Iraq, Now

Now that we’re in Iraq, I think we have an obligation. Fundamentally, I completely agree with the idea that if we leave with the job unfinished, Iraq will be worse than before.

I believe it was foolish to think it would be done in a matter of months. The American Revolution went on for 7 years, I’d say that a comparison can be made between the technology advantage that the British had over us at that time and the technology advantage the coalition (including Iraq) has over the insurgents in Iraq today. And we won, we don’t want the insurgency to win. If you think about it that way, how can anyone expect this to be done so quickly? It’s the same kind of fight in a different time.

Having said that I support the war, you may be surprised to read that I don’t necessarily support the administration. One of the main things I dislike about this administration is that they routinely give the same answer over and over. They try to drill their answer into the head of the American people.  If the answer is challenged, the same answer comes back again and again. It seems akin to raising your voice when talking to someone who speaks a different language. If they don’t understand, saying it louder won’t help.

The idea of “fighting the terrorists on their own turf” sounded good at first, but I don’t buy it any more. It is known that the 9/11 attackers and the London bombers (and the Spain train bombings, I believe) were all western educated, and in many cases, western raised. These are different terrorists than the ones setting roadside bombs in Iraq. I’m no expert, but I don’t think the average terrorist in Iraq is going to wake up tomorrow, put on western style clothes, shave his beard, and say in the fluent western language of his choice, “I think I’ll go bomb a train today”. We are fighting some terrorists on their own turf, just not the ones we should be most concerned about.

It also seems logical to me that since the average Islamic fundamentalist in the region despises our presence in Iraq, there will be a continual flow of incoming insurgents until we vacate. It is very easy for radicals to recruit new insurgents when there is a foreign force occupying their country, or a neighboring country. Once we are out, and the average Muslim sees that the Iraqi people are the ones they are fighting, the insurgency train should lose steam.

I also don’t like the administration’s answer about timelines.  Whenever the question is asked, “when can our troops come home?” the answer is always, “it is dangerous to publish timelines”. I can follow that. I agree that we don’t want to set a hard date, but that’s not much of an answer. If we were to say, “US troops will withdraw from Iraq on June 1, 2006”, the insurgency would probably quiet down, and rise up again after we leave, destroying Iraq in the end.

What’s to stop us, however, from making statements such as “when 80% of the Iraqi forces are trained and self-sufficient”, or “when the Iraqi forces are able to sufficiently patrol all areas that US troops are currently patrolling”? That may take 1, 2, or 5 years, but it’s a goal, and it’s a goal that doesn’t open the door for insurgency once it’s met.

We can’t just get up and leave, the Iraqi people don’t want that, the insurgents do. We need to finish the job, not give up. That’d be un-American.

Comments

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Ruth R. Felder
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I am not agree. Iraq now is a democratic country - it is great for them, they must to be happy of it.

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Now Iraq is safest country in the middle east.