Richard Cohen making the case for the war machine

[populistdriven]

In the Washington Post piece he goes on and on in a very impassioned way about how Cheney & Bush are lying and the troops deserve the truth but then states the following:

"As I recently wrote, I do not favor an immediate pullout from Iraq -- not yet, anyway. The arguments advanced for staying make sense to me, and Cheney mentioned some of them in his speech. There is reason to fear civil war in Iraq, the country's dissolution, the creation of a haven for terrorists and the precipitous loss of American prestige, which could encourage even more terrorism."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701893.html?nav=hcmodule

The facts are:

The arguments advanced for staying make do not make sense to me, and since Cheney mentioned some of them in his speech, I have even more confidence that they are nonsensical:

1) There is already civil war in Iraq.
2) The country is becoming less stable as time goes by.
3) The presence of American troops is the primary reason, the fuel for the fire.
4) Iraq is not primarily a haven for terrorists. This is a Civil war with an insurgency.
5) The longer America stays there the stronger the support for the insurgency will be.
6) American prestige is already lost. He should have said Military Prestige because that is what he means. If this is why we should stay then Cohen should personally cough up the 100 billion from his personal accounts and send his entire extended family to the recruiters office.
7) Our presence there will only encourage more insurgency.
8) Name one military in history that has defeated a full blown insurgency that has the support of 70% of the civilians.
9) And we will never completely abandon Iraq anyways.