By most accounts, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the United States should not have gone to war against Iraq. Things are not looking good. We have massive manpower and a powerful army capable of inflicting terrible damage against an enemy...except that we don’t know where the enemy is. The enemy is a ghost and how do we fight a ghost? Loosely defined and mobile, al queda and their ilk have proven to be formidable foes. We can take territory and hold it, but we can't make the territory safe. If we mount a large campaign, the enemy forces evaporate. This can go on pretty much indefinitely -- but, of course, we can't. The Administration has been pretty tight with information regarding the progress of the war and has kept the Media effectively on a leash. The Pentagon had a fit when photographs of body bags coming home were published, as if not showing them would mean that they are not there. We know that more American soldiers are dying, but we’re not sure why? There have been very few answers to a mounting number of questions regarding the war. Those questions include: Just exactly what are our goals in Iraq? To stabilize the country and leave it with a democratic leadership in charge and infrastructure repaired (only fair since we destroyed it.)? No answer. How will we know when the government is stable? No answer. Will a US approved Iraqi government be able to stand once we’re gone? Again, no answer. The President likes to use the term Iraqi Freedom and Democracy for the people of Iraq but what does that really mean. Does that mean that if the people of Iraq employ that freedom and democracy to elect a government factional and hostile to the United States, the Administration is going to dutifully accept this fact and move on like a good little country?
Highly doubtful.
So let’s see, we have a nation of 25 million as our ward we don't know what to do with it. The administration has been shown to be very short sighted in this regard and slow to even present a short-term strategy. With an upcoming election, even the most ardent admirers of the Bush Administration are not very responsive to the idea of committing more troops so that’s out.. Instead we get sneaky underhanded methods like deploying more reserve troops with the disastrous result that we witnessed at Abu Gharaib.
And what about an exit strategy? Do we have one? Isn’t that why the former Bush decided against marching into Baghdad in the first place. When will be able to leave? We’ve gotten no answer to that either.
And what about that other little conflict called Afghanistan (which by the way, many consider a better planned, measured, and more worthwhile effort --at least in the beginning anyway)? What’s going on there? Are we any closer to catching Osama? No answer.
Ah and yes, what about those mysterious WMDs. Those wmd’s have yet to be found despite considerable effort and expense to locate them. The incredulous statements of some administration proponents would be laughable if the stakes were not so high: We’ve heard: the wmd’s were shipped out of iraq just before the invasion, that they’re still there, we just haven’t found them, that there was a secret alliance among some of the arab nations to hide the wmds...etc, etc, etc.(the fact that most of the arab nations had severe differences with Saddam Hussein and conflicts centuries old is omitted we presume). Then, last but not least, when faced with embarrassingly bare hands, we heard, well, we got false information. Is this the best that we can expect?
The truth of the matter is that no matter what Saddam Hussein would have said or done, there still would have been a war imposed upon Iraq. This was evident from the start with the so called demands GWB made to Hussein. There was no credible evidence to support the fact that Saddam Hussein had acquired any wmd’s after the initial destruction of his stockpile. The administration could present only the weak and later discredited claim that Hussein had tried unsuccessfully to acquire wmds from certain african nations. And what about the terrorism links. We heard that Hussein had sent a representative to meet with the lead 9-11 hijacker, Mohamad Atta, that Hussein had paid families of suicide victims...etc. etc. To an objective observer, it seemed the President was grasping for straws. No one ever claimed that Hussein was a benign and kind dictator. No one is really sorry to see him meet his end (which by the way was in a tarp covered dirt hole in the ground...you’d think he would have used some of those purported wmd’s to keep himself from being captured and paraded on american tv, wouldn’t you?), He was, in fact, a loathsome leader deserving of little sympathy but really, is this the criteria that we establish to justify offensively attacking a sovereign nation and ousting it’s leader.
The fact is that there are many other countries that are oppressed by cruel dictators — ie, North Korea (who many believe, including this writer, is a bigger threat than Iraq, Iran, and any other “axis of evil”). Yes we know that Saddam gassed his own people, but hey, Kim Jung Il is starving his country by using up all it’s resources to become a nuclear power. Is the President worried about that?
Besides, Iraq was a case where the preemptive policy did not apply. Though no friend of the U.S., Iraq did not have the ability to directly threaten this country. It lacked long-range missiles, and its government had its hands full settling internal disputes and controlling the regime; they did not have the time to create the weapons of mass destruction. If it had possessed the devastating weapons that some claimed were in it’s possession, Hussein’s regime certainly would have used them to prevent his capture.
Subsequently, despite intensive investigations, there was no link found between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. In fact, Hussein distrusted and disliked bin Laden and sought to keep al queda operatives out of Iraq. The situation in Iraq is now a lose-lose condition. Leaving now will lead to more terrorism and internal conflict. Staying the course means more military fatalities in addition to the huge cost of rebuilding Iraq.
The Administration refuses to take wise counsel from our history. We should choose our battles wisely and not frivilously. It should be left to the people of the concerned country to fight their way to liberation, and the U.S. should offer help only if asked by the people of that country.
Now we’re begging the UN-- who we practically called irrelevant and ridiculed during the pre-war days--to come to our assistance. I’m sure that Body bears no hard feelings, right? Sad but true.
We could have saved ourselves and the people of Iraq from this sorry state of affairs. We could have saved ourselves the tragic and continuing losses of some of our nation’s most precious and not unlimited resources: our military youth. The Administration should have kept it’s eye on the real prize: al queda, terrorism, and osama. And now, it should be pressured to both come up with a lasting and effective means of controlling events in Iraq and present a competent terrorism plan. That or pack up and get out of town.
How to Deal With Iraq and Terrorism: Some Humble Suggestions
Iraq
1. Increase troop strength to adequately contain violence and insurgency and get infrastructure and security improved.
2. Give Iraq back to it’s people regardless of the type of government it elects.
Terrorism
1. First and foremost, pressure countries that are breeding grounds for groups like al queda (I.E. SAUDIA ARABIA) to seriously come up with means of controlling terrorism activities or face serious political and economic sanctions.
2. Get rid of the diversion called Iraq.
3. Expedite SERIOUS research of alternative methods of energy, thereby reducing the US dependency on oil (would we really care about them then?).
