Despite the fact that it is no longer much in the headlines, yes, we are still in Iraq. Are American casualties decreasing in Baghdad and in Anbar province? Yes. Celebrate if you want, I am all in favor of our soldiers' survival. BUT-
1. We are still spending staggering amounts of money weekly there, and our young men and women are still dying, albeit in lower numbers.
2. The Al-Maliki government needs to follow up our battlefield successes by extending its authority throughout the country and making deals with political opponents. Many U.S. officials and military officers are complaining loudly off the record to everyone in the media who will listen that this is NOT happening. So instead of enabling ourselves to leave, we are becoming indispensable to the people of Iraq.
3. We are currently at our peak possible numbers in Iraq, around 170,000 soldiers on site. These numbers are not sustainable according to our own government. The numbers will have to come down in the spring, which could bring about renewed violence if the Iraqi government fails to take the ball and start running.
In view of these facts, many Democrats in Congress are now struggling to take control of Iraq policy our of GWBs hands so that they can begin a withdrawal process. So far, they have failed. But it should be noted that the Dems do not have the numbers they need to accomplish this goal. They cannot overcome a veto in either house without Republican votes, and the Republican votes are lacking.
Do you despise the Dems for their failure to get us out? Or do you despise the Dems for their disloyalty, their willingness to withold funding from our brave guys in uniform in order to influence policy? As I state, they lack the votes to get us out. Their control of funding is the only tool they have to influence the course of our involvement in Iraq. Do you prefer that they sit back and let George handle it? Do you agree with Republican Senator Mitch McConnell when he says "We need to give our troops everything they need. We need to give it to them right now." ? When does that approach get us home? Yes we had another round of fighting in Congress over funding the past couple days, and it settled very little. The Dems were able to tighten funding, which outraged Republicans and caused Secretary Gates to complain about having to borrow from other accounts to keep the Iraq occupation alive. But Republicans have so far refused to differ from Bush in any meaningful way, preferring to blame Dems for using the only leverage they have.
Here is the deal. If you argued back when the deaths were rising that we had to stay to make things better, fine. If you argue that we have to stay now because things are getting better, fine, but you might be contradicting your previous position. When exactly will we get to a good time to leave? Maybe 30 years after the last insurgent has put down his weapons and started singing Cumbaya? We will not ever get there, Bush himself has admitted that. Bush is only in office for a bit over a year. Whoever is elected to succeed him, Dem or Republican, is not going to want to struggle to keep us there in high numbers for another 4 to 8 years. It is time to face these facts. We have other things to work on. Stop arguing that support for our troops demands support for the war.
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Comments: 7
As Commander in Chief he will have the authority and will order all of our troops home. So much for that problem. Those other countries can solve their own problems while we work on ours, like deporting 12million or so illegal aliens that have invaded our country while we weren't paying attention.
The point is this-Yes, war is bad. It is the hoped for outcome that may benefit countless millions of people that makes the terrible investment worthwhile. People who support this war are not "pro-war" per se. They don't like or want war. But they will support a war that just may improve the lives of so many people.
To answer your question: I despise Dem's for being gutless and spineless politicians instead of being moral and sensible statesmen/women.
Which is worse: Republicans, who consistently clamor and vote for endless war/occupation, sociopathic saber-rattling, totalitarian police-state measures, and torture, because they openly believe that Fascism is the good old American way; or the Democrats, who rhetorically oppose all of the above, recognizing the inherent evil and immoral lawlessness of it all, yet continue to fund the illegal war, perpetuate an incoherent and dangerous foreign policy, and fail to curb the Bush regimes propensity for unconstitutional power grabs while legitmizing the ones he's already committed?
Alex L. --
When I say I am anti-war, I mean I am against all war that is not legitimately defensive war (meaning not "pre-emptive") and not explicitly declared by the people's representatives.
Our revolution for independence was fought in defense of our God-given rights and liberty. Thomas Jefferson we would likely need to fight a new one every twenty years, just to keep the government in its place. I would say we're long overdue.
I would have been against the Civil War. If states don't have the right or the ability to secede, then it very well can't be called a "voluntary" federal system, then can it? How can we honestly consider ourselves "free," if we are beholden to a compulsory "contract" that makes us subjects to a central government power? IMO, if you are not allowed to leave whenever you like for whatever reason you like, you're participation is no longer considered "voluntary," and hence you are no longer free.
Lincoln was the father of the Imperial Presidency. He bascially, for all intents and purposes, postponed the Constitution so he could conduct a violent invasion of his own countrymen, to preserve the Southern States' status as available for plunder by the mercantile northern industrial powers. He jailed dozens, possibly hundreds -- including a Congressman -- for the crime of public dissent. He revoked Habeus Corpus. He raised an army for the invasion of the sovereign Confederate States without Congressional consent.
Slavery was already on its way out in the South as it was all over the world. General enlightenment and sound economic reasoning was prevailing, slavery would have disappeared on its own war or no war. Lincoln invoked the issue of slavery only after the war had begun, just to procure public support for his imperial ambition.
As for WWII and "defeating fascism," perhaps there was legitimate reason to get involved, but I would have much rather it been prevented by not allowing Paul Warburg to send American gold to his brother Max in Germany to be used in funding the Nazi Party and war machine, and maybe if Prescott Bush and pals hadn't been so anxious to invest in the Nazi's, too.
You don't have to turn over too many stones to find the Wall St. connection to the financing of most of our 20th Century "evil" enemies; the Bolshevik Revolution and its Soviet direct descendant were courtesy of JP Morgan, JD Rockefeller, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Every aspiring Leviathan state needs a good "enemy" with which to scare its inhabitants into obedient submission.