" No Light, Just Tunnel: The Bipartisan Guarantee of Continuing War in Iraq" Chris Floyd

[scarletwoman]

No Light, Just Tunnel: The Bipartisan Guarantee of Continuing War in Iraq

Our text for today is from the New York Times :

Even as they call for an end to the war and pledge to bring the troops home, the Democratic presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the United States engaged in Iraq for years. John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, would keep troops in the region to intervene in an Iraqi genocide and be prepared for military action if violence spills into other countries. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York would leave residual forces to fight terrorism and to stabilize the Kurdish region in the north. And Senator Barack Obama of Illinois would leave a military presence of as-yet unspecified size in Iraq to provide security for American personnel, fight terrorism and train Iraqis.

My word, this is certainly a surprise! Who ever would have thought that the most "serious" Democratic candidates would take such a position? Why, I suppose this means that if a "serious" Democrat gets elected president, the war crime in Iraq (which is what the old-timers used to call it when you aggressively invaded a country that hadn't attacked you and occupied their land with your troops) will go on -- just the same as if a "serious" Republican gets elected!

And they say there is no unity in our politics, no bipartisan consensus in Washington!

The NYT article is a hoot and a half -- or it would be, if the farce was not spattered with so much blood. Dig, if you will, this serious knitting of analytical brows:

Among the challenges the next president could face in Iraq, three seem to be resonating the most: What to do if there is a genocide? What to do if chaos in Iraq threatens to engulf the region in a wider war? And what to do if Iraq descends into further lawlessness and becomes the staging ground for terrorist attacks elsewhere, including in the United States?

Grave challenges, indeed. But why do they await the next president, when they are happening right now -- when, in fact, they were guaranteed to happen as soon as the criminal action was launched?

<snip>

We invaded your country. We occupied your country. We wrote your constitution, in which the arbitrary decrees of our colonial viceroy were imposed as fundamental law. We looted your money. We armed your sectarians. And we are going to keep a large number of troops in your country, come what may. But we aren't going to baby-sit you anymore. No, if you don't get your act together -- and sign the goddamned Oil Law already -- we are just going to withdraw to our permanent bases and watch you kill each other. -- That is the sum total of the leading Democratic candidate's position on Iraq.

Go. Read.

sw

[acmavm]

1. There is no way for a friggin' united Iraq anymore. Not unless we find

someone just as bloody and just as cruel and just as strong as the man we hung by the neck until dead just a few months ago. Iraq was just a hodge podge of territories put together and deemed a country by the arrogant country-makers of the west.

Let these people alone. We can't fix what we destroyed beyond all repair. Let them split up. Why does anyone in this 231+ year old nation think that we have the right, the intelligence, and the history to try to put together this ancient nation that we bombed back to the middle ages. Why do we think that it is acceptable for western nations to go over there and repair our handiwork? We taken their water, we've taken their electricity, we've taken their schools, we've taken their homes, we've taken their government, and we're trying as hard as we can to take the only thing they had to pay for it all, their oil.

This is a dispicable nation right now, and we're all guilty just because we're Americans. I never thought we'd really attack the country, and when it became obvious that we would, I was sick. Physically and spiritually. We had no right to go there. We have to right to be there. We have no right to stay there.

[scarletwoman]

2. There's nothing I can add to your eloquent and righteous rant. Powerfully said!

"We had no right to go there. We have to right to be there. We have no right to stay there."

The Truth.

Thank you,
sw