Can I point out that just because the talking points from the President do not seem to give justification for staying in Iraq does not mean that justification does not exist. I agree that using lives lost as reason to go on is ridiculous illogic, but amidst all of the moaning and groaning from the left I have not heard any concrete arguments against staying.
Even though mistakes were made in and after going to war does not mean that good reason does not now need to be given for leaving. If we do leave I hope the rest of the world puts us to shame and gives the US a good flogging, whether the next President is Republican or Democrat. I also hope that strict attention is paid to what does happen after we leave (a vain hope, I am certain).
I do not accept "there is no plan" and "things are getting worse" as reasons. I am as angry as anyone about the lies that were told, and I'm angry that so many in this country believed those lies. But to see respected liberal journalists so eager to wash their hands of the whole dirty business turns my stomach. - "Oh well those poor Iraqis, not our war, just Bush's business. Good thing he'll be disgraced." And those same people accuse the Right-wing of taking war lightly!
Both sides are becoming anathema to me now. How about this? How about those liberal leaders and pundits who want so badly to withdraw come up with a good plan (since it is what they accuse the administration of not having) to withdraw and leave in place some semblance of a country.
This rant comes courtesy of Wolcott and his quote from Tom Watson:
"And folks, it's time to fold 'em. When the argument for continuing war is to merely to honor the dead that have gone before with more dead, with more wounded, with more destruction, you know the jig is up, that the military maneuver is merely in the form of a forlorn hope, destined to die for nothing. The Iraqi civil war will rage until there is no Iraq. There never was an Iraq, except as the construct of an empire and a dictator; we had no business in the squabbles of religious tribes. And we have no business in helping to write a consitution that places the lives of women at the mercy of a medieval code of sexist, moralist, symbolist system of humiliation and punishment. Conspiring with the mullahs against women may be George W. Bush's greatest act of treason against the world's people - and it will live in infamy.
"There is nothing to this but to admit failure, and save American lives. Perhaps that is not honorable. Perhaps it leaves a vaccuum in the east, into which the hard-core religionists can step. Too bad: it is done. And we need to be done."
Don't mistake me - I will be glad for many reasons if we pull out of Iraq. I am a military brat and have strong feelings about the military and how much soldiers and their families sacrifice. But I want some decorum, I want some more recognition that it will be a tragic decision - something more than "Perhaps that is not honorable... Too bad."
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