On the March 24th show of Real Time With Bill Maher, panelist David Frum, sitting in the "wingnut" seat, asked an excellent question: If an American pullout results in a Shia-led massacre of Sunnis (what might, in fact, be described as a genocide, assuming it's one-sided, which I wouldnt), will the Democrats take responsibility for that?
This is the flip side of the coin, isnt it? Yes, we did a bad thing invading the country. In fact, we've done hardly anything right since then. But, we broke it, and, as the saying goes, "you broke it, you buy it".
Should we get out of Iraq? Well, yes. But not because we dont belong there, (we dont), but because we havent got what it takes to clean up our mess. I'm not saying we couldnt do it; I'm saying we wont, because it'll hurt too much. So, like some cheap playa' who's knocked up one of his playthings, we're denying responsibility and taking off. If forced to, we might pony up a few bucks over the years towards raising this monster we've sired, but no way are we going to take the responsibility we owe this situation, because that'd really cramp our style.
What?! Give up our party lifestyle? Hey, why should I pay just 'cause she's got great assets? Besides, she seduced me.
We should have kept our rifle in our fatigues.
We never should have gone to Iraq in the first place. But we did. Now, like the dead-beat dads that Right-Wingers love to criticize so much, we're going to abandon our love (hate) child to the vagaries of chance.
So, here's what I think we ought to do:
1. Institute a draft. Double the number of soldiers in Iraq, and quadruple (at least) the number in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan, the country where al Queda actually was). Part of the problem our troops have always had is that there has never been enough of them.
2. Raise taxes. 414 billion spent so far; somebody's got to pay for it, and it ought to be the people who initiated the war, and that's US.
3. Ration gasoline. What's gotten us into this mess? Our obscene thirst for fuel. There's a woman at my daughter's school who drives one block to pick up her child. That's beyond stupid, it's suicidal.
Nasty, huh. But, hey, War is Hell, or it ought to be. But I'm not done.
4. Investigate all information and "evidence" used to get us into this quagmire.
5. Investigate oil companies and oil prices. The biggest winners in this whole mess has been oil producers (except for the Iraqis, that is). And it's time for the "executive privilege" farce to end. Bush and his people are Public Servants, and the public deserves to know what he's done. In Detail.
6. No more secrets. Yes, some things need to be classified, but claims of "security" made by an administration which outs a 20-year CIA veteran are more than a little disingenuous.
7. In cases where laws have been broken, law-breakers need to be punished. Any and all. And lets start with those in positions of trust, not the foot-soldiers.
Will any of this happen? Hell, no. This is a country that adamantly refuses to do anything that doesnt earn money (generally for someone politically connected). Even our government is more worried about money than it is about service. No, we'll pull out eventually, pretty much cementing our world-wide reputation as a nation that comes in swinging, busts shit up, then slinks out without paying the bill.
Except that we will pay the bill. This will cost us. Somehow.
Oh, one last thing: Just in case you think I've lost my mind, I dont think we should be in Iraq. But we are, and we are morally obligated to clean up our mess. But I know we will not. And for me, that makes it all the more imperative that we hold those who led us into this mess accountable.
But even as we do, we should remember that we had a choice to follow or not, and then, after following, we had a chance to change our mind and our leadership. We failed at both. A change in leadership three and a half years after starting this war absolves us of nothing. Should this war ultimately lay the U.S. low, making our future nation a sad husk of its former self (think Italy compared to the glory of Rome, but without all the fine Art), then it will be nothing more than we deserve. We have, collectively, failed to live up to our nation's ideals.
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4 comments:
I made the same argument for a long time and I still agree with it in principle. Nothing chaps me more than to hear some wingnut pontificate about the Iraqis not stepping up to the plate. THEY DIDN'T ASK TO JOIN THE GAME TO BEGIN WITH YOU IGNORANT REPUBLICAN DICKHEAD!
But, the problem is that the Shitheel-in-Chief is clearly not ever going to take responsibility for anything and even if we did all those things now, I don't think we could stuff the snakes back into the box. That takes us back to your original thought...why the hell did we go there anyway?
We broke it and we're already buying it and we'll still be paying for years to come. At this stage, the problem isn't taking responsibility or paying for it. The problem is when you not only break the pisspot, but grind it into dust, there's no putting it back together again.
We're off in the moral wilderness as a result of The Decider, and the Iraqis don't even have a pot to piss in.
It's a damn shame all the way around.
i agree totally, except just one premise. if the russians had cruised in here just before our revolution, how well do you think the british and the rebels would have taken this act? technically saddam was just a fence holding back the exact same situation. money has never been the solution nor has force.
yes it's our mess, but how long are we justified in prolonging the agony? that is the question that we must answer.
We're prolonging the agony partially because we've done this thing so half-ass, partially because we're there mostly as looters. Since we've not got the ethics or balls to do the job right, we need to get out. We're a knife still in the wound, and while a lot of blood may be spilled when we pull out, it's never going heal while we're stuck in there, and we wont do what's required to sew the wound up. We cut out a cancer with a Bowie knife, no antiseptic, and some scotch tape. The patient is therefore doing about as well as one might expect under the circumstances.
Wow. I actually agree with you. Unfortuently I also agree that odds are we won't have what it takes to finsish what we started. the one place I differ a bit is when it started. I think we started it when we encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up against SH in the first Gulf War and then abandoned them when they did.
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