Tom Hayden: Thoughts for the Weary on Ending the War

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Thoughts for the Weary on Ending the War
Tom Hayden


There are sharp differences between Republicans and Democrats about Iraq and Iran, both in rhetoric and commitments to troop levels. The Giuliani/Podhoretz axis of the Republican Party, for example, demands military "victory" and, in the case of the neoconservative godfather who advises Giuliani, "prays" for war with Iran. With their close ties to Cheney, they will be a factor no matter who the Republican nominee turns out to be.

But Democratic front-runners shouldn't get away with five-year troop withdrawal plans. Peace activists and the media need to ask tough questions of them in the next month, during the window for democratic questioning that is relatively open in the early small-state primaries.

The questions that should be put are these: Are the top Democratic candidates pledging to withdraw all American troops by a date certain? Or do they intend to draw down only American combat troops, lessening American casualties while turning to a counterinsurgency strategy, as in South Vietnam in the 1960s, Central America in the '70s or Afghanistan today?

As I recently wrote in The Nation, none of the front-runners plan to withdraw all American troops in fewer than five years. Responding to incessant pressures from the grassroots, they have various plans to withdraw combat troops (Barack Obama recently said it would take sixteen months from the date of his inauguration, which would mean July 2010). But all of them would leave thousands of American trainers in place, as well as Special Forces units to combat Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia (which the media keep hypnotically describing as a group of Iraqi terrorists under unnamed foreign leadership). Hillary Clinton adds the role of combating terrorism more generically, and John Edwards would keep US troops on the ground to stave off "genocide." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/hayden