Walter Cronkite: "The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who does not want to lose"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Published on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Our Troops Must Leave Iraq
by Walter Cronkite and David Krieger

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/04/5598/

The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America. We believe Mr. Bush would like to drag the war on long enough to hand it off to another president. The war in Iraq reminds us of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Both wars began with false assertions by the president to the American people and the Congress. Like Vietnam, the Iraq War has introduced a new vocabulary: “shock and awe,” “mission accomplished,” “the surge.” Like Vietnam, we have destroyed cities in order to save them. It is not a strategy for success.

The Bush administration has attempted to forestall ending the war by putting in more troops, but more troops will not solve the problem. We have lost the hearts and minds of most of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be even a remote possibility. It is time to end our occupation of Iraq, and bring our troops home.

This war has had only limited body counts. There are reports that more than one million Iraqis have died in the war. These reports cannot be corroborated because the US military does not make public the number of the Iraqi dead and injured. There are also reports that some four million Iraqis have been displaced and are refugees either abroad or within their own country. Iraqis with the resources to leave the country have left. They are frightened. They don’t trust the US, its allies or its mercenaries to protect them and their interests.

We know more about the body counts of American soldiers in Iraq. Some 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in this war, about a third more than the number of people who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And some 28,000 American soldiers have suffered debilitating injuries. Many more have been affected by the trauma of war in ways that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives - ways that will have serious effects not only on their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but on society as a whole. Due to woefully inadequate resources being provided, our injured soldiers are not receiving the medical treatment and mental health care that they deserve.

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. Walter should read "The Shock Doctrine"

Bush doesn't care if we win or lose, as long as neo-con capitalism lives on.

[frogcycle]

2. I don't care how old he is

CBS should can Katie and bring back Walter!

[Adsos Letter]

3. I agree; I remember his nightly reports from my uyounger days...

...but, with his gravitas with my generation, and his experience with Vietnam, I wish he had spoken up louder and sooner. He is held in great respect by many of my generation.

[Ishoutandscream2]

4. A freakin' men

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. In his situation, age is absolutely not a factor.

And yes, he'd be pretty dangerous if they brought him back. He's a journalist, not a "perky celebrity."

:patriot: