Wednesday, September 19, 2007

An Honorable Exit from Iraq?

Is there any such thing as an honorable exit from Iraq?

We know what President Bush would say. He recently went on record in Robert Draper's new book, Dead Certain, saying that he wants to see the American occupation not end any time soon and, in fact, last far into the future.

Mr. Bush knows two things: firstly, that the military industrial juggernaut is super powerful and that it is, as Eisenhower famously warned us, self-perpetuating; and secondly, Mr.Bush knows there is no other way to have a hand -- make that an Iron Fist -- in "stabilizing"/securing that source of oil for the United States. And in both things, Mr. Bush is right.

But at what price? And at what danger and dishonor? To him, a protracted occupation is a win-win affair. His friends are awash in billions of borrowed cash.

Because of all the talk, many tend to think that both sides of the aisle in Congress feel differently, and it is true that some members of Congress do feel differently. But however vocal, they are clearly in the minority, and the majority rules. The majority of Republicans and Democrats, speaking nearly in step, say that we have to keep funding the war to "support the troops," as if anything but "staying the course" means we'd be leaving the troops there, point blank, to fend for shelter and food scraps.

That is like Henry Ford saying, "We can't bring out the Model A because we really have to keep supporting the Model T. We've got to fund all the old jalopies already in the field." Or like Bill Gates saying, "Hey, Windows 2000 is as good as anybody really needs, so why not stay the course?" Nuts.

The American war against the country of Iraq has been a morally bankrupt and unAmerican (preemptive) war all along, so get out and the sooner the better. Why not ALL Americans out of Iraq?

In the mid-70s, when we got out of Vietnam, at last and after way too long, we got out completely. We might have made a horrendous mess, but we cleaned the slate as best we could. We didn't wait for the Vietnamese to secure everything and, in the name of freedom, set up a likable/puppet government, and recent history proves Vietnam was better off without us.

The same goes for Iraq. What other honorable choices do we really have? If you follow Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" rule, you pay for what you broke, and you apologize profusely, but you don't stay in the store, and you don't even loiter in the neighborhood after hours.

So make the cleanest break you can of this big mess: Don't leave a single American public servant in Iraq or even near what becomes of Iraq. Clean the slate. Empty the embassy. Clear out. THEN, if the future independent (or any part of the sub-divided) Iraq wants an American diplomatic presence there, start over.

THAT'S freedom. That's the freedom we would demand post-haste from any occupant of our country.

1 Comments:

At 9/19/2007 1:52 PM, Blogger Lawrence said...

"A government Enron on the horizon..." We can only hope!

The "MIC" does seem conspiratorial to me in that the current "SYSTEM" is not so much out of control as it seems to be IN CONTROL. We, the people, wanting to be divested of crass imperialism and prolonged if not permanent war, are the ones who are out of control, not crazy out of control but disenfranchised, deeply disconnected from power... not the way it was s'posed to be in the gool ol' U.S. of A.

Thanks to veteran Ken Larson of Minnesota (aka "rosecovered glasses") for your telling comment. Yes, I agree that the system is so powerful and so bloated that the only thing that could even begin to set things right would be an economic shake-down of the Enron variety: meaning the victims sue, the higher ups duck for cover, the ring leaders and some of their protectors are arrested, the management can't cover up, the workers say no to the sham, and (bottom line), the lenders won't lend.

Here's to a better nation.

 

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