Contributors

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Iraq

Before Barack Obama's trip this week to the Middle East, the President of Iraq, Nouri Al Maliki, stated that Iraq wanted US troops out of Iraq. This sentiment was echoed by several members of the Iraqi government.

The reaction from the Bush Administration was bizarre, to say the least. At first, they tried to deny that he said it. Then they vehemently disagreed with him, which is odd, of course, because we are supposedly still there at their invitation. To suggest otherwise would make us an (gasp!) imperial force occupying a foreign land. And we all know that's not true. Can't be. We aren't an empire because when you say "empire" or "imperialism" you can only use the strictest definition (see 18th century dictionary) and any other meaning is liberal hysteria. Lunacy...I tell you....lunacy!

Finally, on Friday, just as Obama was making his way to the Middle East, Bush and al Maliki agreed, via video conference, to a rough outline for withdrawal of US Combat Forces.

Huh?

Pardon me for scratching my head here (and I know I shouldn't in the ever changing, see if you can find the nut under one of these three coconuts approach to foreign policy that is the Bush administration's modus operandi) but I thought if we "cut and run" we would be giving in to the enemy? (Side note: still wondering who the enemy is in Iraq...haven't got an intelligent answer yet other than "bad guys." So, I'm still waiting...)

Apparently, the scuttlebutt is that combat troops will be out of Iraq by 2010. This comes a great disappointment to John McCain who has made his entire campaign about national security and if he loses that talking point then....why should he be president again?

Thus we have the picture to the left. Here we see General David Petraeus giving Barack Obama a personal tour of Baghdad. I look at this picture and really feel all of the wheels in motion regarding Obama's trip to the Middle East. I can't help but grin at the obvious fact that many of our nation's great leaders yearn for a competent, intelligent man to take the reins in these incredibly tough times and they have found him in Senator Obama. They are sick and tired of the buffoonery that has defined the least eight years.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that they have made their choice.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Publicly, most of the top brass are echoing Bush, saying that we need to stay in Iraq longer. As someone in favor of leaving Iraq and concentrating on Afghanistan, I think that's what they should be doing.

It's not the active military's position to second-guess the president on policy. The military is all about chain of command.

So when military officers repeat what Bush is saying, it does not mean that they actually think that is the best course of action. They are doing their duty and relaying the orders of their commander-in-chief.

And that same level of support is what I'll expect when the next president decides it's time to leave.

It is abundantly clear that we cannot continue the engagement in Iraq at current levels for much longer, regardless of what McCain and Bush say. The economic costs on our country, the psychological costs on our troops, the materiel costs in equipment and weapons, and the opportunity costs are preventing us from engaging the real enemy.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are where the terrorists are, and that's the war we should have been concentrating on. Iraq was a sideshow, but you can see why Bush wanted to go in there. He wanted a W in the war column for the 2004 election, and he knew he could never beat down the Taliban because they could always run and hide in Pakistan (which has been the real villain for 20 or more years).

Afghanistan, arguably as much as anything else, was the last nail in the Soviet coffin. That bloody war drained the illusion out of "Soviet Power" and Bush didn't want to get caught in that same trap. So he ditched that war, palmed it off to NATO and went for the easy win against the toothless Saddam Hussein.

We have taken down Saddam, ensured all WMDs are gone, turned the Sunnis against Al Qaeda and established as democratic a process as Iraq is going to get. We have won. What we need now is a good faith promise to Iraq that we really don't want to steal their oil. The only way they're going to believe that is for us to commit to leaving, and to start leaving. And a promise to leave without an end date is no promise at all.

The problem with McCain and Bush is that their egoes are crushing their rationality. Both are products of the Viet Nam war, and think our loss there was a terrible blow. In reality, leaving was the best thing we could have done. All the terrible things the war's supporters said were going to happen never did. The dominoes did topple, but in favor of capitalism. Communism is essentially gone.

In many ways, the Islamic fanatics are much like the communists. They preach a vicious, nihilistic litany that denies basic human needs and crushes basic human rights. Such regimes cannot survive when their citizens see how sweet life can be without tyrants.

That's the only way we'll "win" the war against the terrorists. The same way the Awakening Councils in Iraq turned against Al Qaeda, we have to help the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Guns and bombs can't do it alone.

Anonymous said...

"We have won." Boy, that must have hurt to admit that.

Anonymous said...

While we don't have a definition of Bad Guy looks like we have a definition of Victory now. It came from a lefty so it must have credibility right Markadelphia?

Anonymous said...

A strange day, when I find myself agreeing w/ BLK so much. Yep, we won the war and we’re both looking forward to less arrogance in the White House. We’re soon to have a man of no real accomplishment other than getting elected to the Senate via the murky Chicago political system; a man of little record, with a penchant for voting ‘present’, but yet with enough introspection to write not one, but two autobiographies by the tender age of 45. Yep, there’s a man with a well grounded ego.

Anonymous said...

Well its obvious to me now that giving somebody a tour is somehow equal to an endorsement of their ideas. That limb you are out on is pretty flimsy. Markadelphia can tell (from surfing the internet) exactly what General Petraus is sick and tired of and how he will vote.

Anonymous said...

...anyone notice the MSNBC banner headline "Tour of Duty" in regards to Obama's trip to the Middle East? Hop a plane, talk to a couple servicemen, give a speech and you too can be a real American hero.

Anonymous said...

Why would it hurt, dave? Aren't the conservatives the ones who refuse to admit victory?

It's obvious to any who has a brain that we are there to protect our oil interests, specifically the oil interests of those people who propped up an incompetent buffoon so they could go about the business of making a crap load of money.

Take a look at the recent deal between the major US oil companies and the Iraqi government regarding Iraqi oil. Review the defense contracts, many of them no bid, and which companies profited the most.

RLD, the definition of victory has been changed at least three times by the Bush administration, none of which have been honest answers at all. Gullable and over entertained that we are, we just go along with it.