Whether you're with Bush and his Iraq war or agin' him, you're going to talk a lot about the troops — whether supporting them means keeping them in Iraq or getting them home.
When a veteran joins the debate — in favor of a war that even Henry Kissinger admits is unwinnable, and which Bush admits is unconnected with the homeland attack he's avidly conflated it with — the discussion takes on a new dimension.
To paraphrase John Kerry: "How do you tell a man he's been fighting for a mistake?"
On
Martian Anthropologist, where I guest-blog, I encountered Jamie, who says he was in Iraq "from Thanksgiving '04 to November of '05 with the 1-128 INF BN."
Jamie's comments include:
I'm sick of whinos. Sick of you who refuse to forget about Bush for a minute and look at a map. Sick of those of you who say "Boo-hoo! We don't want to see our Sons and Daughters dying in a foreign country. Boo Hoo!"
Below is what I wrote back...
Jamie,
Obviously, we're in the anonymous world of the Internet, but assuming that you are, indeed, a veteran of the Iraq war, I truly thank you for your service and salute you for your courage.
I hope you understand that people who are against the war are not in any way "against our troops." We're against bad foreign policy and against sending our young men and women into harm's way when it's unnecessary, or even counterproductive, to our national security interests.
I understand that's an awfully unwelcome message to someone who's risked life and limb in Iraq. But that doesn't change the stakes — or the logic — of the U.S. being there.
As a participant in this American democracy, I have four reasons why I "whine" about George W. Bush's Iraq war:
1. By all indications, the war was unnecessary
a. Before the war started, Iraq was a hemmed-in secular dictatorship with little terrorist activity
b. The most recent UN resolution had achieved unprecedented access to sites and scientists of concern, and there were no reliable indications of WMD
c. Bush and Blair famously "sexed up" known false and unreliable information, because facts-be-damned, they wanted this war. There is extensive evidence of this, including the Downing Street Memo, the decision to publicize known false information about aluminum tubes and yellowcake purchases, and the absurd compensation given to convicted felon Ahmed Chalabi to fabricate tales that fit the neo-cons' agenda.
d. It will go down as one of history's greatest moments of hubris, to think you could bomb a country into happily adopting your way of life
2. The war is incredibly costly
a. When nearly 3,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians of another country are needlessly killed in battle, I have many reactions. But "boo hoo" isn't one of them.
b. Estimates of the total financial cost run into the trillions
3. The war has made us less safe. In addition to the nearly 50,000 US casualties (including wounded), the war has:
a. Made Iraq into a hotbed of terrorism, and — per the National Intelligence Estimate — a veritable recruiting poster for anti-Western terrorists
b. Made the United States a pariah nation with few real allies. Allies matter — remember World War II?
c. Emboldened our enemies. Blundering in to attack a country on false or incorrect pretenses makes us look reckless and foolish. It certainly gives the message to a North Korea or an Iran that America is prepared to preemptively strike on a whim, which may justify — in their eyes — horrific preemptive action of their own. Yes, it's quite the rage to pretend that things like diplomacy don't matter, that you can pretend to be an omnipotent Texas sheriff who dares the enemy to "bring it on," and that's simply pathetic and self-destructive bluster. Even Bush, who will gnaw his own paw off rather than admit a mistake, has lived to regret saying that, and he now claims to have discovered the idea of negotiating with North Korea and Iran. Not that I expect he will do it successfully, if at all, but the insane machismo of the Rush Limbaughs does not represent a rational or successful international policy.
4. Soon, my son will be of draft age. Having lived through the quagmire that was Vietnam, I know full well how a "managed conflict" can metastasize into a draft call. I'll be damned if I want my son to be a name on some fucking wall of young men and women who died for no fucking reason.
Re:
You complain about innocent lives lost? How many do you think will be lost when we leave the country before they are ready? Don't try to pretend you care unless you are willing to stand next to them and say "Don't worry, I'll keep you safe tonight."
I'm sick of people who point out mistakes and problems (yes, I concede that mistakes have been made), but offer no alternative other than to leave. It's easy to sit here and whine, but, just because you have the right, doesn't mean you should.
Well, I'm sick of a government, a news media, and an unquestioning public that allowed those obvious mistakes to happen, and who practically bashed your head in if you stood up against the war back when it could have been prevented.
Sure it's easy to whine. Unfortunately, it's also to easy tell people to shut up and support a President who is corrupt and incompetent and running an absolutely disastrous war policy. It does not honor our troops, our forefathers, our children, the victims of 9/11, nor our unique place in the world to go fight a war that didn't need to be fought, and to willfully ignore all detailed planning, in favor of the juvenile fantasies of the Project for a New American Century neo-cons, who promised us chocolates and flowers, a self-funding war, and a Norman Rockwell Iraq that would be a model for the Middle East.
Unfortunately, it's not easy — and maybe not even possible — to have any outcome of this that isn't an unmitigated disaster. And that's a terrible shame, whether you were for this war or not.
Sorry I don't have an easy answer for what you do after you open Pandora's Box (the term our Ambassador to Iraq has used on multiple occasions). But it makes good sense to impeach the idiot who went and opened it and to get the hell away from there as fast as you can.
(edited to fix paragraph spacing)
___
Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
