be a mess until the U.S. government decides to install another Saddam.
The question is how many more lives have to be lost on both sides before we decide it’s time to leave?
I don’t particularly disagree with you, RD. In fact, I just came across something that really pisses me off. Check this out:
“Leaders of Iraq’s sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called Monday for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country and said Iraq’s opposition had a “legitimate right” of resistance.”http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2005/11/fuck-it.html
Wow, Rhonda! Too bad you think that Americans are too stupid to both question the lies that got us into this war and debate what we should be doing now.
Falcon:
“Last I read, they’re killing a lot more that we are.”
Falcon, You’re reading the wrong stuff. And they’re not “terrorists” they’re defending their country.
The “terrorist thing” has been a farce right from the start, the same as with the Palestinians defending their homes, farms, and land were also called “terrorists” for justifing Israeli brutality.
Naming something doesn’t make it so.
Ed, when Iraqis fight an occupying force, there’s a reasonable argument that they’re defending their country. When they set off a bomb in a crowded marketplace, that’s another story. I maintain that Iraqis are killing as many, if not more Iraqis than we are.http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/21/stories/2005112105601400.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4525211.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111901120.html
If their point isn’t to kill a lot of their own people, they’re the Beverly Hillbillies of Islam.
Something interesting about “getting out” of Iraq:
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/28582/?type=blog
We are in violation of international law by being in Iraq.
America needs to return to the rule of law and stop making excuses for breaking it.
Zionist Jews { secular } and PNAC/neoconservatives { Nazis } have big plans for a “New world Order” but that’s not the American way of doing things.
Nor is that workable or in the best interests of the United States.
Plans to lie our way into “attacking Iraq” were made back in 1996, just waiting for someone as stupid as Bush to come along to “act” them out.
All this needs to stop. Our soldiers are dying for some idoitic Zionist/PNAC/ neoconservative { Nazi } gradious world conquest nonsense which is insane.
Bring our troops home now before more are killed for a plan which cannot work.
The Iraqis will settle down when we leave.
Bush is crazy.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-11-22-bush-al-jazeera_x.htm
Falcon
Iraqis are killing those who are helping the invaders { us }.
Falcon
If you are worried about Iraqis killing Iraqis, then consider this:
Fallujah was a town of 300,000 Iraqis. The United States dropped enough bombs and chemical weapons to turn Fallujah into a pile of rubble, killing all those unable to flee.
Those trying to flee were blocked by US Forces.
Rumsfeld says he doesn’t count “their dead” which not only “speaks well” for the United States, but those Iraqis killed, and those Iraqis who still hate our guts for doing this.
Best estimates are between 125,000 to 75,000 dead civilians.
Unless, of course, you’re Rumsfeld.
Iraq is a country of 25,000,000.
Time magazine’s Joe Klein is not making a point, he’s missing the point. And so are we. The point has been launched into a vegetable soup of greed. Now each aspect clings to its own special appetite. As a rider picks a horse to mount. Each to his own, to each his own.
The PNAC Think Tank produced a soap-bubble, an illusion which burst into a trillion particles of phosphorus burning the flesh off the children of Fallujah. And the Neoconservatives of America and the Zionists of Israel have clicked their Champaign glasses in a joyful toast to their victory.
Their victory: The charred bodies buried in the rubble of a once flourishing Iraqi town.
Falcone,Unfortunately, we.ve created a lot of problems in Iraq, and no matter what we do, we’ll never be able to solve them because we are the enemy there.
British paper: Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1123/dailyUpdate.html
{ Al Jazeera is the most respected newscaster worldwide }
Remember that we are murdering the same Iraqis that we’re supposed to be saving from Saddam. Now make sense out of that.
Bush is worse that Saddam ever thought about being. Saddam held Iraq together, while we are blowing it apart, and murdering more Iraqis everyday than Saddam did in all his tenure.
We are the “bad-guys” and we need to leave. The sooner the better.
Whether we’re the ones actually dropping the bombs and pulling the triggers to kill Iraqi citizens, or whether it’s insurgents/”terrorists” doing the bad stuff, Iraqis are still being killed because of the presence of U.S. troops in their country.
So whose fault is it again?
“I wonder what world opinion would be if we just pulled out and left a mess?”
Wow, most of the right-wingers I’ve talked to haven’t, until talk of withdrawing, given a rat’s patootie about world opinion. So why worry about it now? Most of the world is disgusted with us and some even hate us. Is there a chance that instead of losing face, we just might gain a little? Oh, wait. GW and Co. will somehow put the needed spin on it all to supposedly make us look good, once we finally get smart and pull out of an impossible situation.
Just how long ago was it that Junior said we wouldn’t be leaving any time soon? Couple of weeks? My, how public opinion (and dropping polls) make a difference.
Pulling out wouldn’t be difficult; just use the Viet Nam model. Declare a victory and go! Anything happens afterward, that’s the local government’s responsibility.
Remember, This is PNACs plan and they’re not going to give-up their “quest” without a fight.
Iraq is just the first part of the conquest.
They’ll bargain hard to keep bases there, but the Iraqis want them gone. The fighting will be spun so as to keep attacking Iraqis, as some sort of “proof” they’re really just “terrorists.”
A lot of time, energy and money have been invested in the farce of “terrorism.”
Notice how Bush switches from “insurgents” to “terrorists” to keep fanning PNCAs “war” flames.
Remember the Arabs attacked America because they “hate our freedoms” not because we’ve been killing them for 60 years.
So, Bushco will keep selling 9/11 as a “terrorist” attack instead of the “retaliatory” attack, which is the reality.
BBC: Bush aides ‘double-crossed’ Blair
The ex-US diplomat at the heart of the political crisis in the White House says Tony Blair was “double-crossed” on the reasons for going to war with Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4465810.stm
How things look from another view:
http://www.arabworldnews.com/
The News Bush wants to Bomb: The real News
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
RD, I hope you’re not refering to me as a right-winger.
“I wonder what world opinion would be if we just pulled out and left a mess?”
It’s a mistake not to realize that there’s a hell of a lot of space between the far right and the far left that seems to claim the most representation on these blogs. You also seem to be laboring under the false assumption that I dissagree with you.
Be very careful what label you put on people.
Jed, valid points. We agree that we don’t belong in Iraq. My point is, we need to get out in a manner that doesn’t cause a situation where we have to go right back in. A destabilized Iraq isn’t a very good option. The USSR did that in Afghanistan, and look what happened there.We’ve lit the fuse on a regonal powder keg, and we need to figure out a way to put it out. If the middle east decends into war, we’ll have no choice but to go back. Can you think of a way we could survive the cut-off of the oil supplied from that region?
Falcon
Man, do you ever want to stay!
“A destabilized Iraq isn’t a very good option?”
We destabilized Iraq when we showed up. When we leave it will stabilize, because we’re gone.
They’ll stop being so upset about us staying.
We’re leaving, get over it.
Planes, allegedly operated by the CIA, have been spotted at airports in Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden as well as Morocco.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05739FC5-03D1-493B-B9B5-2F4FFE3D4817.htm
Ed, do you ever tire of jumping to conclusions? How many ways do I need to say I want our soldiers out of Iraq? My concern is that we get out in a manner that doesn’t trigger WWIII. We’re leaving? Eventually. The sooner the better. But let’s do it in a way so we don’t have to go back. Can you give me a solution to what we’ll do if the oil supply is cut off?
Falcone, Do you ever tire of jumping to conclusions? You have us going “back” to Iraq before we leave, and getting our oil supply “cut-off.”
There’s two red herrings.
Leaving Iraq does not exasperate the problem, it solves it. The mess is our mess not theirs.
Stop Israel from destabilizing Syria and Lebanon and stop Israel from threatening Iran with a nuclear strike will go a long way to keeping the oil flowing.
The last time Israel threatened Iran with a nuclear strike, the price of crude spiked to 70 dollars. { 3 dollar gasoline }
{ oil traders were looking at a cut-off }
Leaving Iraq is the best “course to stay.”
And exposing “PNAC plans” and “members” to all Americans will also be a possitive in the right direction.
That “bunch” is big-time-trouble.Just look at Iraq, they pushed Bush into killing all those soldiers and Iraqis.
Read this: Whose War?
A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers … that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?”
Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.
Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these “Buchananites toss around ‘neoconservative’—and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen—it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is ‘Jewish conservative.’” Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a “key tenet of neoconservatism.” He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush “sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.” (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)
David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: “Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. … Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It’s just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.”
Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: “In London … one finds Britain’s finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the ‘neoconservative’ (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.”
Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic charges that our little magazine “has been transformed into a forum for those who contend that President Bush has become a client of … Ariel Sharon and the ‘neoconservative war party.’”
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Falcone, no I wasn’t saying you were right-wing, but it is exactly the same that I’m hearing from them. I agree that we can’t just withdraw troops with no thought to the future of Iraq. The problem is, this should’ve been done well over a year ago. No, I’m even wrong there. The plan should’ve been in place BEFORE we dropped the first bomb on Iraq. But then I’ve always thought that BushCo has never considered leaving, therefore no plan to leave.
Murtha had the basis of a plan. The Republican House had a political ploy to make the Dems look bad. Look which was one voted on. Did the Repubs get what they wanted? I don’t feel in my heart that even they want our soldiers to continue to fight in a war that is stripping our country of world respect, not to mention money. I guess time will tell, but with the Pentagon working on withdrawal and the Iraq government asking us (finally!) to leave, that ridiculous proposal may not mean anything at all, in the long run.
The Iraq “government” dare not set its foot outside the “fort.”
Our “puppets” would get their “strings” cut-off.
That “government” is a Bushco farce. Just another one of his lies.
Bush is “truthfully impaired,”
Cheney is worse.
Even worse than Rumsfeld or Rice.
A sad lot indeed.
Rice is a Secretary of State…Which country?
There’s a huge PDF file on PNAC’s website (or was–I downloaded it 2 years ago), circa 2000, which is appallingly similar to the “the National Security Strategy of the United States,” a PDF released by the White House in 2002.
I assume they’re both still available, but they both may have found their way into the memory hole. Sorry, no links. Too tired.