Get Out Of Dodge, Already

[filkertom]

For those who believe that the illegal invasion of Iraq by US forces is the correct course and must be followed to its end, whatever that may be, this:

Leaders of Iraq's sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called Monday for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country and said Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right" of resistance.

The final communique, hammered out at the end of three days of negotiations at a preparatory reconciliation conference under the auspices of the Arab League, condemned terrorism, but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if their operations do not target innocent civilians or institutions designed to provide for the welfare of Iraqi citizens.

They don't want us there. We never should have been there. They will keep killing us, and we will keep killing them, until we leave.

It is time -- way the fuck past time -- to get out of Iraq. We can do nothing good there. We never have. Under UN supervision, the US needs to pay for cleaning up the horrific mess it's made. But, first and foremost, we need to leave. If you've got a better idea, you're lying. Mostly to yourself. (Stated rudely, for which I apologize, but struck through rather than deleted, 'cause I did say it, and I ain't Dick Cheney.)

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Since Liar George has been saying we'd only stay as long as they wanted us there, it will be interesting to see how his handlers and their lackeys spin this one.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Simple, they won't have to spin it because they'll refuse to acknowledge it. And they'll see to it that this information doesn't become known to the public at large, and therefore will be considered a "non-issue".

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I didn't want this war. It was stupid from the get go because the moment we leave, the insurgents (backed by Iran and Syria) will destroy any govt. set up there. Attacking Iran would have made more sense because then we'd be going to the heart of the terrorism problem and the whole Islamofacist thing. But no... the shrub thought Iraq would be easier I guess.

The war shouldn't have been started. But now that we have the tiger by the tail we have to hold on long enough that the tiger is winded and tired before letting go. No, we can't win. But we can take enough of the bad guys down that they'll be hard pressed to hold onto Iraq, much less slither into other countries and murder schoolchildren (ref: Beslan) That time is not now, but that time _is_ coming, and soon. My gut tells me that the withdrawl will begin about one year hence. And 6 months later, their govt. will be overthrown and a new govt. in allegiance with Iran will take over.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

How much shall we wager that troop withdrawal plans are announced and timed to coincide with the 2006 campaign and election?

Cynical? Me? How could you even suggest such a thing? </sarcasm>

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Tom, I respectfully disagree. You should read the whole Guardian article. They're not calling for us to leave now. They're talking about the end of next year, when 75% of the projected eventual Iraqi security forces are in place.

It would be a huge-ass mistake we'd pay for in blood over the next few decades if we left now...left a vacuum. What do you think will fill that vacuum?

This war was illegal, immoral and illogical. There we have NEVER disagreed. The unconscionable bastards who lied to put us there should (but never will) rightfully be on trial at the Hague. The situation in Iraq is an intolerable bloody mess and whatever we do, we'll be paying a heavy price for it.

But the question of what to do now is a separate one from what we should have done then. If you can suggest someone we ought to be handing power to when we leave right now, I'd love to hear it. But if you just say "we'll let whatever go on there and call it not our problem," then you're repeating the "whatever" policy that we had for Afghanistan. You're conceding a free national base of operations for al Qaida.

This is our mess. It's ours to clean up. I don't think the Bush administration is being honest even now about our reasons for staying there, but the one's they're saying are true enough. The alternatives, considered soberly, are just too grim.

The solution (such as it is) is to shift the majority in Congress in 2006, which the Dems can take as a mandate to impeach Bush over the WMD lies. As always, any solution begins with domestic regime change. My despair over the 04 elections remains undiminished, Bush's polls notwithstanding. But I do see the possibility of this backlash being bad enough to lead to a foreshortening of his elected term.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

Much as I'd like to see Bush impeached (or hauled up before a firing squad, pick one)...

Just remember who's next in line...

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Hell, Biggus Dickus can also be impeached. Or better, brought up, with his nominal boss, on war crimes charges. Not that we have any much better choices down the line, but the two of them ought to be held responsible.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

I wonder if we could just go ahead and impeach them both from their respective offices at the same time.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

I fully agree.

I'll have to side with this one

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I was against starting a war when everyone was waving flags (and displaying them improperly and apparently believing that no Americans could actually get hurt in a righteous cause), but having gone in there, and having destroyed what little semblance of stability existed , withdrawing and leaving a power vacuum would be worse.

And since this is a shared account, this is Robin, who does not necessarilly speak for Fred in matters of politics.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No, I'm saying that [a] it IS our problem, [b] we CAN'T clean it up the way we have been, and [c] even if we changed our government they wouldn't trust us to do it, so the best way I can think of is to finance the clean-up by more sane and experienced heads. That's why I'm thinking UN peacekeepers. And we pay the bill.

Yes, I realize how well this will sit with many on the Right. As I've suggested before, Phuque 'em. If they support this war, they support evil.

The alternatives are all equally grim. All of them involve fighting, and dying, in hideous quantities, for no good reasons. There is no good we can do there anymore, if there ever was. And notice that, like Rep. Murtha the other day, I'm not saying bail out in one day. We physically can't. But we are still giving money to Halliburton, still building fourteen semi-permanent military bases, still building the world's largest and most fortified embassy.

See, that's the thing. We have done nothing but look like an occupying power since we got there.

And waiting till 2006 is a reasonable thing to do, but the people in power, both here and in Iraq, are not reasonable. The "resolution" the Repubs put forth after Rep. Murtha's speech the other day was a freaking joke, which is why it got shot down in the flames it deserved. And it highlighted, even more than usual, the hypocrisy of the Right Wing: They always counter Dem complaints about the fact that they're fucking up the country and the world with, "Well, what's your plan?" And Murtha's resolution actually had a plan, and they didn't even debate it, but overrode it with their joke resolution.

What we are doing now is only killing more people. Anything we do will kill more people. At the very least, we can get our troops out of danger. Dubya's gonna get his own place in the Special Hell for the shitstorm he's set up in the Middle East, and I hope to Ba'al the entire administration ends up in a wing at The Hague; but in the meantime, I'd settle for getting our troops safely home, and for getting rid of at least part of the reason we have to worry about terrorists in the first place.

[hiddenkrypt.livejournal.com]

If they support this war, they support evil.

Only Sith deal in absolutes...

No offence. Just keep that in mind. I never supported the war, but my dad does. maybe because he was in the first desert storm. maybe because he had friends die in the aircrash in the pentagon, or by iraqi scuds. he has had saddam and his cronies try to kill him. not on a personal basis, mind you, but still.

You never know why someone supports what they do. If there's anything I've learned from Sci-Fi, its that nothing in this world is black and white.

[hiddenkrypt.livejournal.com]

'cept for zebras. and old movies. and a couple of other things. but I mean philosophically!

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

maybe because he had friends die in the aircrash in the pentagon

Okay, sorry, point of order. Losing someone in the September 11th attacks is certainly a valid reason to want Bin Laden captured (say, what IS King George doing about that these days, anyway?). Neither Iraq nor Hussein was involved, though.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I was about to mention that point of order. Understand that I supported the incursion into Afghanistan, which was, erm, uh, oh, yeah, supposed to get OBL and al-Qaida. My reasons for typing the Iraqi invasion as "evil" are numerous and distinctive:

• We violated international law
• We ignored the international community
• We made up evidence
• We used really nasty weapons like white phosphorus, which are classified as chemical weapons
• We sent over American corporations as war profiteers
• We tortured (and still torture) people
• We lie about all of the above

I absolutely understand supporting some wars. I feel that, from the outset, this one has been wrong, and there is a mountain of evidence to that effect, and every shred put up for the other side has been handily discredited.

I'm also not saying your dad is evil, or that all supporters are the war are evil. But it sure the heck seems that a large number of them were deliberately misled. Is all I'm sayin'.

[hiddenkrypt.livejournal.com]

Ok, I concede the pentagon point. That was unrelated. my bad.

I also agree that most people have been misled.

I guess my problem came when I failed to properly define "Support". I took it in the "I support the war" type of way not in the "Their actions empower and support evil" way. My bad again. I should shut up before I did myself a deeper hole.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

'Salright. A huge part of the problem is that people tend to trust their government -- especially in our case, where our leaders are ostensibly accountable to us. The depths to which they've stooped, the unconscionable things they've done, are staggering to consider and even harder to accept, even with proof. Heck, back when Chimpy got elected, I still thought of him as basically a doofus, and figured we'd have a few years of light comedy. How very wrong I was.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Only Sith deal in absolutes...

You just stated an absolute there, Skippy!

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Only Sith deal in absolutes...

I'm guessing the irony of this statement went right past you in the movie.

You never know why someone supports what they do.

It doesn't matter. Someone can think they have a good reason to support an evil thing. It doesn't mean they're not supporting an evil thing. It doesn't mean they're not themselves good.

Right, so the Golden Rule just goes out the window, hm?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Tom, I repsectfully disagree - not with your overall thesis, but with your last two sentences:

"If you've got a better idea, you're lying. Mostly to yourself."

This is wrong, Tom. It's wrong to say it, and wrong to think it. It is a fine thing to have an opinon. It is even marginally okay to be a bit close minded, and claim that your opinion is the only correct one, even though you aren't actually an expert in the field. But to claim that all who disagree with you are lying goes just too blasted far, man.

Re: Right, so the Golden Rule just goes out the window, hm?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You're right. I think I'll leave it there, but strike through it. Reason being, I'm quite convinced, because of the numerous facts on the ground, and the further fact that nobody has put forth any ideas in the past two and a half years about making it better, that there is no other way. People are gonna die, and the only thing we can do is get ours out of the way.

But you're correct. I stated it insultingly, for which I apologize. And I'll strike through it, so that I don't deny I said it (cf. Dick Cheney).

Re: Right, so the Golden Rule just goes out the window, hm?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

*nod* That's a cool way to deal with it.

And you know, I need to listen to my own advice sometimes. I expect that if I look around, I'll find a few cases where I, too, overstate my case.

Dang it, why do we humans hae to be so darned fallible?

Re: Right, so the Golden Rule just goes out the window, hm?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

"Why do we fall, Master Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up." :)

[andamaroo.livejournal.com]

I'll state right from the get-go, I'm for pulling out of Iraq immediately and completely. But that's not all. I'm for pulling out of every country but our own government immediately and completely. No foreign bases, no American troops on foreign soil. Period.

The sad truth is that we have spent trillians of dollars since world war II on the technology to destroy any country on the planet, but we have gained no semblance of national defense. All of our technology is designed to be offensive, not defensive. That bothers me.

Let us export democracy by being a shining example of it. In my view we should threaten no foreign country, interfere in no foreign disputes and aid or hinder no foreign government. No foreign aid. No military assistance. This is not the view of either the Republicans or Democrats since world war two (and before). Let's consider how American foreign policy has been doing since then with a few representative examples:

[1] Foreign Aid was originally justified to stop the spread of communism, but after millions of dollars in support and weapons were given to China, Cuba and Vietnam, those countries fell to communism anyway; inheriting all the weapons we sent over.

[2] In the 1980's we arm Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. These same weapons are then used when Hussein invades Kuwait.

[3] Our government enlisted Manuel Noriega in the fight against Communism. In 1989 we invade Panama, kidnap Noriega, imprison him in Florida and lay waste to his army on the basis that he is helping the illegal drug trade. End Result: Drug cartels run more freely in Panama because there's no longer a military to stop them.

[4] We bomb Libya in 1986 to stop Khadaffi from supporting terrorism, and manage to kill his son, among others. In 1988 a bomb destroys a Panam Flight over Scotland, killing 259, and our government says Khadaffi is responsible.

[5] In the 1980's we support and arm "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan and allow them to take power. We later bomb these same Afghanistans because they are terrorists.

[6] In World War II our aim is to liberate Europe and China. The result is that half of Europe comes under Soviet authoritarianism and China soon falls to the communists as well.

[7] We bomb Serbia in the hopes of ending ethnic cleansing being ensued by the Serbs. This is largely successful, except of course it's replaced by ethnic cleansing of the serbs and gypsies by the Albanians.

[8] In the course of the cold war, the United States, with the goal of spreading democracy world wide, overthRows the democratic government of Iran, and imposed or assisted dictators in Panama, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, China, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines and a number of African countries.

My point is that we as an electorate need to understand that the problem is not "The War in Iraq." President Bush is not the problem either. The problem is imperialistic foreign policy all together and an electorate that allows it to happen over and over again. I believe an argument against the Iraq War in this larger context is paramount. If there's one thing the United States has consistently failed at, it is "constructive" foreign policy, regardless of whether it's done in the name of fighting communism, the drug war, spreading democracy or making the world a safer place.


---

I don't normally go political in other people's journals, and I've tried to stay on topic, but I do apologize if this is out of place, or unwanted, and if so, feel free to delete it.

(Reply to this)

The fundamental interconnectedness of all things

[umbran.livejournal.com]

[6] In World War II our aim is to liberate Europe and China. The result is that half of Europe comes under Soviet authoritarianism and China soon falls to the communists as well.

Sorry, but despite all the problems of the latter half of the 20th century, you're going to have a really hard time getting anyone to accept that entry into WWII was a bad idea. Having half of Europe under Soviet influence was preferrable to having all of Europe under Nazi dominion.

Like it or not, our well-being is tied together with events elsewhere in the world. Isolationism has not been a viable strategy since the beginning of the 20th century, and it has steadily become less viable as time has progressed.

Re: The fundamental interconnectedness of all things

[andamaroo.livejournal.com]

Ignoring the fact that our involvement in World War One directly led to the rise of the Nazies, I would point out I didn't say our entry was a bad idea, I said we didn't achieve our goals.

We never achieve our goals.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. And it's going to keep happening until someone gets sick of the American army marching over their border and just cluster-pocketnukes the troops, then follows through by systematically taking out every major American military installation in the US in the next six hours.

They could probably sell it to the UN as a systematic disarmament of a well-known aggressive power and global destablizing influence. It could even be argued that it counted as removal of a puppet government.

Who knows, maybe someone would volunteer to bring democracy to the US.

[kimpire.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that I disagree with you entirely...

I think you'll enjoy this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4454738.stm).