In a Time Magazine blog this week, (isn’t it great that mainstream press is trumpeting blogs now?) Joe Klein praises Petraeus for his tactics and adaptability that made the surge successful, but makes a great point about the entire premise of this war: It’s stupid. Somehow the neo-conservatives who started this war believe that we can just inject Democracy into a country and region that doesn’t want it. It’s this kind of arrogance that has gotten us into this mess and continues to undermine the legitimate war in Afghanistan against Al-Quaeda. Period.
We need to “cut and turn” our troops over to Afghanistan where they are badly needed to win the war on terrorism that we thought we were fighting in the beginning!
justin
5 comments ↓
I have a question for you Justin. What do you think emboldens our enemies more, being absolutely dedicated to victory or handing Iraq back on a silver platter, undoing everything we’ve worked for? Just hold out till a democrat gets elected into office and BAM… they win. Talk about undermining… I thought a major reason you claimed you wanted out of Iraq was the violence. Now that the surge has succeeded in this regard you say “so what?” Where the heck do you get this logic??? It really does seem like you are all dedicated to defeat. It really seems like ANY good news is completely irrelevant to you at this point. You want out. Period. I’ve got news for you, until there is a stable Middle East, Terrorism will continue to thrive. That’s the purpose of Democracy in Iraq, to provide a base, and to uproot that, which is the lifeblood of Terrorism (instability). I agree we need more troops in Afghanistan, but not ALL of our troops.
As far as they not wanting Democracy, who exactly? Terrorists? Insurgents? I really don’t see where you get this. If you could please point me to a source I’ll read it gladly. You seem to mention this a lot. If memory serves me, Joel said “you walk around, and it’s simply not the case” in a previous skull session with regards to this point. I’d wager the vast majority of Iraqi’s want Democracy more than another Dictator….
Do you agree that a stable country in the Middle East would make the world a better place, or have you given up and now think it’s impossible?
As you already know there are more terrorist organizations out there than just Al-Qaeda that have attacked us, and our allies.
Here’s a list: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm
I encourage you to watch this video by a Lebanese woman telling of the horrors she experienced when Muslims began slaughtering Christians and Jews in her county.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2361383274896945386&q=Heritage+foundation+Brigitte+Gabriel&ei=zOlkSO6PL5mwrQL77Ny5Bg&hl=en
Lastly, things are improving in Iraq, but there is still much to do. Bailing out now is not a valid strategy. If we do, things will be worse than before.
Eli,
I think the thing that emboldens our enemies the most is our weakness. We’ve shown our weakness in the middle east by being bogged down by an insurgency we didn’t expect. Iran is now more influential than ever and under even more dangerous leadership. Hamas and Hezbollah have more power than before 9/11, even Pakistan is going in the wrong direction…
This theory of yours and Joel’s that we can inject a Democracy wherever it is needed is way too Amero-centric to work. (by the way, we already have a stable Democratic ally in the Middle East… too bad they’re part of the reason we’re having problems with the rest of the region!) The region (not just the terrorists or insurgents) sees us an an occupying force interested in their oil. Any government we set up for them isn’t going to have the credibility of one they set up without us there! I believe Iraq will have a better future if we leave the country in an orderly and planned way to leave them to their own devices. They’ll figure it out. The Vietnamese did.
The United States was founded by mavericks who left their country to set up a new one, and established a great system of government after fighting for it. The only help our founding fathers got was what they asked the French for. If that was the model of our assistance with Iraq, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But it’s not. We’re not France coming to the rescue… we’re the Romans; unwelcome and invading, taking names as well as the spoils… and we know what happened to Rome.
Yes, we need an about-face in foreign policy. We need to regain respect in the world community and take our rightful place as a beacon of light and freedom!
I disagree, our staying and fighting it out is an outright demonstration of our strength. We have the stamina to stick it out, and do what needs to be done. Osama has accused America of having no spine, kill enough and they will always leave with their tail between their legs. Prove him right by voting Democrat.
Yes the Vietnamese “figured it out” after tens of thousands of South Vietnamese were massacred after we pulled out. A good example of the term “Steam Rolled.” Many Iraqi’s risked their lived to vote in their first free election. They want free elections. It is irresponsible to start something difficult and not follow through. Only quitters quit.
How could I forget about Israel? My apologies. Good thing the Israelis aren’t afraid to defend themselves. I have a feeling Iran is going to face an air strike soon. After all, they didn’t ask for permission when they dealt with the threat of Saddam’s nuclear program. After the French were kind enough to give him the technology and equipment.
Great comments- both of you! I’m sure it’s no surprise that I’m with Eli in this debate. I understand the argument of overextending ourselves and the whole Roman Empire repeating itself- these are legitimate concerns. However, I don’t see what could exemplify a greater weakness than leaving Iraq before the job is finished. It shows that we don’t have the stomach to stick it out. It’s what the enemy expects will happen…eventually. As far as importing democracy into other countries who don’t want it. We had two very successful historical examples of when this worked: Japan and Germany. Neither of these countries wanted democracy. Neither had lived under democratic rule before. Both are now successful democracies. The Japanese people were more willing to kill themselves by jumping off cliffs than live under an American occupation. Under the terms of the surrender, we stationed tens of thousands of US military personnel there for 60 plus years. West Germany was left with little choice about our military presence there. Though I like Joe Klein, I believe he is wrong in his underlying assumption about the legitimacy of the war. It appears that the critics have moved into calling the war dumb and stupid because it’s not even worth their time to re-hash the 2003 arguments for and against invasion. The argument that things overall in the region (Pakistan, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas) are not looking good is not grounds for deciding the fate and future, or the original legitimacy for the invasion of, Iraq. Strategically, it seems natural to me that extremists will attempt to flex their muscles in order to intimidate and make geo-political gains for their intolerant world view. We have a strategic threat, radical Islam and the terror it promotes. When you deal with a threat, the threat will respond. You will piss people off in the process. All this is to be expected. One last reason to stay in Iraq until the job is done. I don’t want what happened to the South Vietnamese people to happen to the Iraqi people. What message does it send to them that up until this point we’ve been willing to defend them against extreme groups and help them fight anarchy. Now, we want to leave and leave the people to fend for themselves. This doesn’t seem to gel with the typical liberal talking point of looking out for the little guy. That to me is needless blood on our American foreign policy hands.
“Needless blood on American hands” is EXACTLY what we’ve got now. Every day in Iraq people are dying for a failed imperialist experiment and you guys want to “stick it out until the end”.
Eli, when you’re in a fight and you’re getting bloodied and embarrassed by onlookers like Iran, is it really a show of strength to keep fighting? Or stupidity? And you wonder why people like me call this war stupid….
Well let me ask you when that end will be?
a) When our treasury goes bankrupt and can’t pull anymore loans from the Chinese and others?
b) When all the different sectarian groups in Iraq decide to get together and love each other, accepting the rule of their mortal enemies? (Remember, Iraq is not a traditional nation-state. It was a construct from the beginning and still has little nationalistic glue holding it together. People there care more about their Islamic sect than the state of their “country”)
c) Never because we’ll have bases there for 60-100 years to protect our national and oil interests? (Whether we like it or not, Osama was right about our staying power. We think about wars in terms of years, they think about them in terms of generations… and guess what… this war is already creating more terrorists angry at the US who will be ready to fight in the next 50 years. Most insurgents and radicals have nothing to lose by fighting us. It’s we who have something to lose by fighting them!)
d) Or will it end when our supposed allies like Japan and Germany (who we so nicely converted to Democracy) decide we’re doing something worthwhile and help us with actual troops? Oh yeah, what happened to our legitimizing “coalition”???
By the way, I’m not trying to say that leaving doesn’t have its downsides. In fact, I pretty much agree with the downsides you guys have mentioned. They exist… it’s just that the downsides of leaving are much worse for us, for the Iraqis and for the world.
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