Luke forwarded me this article, Michael Schwartz on Immediate Withdrawal which elaborates nicely on the following four reasons why immediate withdrawal from Iraq makes sense.
- The U.S. military is already killing more civilian Iraqis than would likely die in any threatened civil war;
- The U.S. presence is actually aggravating terrorist (Iraqi-on-Iraqi) violence, not suppressing it;
- Much of the current terrorist violence would be likely to subside if the U.S. left;
- The longer the U.S. stays, the more likely that scenarios involving an authentic civil war will prove accurate.
Before reading that article I definitely was more sympathetic to the claim that leaving now would leave the country in anarchy/chaos. Now I’m not so sure that we’re not the cause of the anarchy/chaos.
I believe that when people look back 10, 20, 50 years from now, it won’t be so striking that something blew up yesterday (everybody forgets how ugly things were at this same point in WWII, the Civil War, the American Revolution). What will impress over the long view is how the fundamentals had been changed in Iraq just 27 months after U.S. forces arrived.
I have no illusions about the continuing dangers there, or the fact that most of Iraqi society remains horrendously damaged from Saddam’s predation.
But the astonishing fact is that a surprisingly patient and tolerant politics is breaking out all over Iraq. The enthusiasm for self rule is genuine, and great forbearance is being show by ordinary people, despite the provocations of the nihilists who blow up residents and public services every day.
In Iraq and the rest of the Middle East–which have been snakepits for all of our lives–this is rather miraculous.
Bush went in and overthrew a fascist dictator, liberated twenty five million Iraqis from a vicious and sadistic fascist regime, and has planted the seed of freedom and hope in a region ruled by tyranny, extremism, terrorism and despair.
When al Zarqawi chops a head off of a hostage, the person who should be blamed for the dead hostage is al Zarqawi, not America.
1) Iraqi military units, which used to regularly fell apart, have not once failed in battle since the Jan ‘05 election.
2) Having gotten crushed every time they conducted a military operation against U.S. and Iraqi forces, Iraq’s terrorists have basically given up on trying. There is truth in General William Webster’s July 8 pronouncement that “the ability of these insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity operations” has essentially been “eliminated.” As a result, they have been reduced almost exclusively to suicide attacks, most of them against innocent civilians at soft targets.
3) The upshot? It is now the INSURGENCY that most Iraqis consider to be the outside invasion force. Zarqawi and his jihadists, along with his local Sunni enablers, are now LOATHED by the average Iraqi, not supported. And that’s how you eventually win a guerrilla war.
We have accomplished a lot. We are accomplishing more every day, with the Iraqis at our side. The Iraqis themselves want us to stay to finish the job. We would be doing ourselves and them a disservice not to see this thing through to the bitter end–no matter what it takes.
This isn’t a tv program where you change the channel because you don’t like what’s showing. The jihadis have vowed to kill us. They’ve been attacking us since 1968. Withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan will bring the killings here to our soil, and we would see many many versions of 9/11 here as a result.
I don’t want to see that. Let them come home in Victory.
Victory was toppling and finding Saddam and putting the Iraqis on the path to democracy. We’ve done that. Whenever the troops do come home, both sides will claim victory. Real victory would be finding Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice, but he’s probably not in Iraq.
People have been vowing to kill us since way before 1968 and lots of people have taken a shot at world domination; I just don’t see the need for McCarthy era alarmism. We rely on our security to protect us, so far they do a pretty decent job. Our troops there do not keep then from bringing it to our soil. Our security here does. If anything, our troops and policies there makes security here more difficult. Still, you are a million times more likely to die in your car on the way to work than in an act of terrorism. I’m not afraid.
When you say “Withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan will bring the killings here to our soil,” you don’t preface it with anything. So ever? If we ever bring them home? Or what has to happen before we bring them home so that “many versions of 9/11 here” doesn’t happen?
Thanks for your comments.
Withdrawing before the job is done is incredibly foolish. To put it simply; the job is not done.
You can draw parallels between Vietnam’s premature withdrawal and “surrender” and the bloody aftermath as a consequence of doing so and today’s job in Iraq which isn’t finished. The Iraqis still need to vote on their Constitution. Leaving them high and dry is not the answer. President Allawi has commended us on our resolve, and has said in no uncertain terms that the job isn’t finished, and the Iraqis will continue working with us to build their forces and train them, so that we can pass control over to them completely at some point in the future.
Encouraging withdrawal at this point will make the world more dangerous, and I’m sure you don’t want that now, do you?
“Give Peace a Chance” is supported by marxists and socialists -both European and American who actually GIVE MONEY to the terrorists; cases in point: The 10 Euro Campaign that supports the “iraqi resistance” (and there is no Iraqi resistance–these are Al Qaeda’s foreign fighters)–and Code Pink’s $600,000 to the terrorists in Fallujah.
The Iraq War is not Illegal: Saddam signed a ceasefire and violated the ceasefire. Congress voted on military retaliation, plain and simple.
We have a volunteer fighting force; which no one is forced to join–they understand the risk they’re taking on when they sign up. They’re willing to die for this country, our belief system, and our way of life. It’s too bad you subscribe to the line of thinking that “this country isn’t worth dying for”. The jihadis are betting on that; they’re celebrating the anti-war movement on their message boards.
The Bush administration hasn’t caused the war on terror. And you anti-war guys have absolutely no strategy to defeat Islamofascism. Since you have no solution except cut and run, that’s simply unacceptable.
This mentality would lead to a tremendous resurgence in worldwide terrorism–the terrorists will go through Iran to Afghanistan and begin an insurgency there almost immediately. Iran itself would accelerate her nuclear activities, leaving the USA weakened. The civil war that would erupt inside Iraq once we’ve pulled out would invite Iran to go into Iraq on the side of the Shiites, thereby, Iran would dominate Iraq.
If Iran dominates the Gulf, make ready for a war that would make Iraq look like Sesame street.
You aren’t looking out for me, for your neighbors, or for the US, that is why the commie/nazi attitude toward our liberating the Iraqis must be disregarded as extremist dangerous rhetoric. The majority of Americans including the Gold Star Families who have sacrificed so much–understand that we’re fighting for our very existence here. Some believe this is WWIII. This is a matter of life and death–and I’d much rather have the fight going on on their soil rather than in our streets, which most certainly would happen if we pulled out before the job is done.
Let them come home in victory. Progress has been made, as is reported by bloggers who are in Iraq like Omar and Mohammed at Iraq the Model -who are Iraqis who are relieved that Saddam is out of power, and are watching their new government blossom, their economy grow, the standard of living for average Iraqis improve tenfold; basic things that they never had like electricity and clean water are coming to view.
Poor Iraqis are getting better medical treatment because of campaigns like the medical textbook initiative that was taken up by people from all walks of life here in the US–over $400,000 worth of medical textbooks have been sent over there. Their bookshelves are not copies of old texts, they’re the real thing and they’re current.
Ah but this is the attitude of someone who isn’t listening to alternative news sources, you must be relying on our own version of Al Jazeera at home–the printed media which is leftist controlled, and the alphabet networks.
Until you can break yourself free from that mind controlled state of controlled news that is strictly put forward to control public opinion (notice how well it works on majority of Americans!) –you’re destined to subscribe to the sentiments of communist International Answer, Code Pink-o, United for Peace and Justice, Ramsey Clark and all the other extremists. I don’t know what your political leanings are, but –if you’re not a communist–you should do some research on those organizations to discover just who you’re jumping on the bandwagon with.
Most people, when they realize where the rhetoric is coming from, and the fact that Marx and Engels encouraged the communists to work alongside the democrats–have a change of heart.
There is no substitute for real courage in the face of danger. Leftists believe in feeding the alligator so it eats them last. I believe in killing the alligator.
The alligator in Iraq is not dead yet. We must hang on with resolve so the jihadis know we haven’t forgotten how to die, we’re not soft, America is not a paper tiger, and we’re going to see this through until the job is done.
Oh and a couple more things while I’m at it:
Two thirds of al Qaeda’s command is now captured or dead; bases in Afghanistan are lost. Saddam’s intelligence will not be lending expertise to anyone and the Baghdad government won’t welcome terrorist masterminds into the fold.
In fact, thousands of brave Iraqi Muslims are now in a shooting war with wahhabi jihadists who, despite their carnage, are dying in droves as they flock to the Iraq. Fairly recently, a message from Zarqawi was intercepted where he laments “my God, this is suffocation!” He has turned his strategy from unsuccessfully fighting American soldiers to trying to incite a civil war between the Shiites and the Sunnies. It appears as though that effort is failing, as well. So his very last hope is that the anti-war people will succeed on American soil. That is what they’re hoping for.
Happily, a constitution is in place in Iraq; reform is spreading to Lebanon, the Gulf, and Egypt; and autocracies in Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Pakistan are sweating it out–and quite apprehensive over a new American democratic zeal in their midst. Petroleum was returned to control of the Iraqi people, and the price has skyrocketed to the chagrin of American corporations.
There has been no repeat of September 11 so far. Killing jihadists abroad while arresting their sympathizers here at home has made it hard to replicate another 9/11-like attack.
The Patriot Act was far less intrusive than what Abraham Lincoln (suspension of habeas corpus), Woodrow Wilson (cf. the Espionage and Sedition Acts), or Franklin Roosevelt (forced internment) resorted to during past wars. So far America has suffered in Iraq .006 percent of the combat dead it lost in World War II, while not facing a conventional enemy against which it might turn its traditional technological and logistical advantages.
Unlike Gulf War I and the decade-long Iraqi cold war of embargos, stand-off bombing, and no-fly-zones, the United States has a comprehensive strategy both in the war against terror and to end a decade and a half of Iraqi strife: Kill terrorists abroad, depose theocratic and autocratic regimes that have either warred with the United States or harbored terrorists, and promote democracy to take away grievances that can be manipulated and turned against us.
In the meantime, the left is opposing this war, as it has done against every other conflict we’ve ever been engaged in; and they were wrong about every single one.
1. The War Against Hitler (until June 1941 when the Soviet Union was attacked) (1939)
2. The Cold War to save Turkey and Greece from Communist conquest (1947)
3. The Korean War (to save South Korea from Communist conquest) (1950)
4. The Vietnam War (to save South Vietnam and Cambodia from Communist conquest) (1964)
5. The War in Afghanistan to liberate Afghanistan from a Soviet Invasion (1979)
6. The War in Grenada to liberate the island from a Communist dictatorship (1983)
7. The War to liberate Central America from Communist dictators and guerillas (1983)
7. The War in Panama to liberate Panama from the rule of a narco thug (1989)
8. The Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi conquest (1990)
9. The Balkans War to liberate Kosovo from Serbian rule (1999)
10. The War against the Taliban (2001)
11. The Bush Administration’s plan to finish the War to liberate Iraq (2002)
Conclusion: The progressive left has opposed every war that America has fought in living memory, and it has found ways to sympathize or actively support every enemy America has faced. What does this seamless and unbroken record tell you about the progressive left?
Tells me they must be ignored, and it explains why they’re getting more hysterical as their ranks are shrinking, and the democrats are left with this extremists kook-base.
Yes, war is failure. I’m against war.
The world is most certainly not as cut and dry as that. Thankfully we live in a country were diversity of opinion is celebrated.
Seems you buy pretty much anything the administration is selling. I think they’ve done a wonderful job manipulating you, but you probably think they same about me. As long as they can keep us fighting against each other instead of them, they’re happy.
Iraq has always had a constitution. This one is mostly a copy of the last one, the establishment of a state religion being one difference.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_riverbendblog_archive.html
The US Army and CIA both trained terrorist.
Islamofacism is the result of American foreign policy.
CAOs comments are patently ridiculous. The war in Iraq was and still is illegal - congress made descisions based on lies peddled by the hawks in power….this isn’t a POV - it’s a cold, hard fact.
I’d be interested to find out what his take is on the current hostilities in the Caucasus.