Reply #182: I did not disregard the origins of the war [View All]

[TayTay]

Indeed, in prior threads, I said the intel was both misleading, in that the Congress was given cherry-picked info, and that Congress was out-and-out lied to in order to secure a Resolution to go to war. (And that is the reason the DSM is so important. A real and responsible Congress would exercise it's oversight responsibilities and hold some damn hearings on that. But this Rethug Congress will not. Nothing but an electoral change in membership will convince Congress otherwise.)

What I did say was that we are in Iraq, no matter how we got there. Saying that it is illegal doesn't mean that the Bushies are going to -pack up and go home. (Niceties like 'illegal war,' 'war crimes,' and 'sovereign nation' mean nothing to them at all.)

What I am saying is that it is also moral and right to consider our actions and how they affect the Iraqi people. It is moral and right to demand that any withdrawal of our troops proceed at a pace that doesn't endanger them or the Iraqi people. (We have 138,000 troops there. It will take months to draw them down. There is real danger in withdrawing the wrong way and that danger is to our people and to the Iraqi officials we are supposed to be protecting until they get their government stable.) Randi Rhodes has spoken about this on her radio show, if we withdraw in the wrong way, it could increase death among our troops. (No one wants that.)

And, if Kerry, and others, don't want bases, don't want a permanent presence in Iraq and want to wean the US from a dependance on foreign oil (and fossil fuels in general,) then how can you call these Dems (cuz they are more than just Kerry, as you know) supporters in a war for oil.

Is it not possible that we are arguing differing ways of doing the same thing, with a concern for international law, morality and deep concern for both the suffering of our own people in uniform and the suffering of the Iraqi people?