I was reading this article online talking about Senator Kennedy’s call for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq (yes, its on Fox…but its an AP article).
The later partisan bickering and finger pointing in the article aside, is Kennedy right? Is the US military presence in Iraq now part of the problem and not the solution? How wise would it be for the US to withdraw now…or even set a firm time table for withdrawing from Iraq? How would this help the Iraqi people? How would it effect the ongoing insurgency? Does this situation REALLY parallel the ‘failed politics of the Vietnam war’? Whats the most likely outcome of the US setting a timetable or simply withdrawing at this time?
I can see where an explicit timetable would be an invitation to the insurgents to press on (if they even need one at this point) and why it doesn’t make sense. A better idea, I think, would be a withdrawl plan based on meeting certain measurable objectives (# of fully trained Iraqi soldiers, % of poplation areas deemed “safe”, etc.). There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a target timeframe for these objectives, and target troop withdrawl numbers based on the objectives. But the target timeframe would be just that-- a target and not an absolute timetable.
This problem troubles me. For many months, I have regarded myself as being in the “we broke it, we gotta fix it” school. But I’m wavering. I see nothing to persuade me that our presence is anything other than an irritant, what little good we do can be done by others. With great reluctance, I am coming around to the view that our presence is of no value.
John’s proposal has merit, save for the problem of definition: if the Bushiviks set the parameters, they also set the compliance. Witness thier tireless efforts to pre-package the coming election so that any participation, however minimal and grudging, is to be deemed a success. How can we fail if we can define sucess any way we choose?
If the Bushiviks set a standard for capacity of self-defense, aren’t they equally empowered to determine when that standard has been met?
Putting on my cyncial partisan glasses, I see a considerable political threat. Ideally, the Bushiviks would love to bring the troops home in triumphant parades. But the next best thing would be to bring them home in failure that they can blame on their political enemies, i.e., me and mine. “Well, we would have succeeded, but the liberal wussies tied our hands.” They’ve done it before.
But we are required by our shared humanity to consider, first and foremost, what is good for the long-suffering people of Iraq. I fear civil strife is inevitable, and I fear that our presence there only exacerbates what is already present, and postpones what is inevitable.
The hardest thing to face is the problem that has no good solution. I think this is one of them, though I would happily be persuaded otherwise. But I am a pessimist, and I’m seldom wrong.
I don’t know about the humility part, or what that has to do with the discussion, but the rest of your point is exactly the crux of the matter (with one minor addition: that we must also consider what is best for the US as well). I can’t see where we should leave before a functioning, deomcratically elected government is up and running. We’re not there yet. We won’t be there next week either, as this is just an election to set up a temporary parliament and to elect officials to ratify a constitution. The election that actually matters, the one that will (or at least will attempt to) set up a permanent government doesn’t take place until the end of the year.
You may argue that that timetable is too long, but that’s the one we have. One might say that we have to work with the timetable we have, not the timetable we wish we had… I see that election, the one at the end of this year, as the soonest we can think anout leaving.
We’d have a lot more than civil strife if we left now-- we’d have a full fledged civil war.
Yep-- no good solutions to this one. Which is one of the reasons we should never have gotten ourselves into this mess in the first place.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Iraq is going to have nationwide elections in two freaking days! Scores of Iraqis have been killed by terrorists and Ba’athists in the preparations and internal polls show that something like 80% of the population wants to vote. Can we at least honor those dead and give hope to those living by having a go at the elections and see what happens before we even talk about going down Kennedy’s road of capitulation? Can we at least find out what happens after the terrorists’ long and bloody campaign against democracy succeeds or fails? Couldn’t he have kept that massive yap of his zipped at least until the Sunday morning talkshows after the damn polls closed?
I guess he’s formed from his experience. If he finds himself at what he thinks is an accident, the best thing for him to do is leave.
Neither do I, John, I have only a distant awareness of humility, as a virtue I heartily endorse for others. “Humanity” is the word. Which is to say, our moral responsibility to our fellows.
Crucial point, and well taken. But! have we any reason to believe that we can prevent that civil war? If the only thing preventing that from occuring is our presence, doesn’t that mean that the carnage will erupt whenever we leave, regardless? And how do we answer the assertion that our very presence promotes such discord, by forcing Iraqis to choose sides with us or against us? Those people who sign up to take part in our security force, are they motivated by patriotism or do they simply need jobs? Thier entirely sensible attitude towards self-sacrifice strongly implies the latter.
I hardly need emphasize my complete agreement. I will anyway.
Another expert! So many times I have been treated to such expertise, by people who know precisely who the insurgents are, and precisely thier goals. I confess I do not, all my sources of information are tainted by agendas. Do tell, please, where you get your information, which has so far eluded so many of us? Clearly, this nutbar Al Zarqawi has some deranged theological underpinnings, but what about the rest of them? You know for certain that they hate “democracy” and not us, please, enlighten us! Sez who, Manny, sez who?
And if you can’t provide such, perhaps the big yap that most requires shutting isn’t Chubby Teddy’s?
That’s a tough one. I personally think the carnage will be much worse if we leave too soon. I think we can at least give the Iraqis a fighting chance-- something they most certainly won’t have if we leave now. But it’s a very tough call.
But our presence also prevents the pot from boiling over. You are making the assumption that civil war is inevitable. I’m not going to say that’s a ridiculous position to take-- it’s not. But I see one other reasonable possibility: We get a functioning government in place, and democracy holds, or at least some semi-democratic strongman emerges who can hold the country together and minimize the violence. A civil war might be highly likely no matter what, but it’s an absolute certainty if we bug out. That would be disasterous to the whole region.
You know this whole question is kinda silly.
Why not have a timetable set up and not post it?
Set up some kind of bi-partisan senate/house committee to say yes we have an idea but things can change.
By not saying we have an exit strategy we are just leaving the thing open ended.
Pretty scary if you just think about it.
It presents another moral quandry. If I come to believe that our presence in Iraq merely wastes the lives of our soldiers, and afflicts the Iraqi people…
And if the Bushiviks offer a plan which I suspect is nothing more than a ruse to get out of Iraq and shift the blame on the resulting debacle on us…(Would they get away with it? Almost certainly, have so far. I know any number of posters even here who would swallow it hook, line, and sinker.)
Would I still favor it? Reluctantly, yes, no other moral choice. And if I can think that, somebody else is thinking it. Even as we speak, someone is making the contingency plans for just such an eventuality.
For whatever it’s worth I think that going IN without clearly defined goals (more than ‘promote democracy’ or ‘remove Saddam’) that would enable us to leave was a masterstroke of poor planning.
But for now? We wait for the election results and see how it plays. If the new government proves incapable of keeping a lid on things see if the UN will come in as a more acceptable peacekeeper and let them deal with it. If that’s not what they’re there for what is the reason?
According to Drudge tonight, Bush has offered to withdraw all troops from Iraq if the new Iraqi government asks me to do so.
Assuming this developing story to be accurate, is this a ploy because (1) Bush knows the new government will not ask him and Bush is just playing mind games with the American People; (2) Bush will actually do it if asked because it’s his saving face approach now that the polls are increasingly turning against him; (3) Bush is going to play hard ball with the Iraqis and attempt to convince them if America leaves, their very survival would be threatened; or (4) something else entirely.
What’s wrong with “leave when they have a functioning, elected government that can defend itself?” I was under the impression that was the goal all along …
As to the idea of setting up a “timeline,” its absurd; so much so that, honestly, I’m surprised that xtisme is even asking the question. One does not announce the dates of withdrawal for exactly the same reasons one does not announce the dates and times of invasions.
In any event, given that the resistance, by its nature, cannot formally surrender, its demise will be a slow and gradual thing, not a one-time event that we can put a date on; not in advance, likely not even in retrospect. Accordingly, the withdrawal of US troops will likely be slow and gradual.
When the history of Iraq is written, the year or two between the fall of Saddam and the election will occupy about a paragraph.
If I were Bush, I would be praying that the new Iraqi government orders all Americans out of the country ASAP. Surely, he cannot refuse, given his constant blathering about planting the flag of freedom in Iraq. Plus, he now has a great reason to bring the troops home without looking like capitulation, or cutting and running. The Iraqis get their shithole of a country back, and our overworked and exhausted military gets a chance to rebuild. Plus, a whole lot of American lives will not be forever shattered by the deaths of their loved ones.
And in related news, Condoleeza Rice has announced that she will step down as Secretary of State if Mr. Bush asks her to. :rolleyes:
Got it in one. The odds of an anti-American Iraqi government getting into power are smaller than the odds that Saddam Hussein had massive stockpiles of WMDs aimed at the USA, and Bush (and Cheney and Rove) knows it. And even if such a government was empowered, it doesn’t take a tactical genius to figure out that the fastest way for Iraq to descend into anarchy now is for American troops to do a total withdrawl without anyone else to step into the breech.
Face it, kids – barring the arrival of a large non-American replacement force, we’re stuck in Iraq for the long haul.
What Sen. Kennedy says in that AP article is exactly what I have been thinking for more than a year.
They should have held elections and started withdrawing last year.
Trouble is, after a while the insurgency becomes self-sustaining. Imagine the occupiers running around in a smoldering forest, trying to put it out - except that they are wielding flamethrowers instead of fire extinguishers! After awhile, it becomes completely irrelevant what they do and whether or not they leave. We are past this point now.
What’s happening now is that even Iraqis realize this situation. Seems that few Iraqi (upcoming) leaders are going to press for quick withdrawal. So it’ll probably be either phased withdrawal tied to objectives, or cut and run after all. Bad news, but that horse has left the barn.
I wonder if the new government is at least going to kick out those infamous enduring bases. Latest news (from commondreams, quoting a New York Sun article?? That article would be really bad news if true.)