Iraq
Posted : February 13, 2007 at 5:01 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
I certainly did (think that President Bush would hurry us into the Iraq war). It was about the only thing I got right about the war, which, the record will show, I supported. If I were running for the presidency, I might call my position “a mistake” and bray about being misled. But it was really a lapse in judgment. For reasons extraneous to this particular column, I thought the war would do wonders for the Middle East and that it would last, at the most, a week or two. In this I was assured by the usual experts in and out of government. My head nodded like one of those little toy dogs in the window of the car ahead of you. So I do not condemn Clinton and other Democratic presidential candidates — Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and John Edwards — for voting for the war because I would have done the same. I fault them, though, for passing the blame to Bush as the guy who misled them. They all had sufficient knowledge to question the administration’s arguments, and they did not do so. Not a single one of them, for instance, could possibly have believed the entirety of the administration’s case or not have suspected that the reasons for war were being hyped. If they felt otherwise, they have no business running for president.
— Richard Cohen, “The Explanation Hillary Owes”
I am looking at everyone who intends to run in next year’s US Presidential Elections and I am having a real hard time getting inspired. If I have to settle between McCain and Hillary or Guiliani and Hillary or some other wierd permutation like that, it will indeed be a sad day for me. I think this country of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln deserves much much better leaders. The actions of the Democrats in Congress feels more and more like it’s about scoring political points and less and less about solving the Iraq mess. The actions of the Republicans in Congress reminds me of a rudderless ship - Should we follow the President and risk our entire political future or should we side with the Democrats and see where they take us. And then there are the dozen or so Presidential Candidates who it seems to me are more concerned about what they say and how they say it rather than what they truly believe in. It’s sad to say this, but I am not expecting much from these guys in terms of vision and leadership. It’s all about posturing for these guys (and gal) anyways, or so it seems.
As for Iraq, well, I really don’t have much to say. If folks think that stabilizing Baghdad (forget stabilizing “all” of Iraq) for a few months by sending 20,000 more US troops is really our best course of action after almost four years over there, sure, be my guest. Like more than 95% of this country’s population, it’s not like my own brother, cousin, nephew or neice is over there in Iraq fighting the good fight. That said, I cannot emphasize this enough - forcibly stabilizing a city (forget the country) for a few months on the backs of our kids from Kansas and Kentucky, Missouri and Montana, Ohio and Oklahoma does not really feel like we are sending these guys to spread freedom around the world. It feels more like sending them to watch the back of folks in Baghdad while ensuring that these same guys don’t go shoot their neighbors or get shot by them, whichever comes first. I don’t think this will in anyway significantly weaken the Al Qaeda, will not necessarily do enough to bring Kurds and Shias and Sunnies closer and will sure as hell do nothing to protect us here in United States from the threat of terrorists.
I think we’ve seen what the military might can do in that part of the world. We’ve tried it for almost four years. It was not all in vain. We won some, although whether it was worth it or not is a whole another story. But it was definitely not an all-out success, as some of us were made to believe. And after some initial successes, we’ve seen things get progressively worse. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time we realized that the miliary victories can only take us so far. Frankly, I don’t think it will take us anywhere except downhill. And while I am being frank, what I fail to understand is why President Bush and Vice President Cheney are sitting here in United States. If this war was so important to the security of this country, I would practically park myself in Jordan or Saudi Arabia and talk to one and all, including folks from Iran and Syria. What do we have to lose? If we’re going to bomb them someday anyways, might as well try talking to them first for a change. Who knows, we might learn a thing or two about the ground realities down in that part of the world.
Anyways, my $0.02 cents on all of this. Depressing, to say the least.
- Anand
Category: US Presidential Elections 2008