Friday, July 20, 2007

We Ain't Staying

The Wizard predicts (once again) that our nearly unilateral and virtually complete withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable. In the words of Senator Joe Biden, speaking yesterday to our Ambassador to Iraq, "We ain't staying. We're not staying. We're not staying. Not much time."

I continue to believe this withdrawal is a horrific mistake. It's needless. It's stupid. It's terribly short sighted. It is a betrayal of our allies and a gift to al Qaeda.

Kill 3,000 Americans in the heart of New York City and receive an entire country as your reward.

It took a series of incredibly short sighted and poorly thought out moves by President Bush and the neo-cons to start this tragedy.

And it's taking another series of incredibly short sighted and poorly thought out moves by the Democrats to complete this tragedy.

But only some sort of massive change in the American public opinion polls could possibly stave off the inevitable.

We will have finally taught our enemies that we can easily be beaten in any war. Time and manipulation of American public opinion trumps military might.

And we have certainly taught any potential ally that we cannot be trusted. The word of our President means less than nothing.

Harsh? I think not.

Just ask the brave Iraqi's who actually were stupid enough to believe the United States would protect them and shepherd them into an era of democracy and stability. That is if you are able find any alive after our troops are gone.

After all, would be President Barack Obama has made the position of his vision of the United States perfectly clear, "...genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there."

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2 comments:

Vigilante said...

Minutes ago, I read TIME's treatment. You appear to have done so.

Wizard, I think you and I see the same factual world. I mean to say, we - the two of us - haven't chosen a separate set of facts from which to work with. But we come away from the same world we share with different perceptions of what is possible.

To start with, I think Barack Obama's statement was honest, courageous, statesman like, and accurate. I don't have room in here to go on further . . .

Bob Keller said...

vigilante.... I read your essay over on your blog and left comments there.

You are correct, we are both objective and honest observers who rarely disagree on the facts (leaving aside the Valerie Plame affair for a moment), but do occasionally disagree on the policies we ought to follow going forward.

As I said on your blog, I'll cut Obama some slack for his short answer to a complex question as I believe he was trying to make a point and not actually outline a full blown policy.

Be he needs to reconsider his words, if not his approach to world events.