Get Out - Now

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/02/248/

Get Out - Now
by Dennis Jett

Despite all the rhetoric and resolutions emanating from Washington, two fundamental facts about the war in Iraq won’t change. The killing will continue, but not all of it has to.Iraqis will continue to die in large numbers regardless of what the United States does. The troop surge will shift the violence to other locations or cause the combatants to go underground for a time, but will do nothing to resolve the reasons for the fighting. The ignorance, arrogance and incompetence of the American architects of the invasion and its aftermath have created the perfect storm of factors that made the current civil war possible and inevitable for years to come. The deepening of the sectarian divide, the struggle over who gets to steal the oil revenue and the proxy fight for influence being waged by other countries in the region all ensure that peace will not break out soon.

The war is lost

The politicians in Washington, whether they support the war or oppose it, do not want to end it at all costs, however. Those who pass legislation calling for a fixed timetable for withdrawing American troops do so secure in the knowledge that it will never be enacted. They would not pass a bill that would actually take effect because they are not about to remove the Iraqi albatross from around President Bush’s neck and hang it around their own.

Those political leaders who say they support the war know it is lost, but cannot admit it. Their constituents cannot accept the idea of defeat. What has been won, how or why does not matter. In the Vince Lombardi school of international relations, winning is the only thing. So, for them, there is no accepting any outcome called defeat even though invading Iraq has not made us safer and debilitates us more every day. Instead they have to stay the course hoping something they can call victory will miraculously appear.

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[murray hill farm]

1. yep!

GET OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rydz777]

2. Now, not 2008, but NOW

I'm increasingly pessimistic, however. I don't think it will end this year. There will be continuing political games, all consistent with Bush's plan to drag it on until the end of his term and dump it on his successor. He will then retire to Crawford and tell us from time to time how his successor (a Democrat) is messing up the "victory."

[babylonsister]

3. The Dems are trying to cut him off at the pass; I laud them for trying. nt