It seems as though Republicans are recruiting some candidates for Congress-- many of whom are the same old retreads who were part of the problem before.
Not anything new, but a bunch of former members of Congress who they claim are supposed to be something new. Mostly the same ones who were in Congress during the 1990's and early 2000's and helped put the roots of the present crisis in place.
Epitomatically they are trumpeting former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, who will challenge his successor, Sen. Evan Bayh. Recall that Senator Coats is the Senator who said the day after Bill Clinton launched missile strikes in an attempt to get Osama bin Laden on August 18, 1998 (eleven days after the African embassy bombings and a day when we had some intelligence about where bin Laden was holding a meeting,)
"I think we fear that we may have a President that is desperately seeking to hold onto his job in the face of a firestorm of criticism and calls for him to step down.”
Senator Dan Coats, R-IN August 19, 1998.
The full context of the statement is that also on August 18, 1998 Monica Lewinsky was giving a deposition in Manhattan and Coats and other Republicans were apparently upset that the all-important Monica scandal didn't get the headline for that day (though taking a headline from the Monica scandal would have been what would happen if Bill Clinton launched the missile strike against bin Laden on pretty much any day during 1998.)
I'm sure that Coats' statement calling on the President to resign for attacking Osama bin Laden must have been received with comfort and great mirth by bin Laden.
I'm sure that there are some opportunities out there for Republicans, especially given Democrats' failure to pass health care legislation and other items on their agenda that have caused a lot of voters to decide that not much has changed. But the idea that running candidates against them who themselves were part of the last crop of failures, even up to and including a candidate who once said the President should resign for attacking Osama bin Laden, is hardly a recruiting class designed to benefit from voter discontent.
Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, September 11, 2009
It's Sept. 11 and in good conscience I have to say it: OUT NOW!
Today is September 11, and a story out today compels me to speak out.
I'M SORRY, MR. PRESIDENT BUT YOUR POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN HAS NO DIRECTION, AND WE SHOULD GET OUT!
I fully support this administration on nearly every issue, most especially health care reform. I supported President Obama last year and continue to support his domestic agenda. And even in foreign policy, his early moves to get out of Iraq (though still far too slow for me) and his changing the tone from one of U.S. hegemony in the world towards more international cooperation are welcome changes.
But he's making a huge mistake by pouring American forces into Afghanistan.
Back when we went to war there in October 2001, I fully supported President Bush in his pursuit of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government that gave him shelter.
But that was eight years ago, and President Bush bungled the job by de-emphasizing the Afghan war in the spring and early summer of 2002, when the Taliban had been driven into a small sliver of land, and one more concerted offensive could have finished them off (and probably netted all or most of the senior al-Qaeda leadership at the same time.) President Bush turned down the heat then and focused on Iraq, a country a thousand miles away that had nothing to do with the 9/11 terror attacks.
So bin Laden got away, the Taliban regrouped while we were otherwise preoccupied with Iraq and even spread across the border into Pakistan, and today we see that the leading U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Billy McChrystal says that he sees no major signs of al-Qaeda in the country. Apparently they've moved on to Pakistan and elsewhere. This is a very important story, because remember we originally went into Afghanistan to get rid of al-Qaeda. Well, if al-Qaeda is gone, then who are we fighting, and why?
So if we are not there hunting al-Qaeda what are we doing? Propping up 'democracy?' That's a joke. We've been seeing the notoriously corrupt Karzai government steal an election right in front of us. Karzai will win the recount and be selected President again. But he will have no more legitimacy than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in Iran. To suggest that we in any way accept a fraudulently elected leader as legitimate is to make a mockery of our own belief in democratic values. Mr. Karzai has no more legitimacy if the results of this election stand than the Taliban do. Neither was chosen by the people. So don't say we are in Afghanistan to support 'democracy' because we haven't seen any real democracy there. Ultimately for the Afghans to ever live in a true democracy they have to want it enough to fight for it themselves.
What we do see is in essence a civil war between the Taliban and the Karzai government. It is true that the Taliban have a reprehensible political and legal system in place in the areas which they control, and that life is especially horrible for the female half of the population. However, is that a reason to lose American lives over? I don't see it. The problems of Afghanistan belong to Afghanistan. The United States should be ready to lend a hand (both financially and with good advice) if asked, but there is really no good reason for maintaining U.S. troops there anymore.
Does that mean that we just give up searching for al-Qaeda terrorists? Not at all. Leaving with our army doesn't preclude continuing to collect intelligence, the use of special forces for quick, defined missions (such as if we have good intelligence about where bin Laden is), or of working behind the scenes with his local enemies (there are plenty, after all) to get to bin Laden that way. What successes we have had recently have been through the use of Predator and Reaper drones, unmanned aircraft that have gotten several al-Qaeda operatives (mostly on the Pakistani side of the border.) There is no reason why those sorts of operations couldn't continue.
I recently wrote a post entitled Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it about the uncanny similarity between our fruitless search for bin Laden to our similarly fruitless search despite sending an American army to march all over Mexico searching for Pancho Villa in 1916. One point I made was that as long as we were there, Villa essentially had nothing to worry about from his local enemies because he was giving the 'yanqui' the proverbial finger. But once we left so did his protection, and there were people in Mexico who knew how to find him much better than we did (and they eventually did catch up with him too.) It is certainly prudent to continue to keep an eye out for bin Laden but like a baseball that's gotten lost in the woods, there comes a time when the effort (and in this case that means American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars) expended outweighs the diminishing chance we have of finding what we are looking for. If you want to blame George Bush for that because the trail has grown cold while we were off fighting in Iraq for more than half a decade, go ahead. But it's time to get our army out and limit our looking to our intelligence service, satellites and other sources.
But the bottom line is that neither President Bush nor President Obama has articulated why we are still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, what exactly we hope to accomplish there, what constitutes 'success,' and most importantly, what our exit strategy is.
In his speech the other night President Obama pointed out that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are more than it would cost to reform health care (and that is true, based on CBO numbers.) But for that comparison to be any more meaningful than just a few numbers on paper, we have to quit bleeding our treasury just as so many Americans have bled their lives into the soil of those two nations all the way on the other side of the planet.
Imagine that: paying for health care reform by bringing all our soldiers home. Now THAT'S what I call a real world solution.
For more information: http://rethinkafghanistan.com
I'M SORRY, MR. PRESIDENT BUT YOUR POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN HAS NO DIRECTION, AND WE SHOULD GET OUT!
I fully support this administration on nearly every issue, most especially health care reform. I supported President Obama last year and continue to support his domestic agenda. And even in foreign policy, his early moves to get out of Iraq (though still far too slow for me) and his changing the tone from one of U.S. hegemony in the world towards more international cooperation are welcome changes.
But he's making a huge mistake by pouring American forces into Afghanistan.
Back when we went to war there in October 2001, I fully supported President Bush in his pursuit of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government that gave him shelter.
But that was eight years ago, and President Bush bungled the job by de-emphasizing the Afghan war in the spring and early summer of 2002, when the Taliban had been driven into a small sliver of land, and one more concerted offensive could have finished them off (and probably netted all or most of the senior al-Qaeda leadership at the same time.) President Bush turned down the heat then and focused on Iraq, a country a thousand miles away that had nothing to do with the 9/11 terror attacks.
So bin Laden got away, the Taliban regrouped while we were otherwise preoccupied with Iraq and even spread across the border into Pakistan, and today we see that the leading U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Billy McChrystal says that he sees no major signs of al-Qaeda in the country. Apparently they've moved on to Pakistan and elsewhere. This is a very important story, because remember we originally went into Afghanistan to get rid of al-Qaeda. Well, if al-Qaeda is gone, then who are we fighting, and why?
So if we are not there hunting al-Qaeda what are we doing? Propping up 'democracy?' That's a joke. We've been seeing the notoriously corrupt Karzai government steal an election right in front of us. Karzai will win the recount and be selected President again. But he will have no more legitimacy than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in Iran. To suggest that we in any way accept a fraudulently elected leader as legitimate is to make a mockery of our own belief in democratic values. Mr. Karzai has no more legitimacy if the results of this election stand than the Taliban do. Neither was chosen by the people. So don't say we are in Afghanistan to support 'democracy' because we haven't seen any real democracy there. Ultimately for the Afghans to ever live in a true democracy they have to want it enough to fight for it themselves.
What we do see is in essence a civil war between the Taliban and the Karzai government. It is true that the Taliban have a reprehensible political and legal system in place in the areas which they control, and that life is especially horrible for the female half of the population. However, is that a reason to lose American lives over? I don't see it. The problems of Afghanistan belong to Afghanistan. The United States should be ready to lend a hand (both financially and with good advice) if asked, but there is really no good reason for maintaining U.S. troops there anymore.
Does that mean that we just give up searching for al-Qaeda terrorists? Not at all. Leaving with our army doesn't preclude continuing to collect intelligence, the use of special forces for quick, defined missions (such as if we have good intelligence about where bin Laden is), or of working behind the scenes with his local enemies (there are plenty, after all) to get to bin Laden that way. What successes we have had recently have been through the use of Predator and Reaper drones, unmanned aircraft that have gotten several al-Qaeda operatives (mostly on the Pakistani side of the border.) There is no reason why those sorts of operations couldn't continue.
I recently wrote a post entitled Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it about the uncanny similarity between our fruitless search for bin Laden to our similarly fruitless search despite sending an American army to march all over Mexico searching for Pancho Villa in 1916. One point I made was that as long as we were there, Villa essentially had nothing to worry about from his local enemies because he was giving the 'yanqui' the proverbial finger. But once we left so did his protection, and there were people in Mexico who knew how to find him much better than we did (and they eventually did catch up with him too.) It is certainly prudent to continue to keep an eye out for bin Laden but like a baseball that's gotten lost in the woods, there comes a time when the effort (and in this case that means American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars) expended outweighs the diminishing chance we have of finding what we are looking for. If you want to blame George Bush for that because the trail has grown cold while we were off fighting in Iraq for more than half a decade, go ahead. But it's time to get our army out and limit our looking to our intelligence service, satellites and other sources.
But the bottom line is that neither President Bush nor President Obama has articulated why we are still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, what exactly we hope to accomplish there, what constitutes 'success,' and most importantly, what our exit strategy is.
In his speech the other night President Obama pointed out that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are more than it would cost to reform health care (and that is true, based on CBO numbers.) But for that comparison to be any more meaningful than just a few numbers on paper, we have to quit bleeding our treasury just as so many Americans have bled their lives into the soil of those two nations all the way on the other side of the planet.
Imagine that: paying for health care reform by bringing all our soldiers home. Now THAT'S what I call a real world solution.
For more information: http://rethinkafghanistan.com
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Right after the September 11 terrorist attacks, news outlets reported that it was the first attack on the continental United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) since the War of 1812. They said it was a new phenomenon: a foreign leader who hid in another country from which he had effectively declared war on the United States. When they said that they showed their ignorance of American history, and in matters of foreign policy ignorance of history is a very dangerous thing. There is a saying that those who do not study and learn the lessons of history will repeat it, meaning that they will not recognize a situation they are confronted with and will repeat the mistakes that were made by their forbears. And so it seems to be today, in terms of our war in Afghanistan and our pursuit of Osama bin Laden.
Let's go back to March 9, 1916. Foreign invaders attacked the United States. They first attacked the 13th Cavalry regiment of the United States Army, seizing over 100 horses and mules, then stormed into the town of Columbus, New Mexico, burning much of the town and killing two dozen people (both soldiers and civilians,) some of whom were shot in the head, execution-style.
The attackers came from Mexico and were led by Francisco "Pancho" Villa, already a notorious revolutionary. Villa, despite being pursued by U.S. troops still found time to cross the border again and attack the town of Glen Springs, Texas on May 15 of that year, killing one more American.
Because there were then still Mexicans alive who remembered the Mexican War with the United States (1845-1848) Villa's raid was cheered across Mexico.
This was the first attack by a foreign attacker upon United States territory since the War of 1812 and it prompted an immediate angry reaction from the United States. General "Black Jack" Pershing led 10,000 American troops into Mexico in pursuit of Villa. Their stated goal was to pursue Villa 'to the ends of the earth' if necessary, and either kill him or bring him back to face a court of justice. They had some success with disrupting and damaging Villa's organization (in fact, a young Lieutenant named George S. Patton is credited with killing Julio Cárdenas, one of Villa's top commanders.)
However, Pershing's expedition marched 2,000 miles through Mexico and while they did engage Villistas (and occasionally other Mexican revolutionaries) they never caught up with the man himself. Pershing later admitted to having been "outwitted and out-bluffed at every turn." In short, the Pershing expedition was a failure that did more to strengthen Villa by raising his popularity than it did to hurt his military capability.
The expedition eventually ended in January, 1917. The United States was well aware that Villa was still lurking someplace in Mexico and border security was beefed up. Pershing and his troops were soon after on a ship to Europe to fight the Kaiser's army (with more success than they had against Villa, I might add.)
Villa had been celebrated as a hero across all Mexico at the time, as Mexicans were more than happy to see him giving the proverbial finger to the United States. However when Pershing left, Villa was back to just being Villa. And Villa had left a wide trail of bodies all over Mexico as well and made a lot of enemies. So it is not so surprising that a few years later, on July 20, 1923, someone ambushed Villa while he was driving his car and riddled him with bullets. The Federales, Mexican police, claim it was them but many sources suggest they just showed up to take pictures. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Let's fast forward to the present. On September 11, 2001, we saw the second organized foreign attack on U.S. territory since Villa and the first since World War II.
Americans were outraged and the country rallied together in support of a war in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban rulers of the country and their al-Qaeda allies, and either kill or capture Osama bin Laden.
Although I almost never support war, believing it should be a last resort, I felt then that the Afghan war was necessary.
I also felt (like many others, and expressed very directly by Al Gore in the summer of 2002) that we should finish the job instead of putting it on the back burner to go fight another war. However, whatever one may think of Iraq what is done is done and we are now back fighting in Afghanistan.
Much has changed however. Far from being on the offensive, we have become primarily tied down to defending the cities and a few military bases. Our 'support' rests with the popularity of a government that few people outside the capital support or even acknowlege. International borders (especially that between Afghanistan and Pakistan) are either ignored by the enemy or used as a 'terrain feature' by them to their advantage. Recently we have been looking for another way to send supplies to Afghanistan because we can't even guarantee our own supply convoys in terrain that is so mountainous, craggy and rocky that the enemy can literally advance to within a few yards undetected. And, they blend into the civilian population giving our troops the unpalatable choice between sitting and waiting for them to attack us before we can respond or shooting at people who very well may in fact be civilians. In short, we have become the Soviet Union. Ironically, Russia recently answered our call for another land-based supply route and negotiated with other former Soviet republics to allow us to use the same supply routes in from the north that they used to use. One wonders whether this gesture from Putin and Medvedev was made from good will or with a sly grin, because they know very well how vulnerable those other routes are, and can't wait to see us fighting the same war they fought and lost.
Into this situation we have dumped thousands more troops. I wish them success, but I am not optimistic that we will achieve it. There was indeed a window to finish off the Taliban in Afghanistan (and maybe get bin Laden) but that window has long since been closed. A nascent antiwar movement, rethinkafghanistan.com has recognized this too and is calling on American soldiers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan if the present offensive in Helmand does not achieve its objectives and help stabilize the country.
But if we leave won't bin Laden again be a threat to attack the United States?
Yes, he will. But staying there doesn't guarantee that he won't. Further even if we leave there is no reason we can't continue to hunt for him via collection of intelligence, covert operations and the use of unmanned aircraft.
At this point, I would suggest that as long as we stay we are probably helping him hide. He is still fairly popular among the Pashtun, the tribe that is most strongly identified with the Taliban, and among some other Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Being pursued by the United States gives him the equivalent of a 'get out of jail free' card with many of the locals who don't want to make trouble for the man who is still throwing a finger at America. But if we leave he will have the same problem that Villa did-- he's left a wide trail of bodies (including Afghan, Pakistani and muslim bodies) that he will have to answer for, and sooner or later one of his local enemies will catch up to him, just as they did to Pancho Villa.
Let's go back to March 9, 1916. Foreign invaders attacked the United States. They first attacked the 13th Cavalry regiment of the United States Army, seizing over 100 horses and mules, then stormed into the town of Columbus, New Mexico, burning much of the town and killing two dozen people (both soldiers and civilians,) some of whom were shot in the head, execution-style.
The attackers came from Mexico and were led by Francisco "Pancho" Villa, already a notorious revolutionary. Villa, despite being pursued by U.S. troops still found time to cross the border again and attack the town of Glen Springs, Texas on May 15 of that year, killing one more American.
Because there were then still Mexicans alive who remembered the Mexican War with the United States (1845-1848) Villa's raid was cheered across Mexico.
This was the first attack by a foreign attacker upon United States territory since the War of 1812 and it prompted an immediate angry reaction from the United States. General "Black Jack" Pershing led 10,000 American troops into Mexico in pursuit of Villa. Their stated goal was to pursue Villa 'to the ends of the earth' if necessary, and either kill him or bring him back to face a court of justice. They had some success with disrupting and damaging Villa's organization (in fact, a young Lieutenant named George S. Patton is credited with killing Julio Cárdenas, one of Villa's top commanders.)
However, Pershing's expedition marched 2,000 miles through Mexico and while they did engage Villistas (and occasionally other Mexican revolutionaries) they never caught up with the man himself. Pershing later admitted to having been "outwitted and out-bluffed at every turn." In short, the Pershing expedition was a failure that did more to strengthen Villa by raising his popularity than it did to hurt his military capability.
The expedition eventually ended in January, 1917. The United States was well aware that Villa was still lurking someplace in Mexico and border security was beefed up. Pershing and his troops were soon after on a ship to Europe to fight the Kaiser's army (with more success than they had against Villa, I might add.)
Villa had been celebrated as a hero across all Mexico at the time, as Mexicans were more than happy to see him giving the proverbial finger to the United States. However when Pershing left, Villa was back to just being Villa. And Villa had left a wide trail of bodies all over Mexico as well and made a lot of enemies. So it is not so surprising that a few years later, on July 20, 1923, someone ambushed Villa while he was driving his car and riddled him with bullets. The Federales, Mexican police, claim it was them but many sources suggest they just showed up to take pictures. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Let's fast forward to the present. On September 11, 2001, we saw the second organized foreign attack on U.S. territory since Villa and the first since World War II.
Americans were outraged and the country rallied together in support of a war in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban rulers of the country and their al-Qaeda allies, and either kill or capture Osama bin Laden.
Although I almost never support war, believing it should be a last resort, I felt then that the Afghan war was necessary.
I also felt (like many others, and expressed very directly by Al Gore in the summer of 2002) that we should finish the job instead of putting it on the back burner to go fight another war. However, whatever one may think of Iraq what is done is done and we are now back fighting in Afghanistan.
Much has changed however. Far from being on the offensive, we have become primarily tied down to defending the cities and a few military bases. Our 'support' rests with the popularity of a government that few people outside the capital support or even acknowlege. International borders (especially that between Afghanistan and Pakistan) are either ignored by the enemy or used as a 'terrain feature' by them to their advantage. Recently we have been looking for another way to send supplies to Afghanistan because we can't even guarantee our own supply convoys in terrain that is so mountainous, craggy and rocky that the enemy can literally advance to within a few yards undetected. And, they blend into the civilian population giving our troops the unpalatable choice between sitting and waiting for them to attack us before we can respond or shooting at people who very well may in fact be civilians. In short, we have become the Soviet Union. Ironically, Russia recently answered our call for another land-based supply route and negotiated with other former Soviet republics to allow us to use the same supply routes in from the north that they used to use. One wonders whether this gesture from Putin and Medvedev was made from good will or with a sly grin, because they know very well how vulnerable those other routes are, and can't wait to see us fighting the same war they fought and lost.
Into this situation we have dumped thousands more troops. I wish them success, but I am not optimistic that we will achieve it. There was indeed a window to finish off the Taliban in Afghanistan (and maybe get bin Laden) but that window has long since been closed. A nascent antiwar movement, rethinkafghanistan.com has recognized this too and is calling on American soldiers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan if the present offensive in Helmand does not achieve its objectives and help stabilize the country.
But if we leave won't bin Laden again be a threat to attack the United States?
Yes, he will. But staying there doesn't guarantee that he won't. Further even if we leave there is no reason we can't continue to hunt for him via collection of intelligence, covert operations and the use of unmanned aircraft.
At this point, I would suggest that as long as we stay we are probably helping him hide. He is still fairly popular among the Pashtun, the tribe that is most strongly identified with the Taliban, and among some other Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Being pursued by the United States gives him the equivalent of a 'get out of jail free' card with many of the locals who don't want to make trouble for the man who is still throwing a finger at America. But if we leave he will have the same problem that Villa did-- he's left a wide trail of bodies (including Afghan, Pakistani and muslim bodies) that he will have to answer for, and sooner or later one of his local enemies will catch up to him, just as they did to Pancho Villa.
Friday, July 20, 2007
The debate on Iraq is an AMERICAN discussion, and Hillary was right to be outraged.
It is not often lately that I've defended Senator Hillary Clinton. More often, I've been critical of the Democratic frontrunner over everything from her support of the Patriot Act to her refusing to admit she was wrong when she voted in October 2002 to support the use of military force in Iraq (though she has noted, correctly, that the resolution authorized the use of military force specifically to make Saddam Hussein comply with U.N. sanctions, and the Bush administration focused on his letting the arms inspectors back in which he did-- so it was George Bush's decision alone to order them back out so he could invade anyway.) And I've made it abudantly clear that I've endorsed and am working for one of Clinton's Democratic primary opponents, Bill Richardson.
This week, though Clinton was correct in calling 'outrageous' an assertion made by Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman that even talking about withdrawal encourages enemy propaganda, in answer to a direct question that she asked him about whether the army was preparing a scenario for withdrawal.
The narrow reason why it was outrageous is that whether we end up withdrawing or not, to not at least have a plan for withdrawal is as foolhardy as, well, maybe invading a country without having a plan about what exactly to do after the government falls. Only a fool wouldn't at least have a plan to cover any reasonable contingency. It is only after witnessing the dumfounding incompetence we saw displayed in the weeks and months after the fall of Baghdad when we had no clue about how to run a country and let the insurgency assemble itself right under our noses that I'd even think that there would be a need to ask whether we had a withdrawal plan filed someplace and what it entailed. But having witnessed that, it is a valid question to ask.
But the broader reason why it was outrageous is one that cuts to the heart of the matter.
Sure, there will certainly be some opponents of America in Iraq who will be encouraged by the fact that we are discussing withdrawal. Just as opponents of America are encouraged by our coverage of war casualties, or as they were encouraged by our accounts of the devastation they caused on 9/11, or encouraged by the wholesale changes in our society they've witnessed as we change more towards being a xenophobic police state than we were before 9/11. I will readily concede that there are opponents of America all over the world who will take encouragement from our discussion of all of these things.
But the alternative is much worse. The alternative is to not talk about these things. If we don't, then we lose the essence of democratic discussion. How exactly are we supposed to extricate ourselves from a ruinous war if we can't even talk about getting out? Only in the twisted world of conservative logic would we put the kibosh on any discussion over getting out of a situation that has gotten worse and worse, and shows no signs of getting better.
The debate about what we will do is an American debate, and we will debate it and make decisions about what to do here in America. That is the way we do things here, and whether people in other countries choose to pay attention to what we are talking about and even take sides or make plans is irrelevant, and is certainly not a reason why we should not have the debate in the first place. Further, this war has dragged on for over four years since it was supposedly over, and we've wasted thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in order to strengthen an enemy, the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, that we were supposed to be weakening. In this context, a discussion about withdrawal is hardly a surprise. If anyone should shoulder the blame for encouraging the enemy, it is the inept leadership of this administration which has managed to fight them for years and achieved nothing beyond getting rid of a dictatorship which suppressed Islamicists in the first place.
Besides, if such discussions should not be held because they encourage the enemy, then why didn't the cacophony of voices now raised in praise of Mr. Edelman refrain from jumping all over Ms. Clinton's husband when he tried to get rid of bin Laden on August 18, 1998? Within hours, Republican Senator Dan Coats called on Bill Clinton to resign, and many others claimed that the attack (which came eleven days after the African embassy bombings) was politically motivated and should not have been launched since it took a headline away from the all-important Monica scandal. I'm sure that Osama, after realizing how getting done with his meeting early saved his neck, probably had a good belly laugh when he read the reaction of Senator Coats and others.
It is time for us to get out of Iraq. We should direct our military leadership to draw up plans for a withdrawal now, and then act on them. And no, I don't really care what our enemies think when they read that, I care that we do it because staying there any longer is not in the best interest of America. Period.
This week, though Clinton was correct in calling 'outrageous' an assertion made by Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman that even talking about withdrawal encourages enemy propaganda, in answer to a direct question that she asked him about whether the army was preparing a scenario for withdrawal.
The narrow reason why it was outrageous is that whether we end up withdrawing or not, to not at least have a plan for withdrawal is as foolhardy as, well, maybe invading a country without having a plan about what exactly to do after the government falls. Only a fool wouldn't at least have a plan to cover any reasonable contingency. It is only after witnessing the dumfounding incompetence we saw displayed in the weeks and months after the fall of Baghdad when we had no clue about how to run a country and let the insurgency assemble itself right under our noses that I'd even think that there would be a need to ask whether we had a withdrawal plan filed someplace and what it entailed. But having witnessed that, it is a valid question to ask.
But the broader reason why it was outrageous is one that cuts to the heart of the matter.
Sure, there will certainly be some opponents of America in Iraq who will be encouraged by the fact that we are discussing withdrawal. Just as opponents of America are encouraged by our coverage of war casualties, or as they were encouraged by our accounts of the devastation they caused on 9/11, or encouraged by the wholesale changes in our society they've witnessed as we change more towards being a xenophobic police state than we were before 9/11. I will readily concede that there are opponents of America all over the world who will take encouragement from our discussion of all of these things.
But the alternative is much worse. The alternative is to not talk about these things. If we don't, then we lose the essence of democratic discussion. How exactly are we supposed to extricate ourselves from a ruinous war if we can't even talk about getting out? Only in the twisted world of conservative logic would we put the kibosh on any discussion over getting out of a situation that has gotten worse and worse, and shows no signs of getting better.
The debate about what we will do is an American debate, and we will debate it and make decisions about what to do here in America. That is the way we do things here, and whether people in other countries choose to pay attention to what we are talking about and even take sides or make plans is irrelevant, and is certainly not a reason why we should not have the debate in the first place. Further, this war has dragged on for over four years since it was supposedly over, and we've wasted thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in order to strengthen an enemy, the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, that we were supposed to be weakening. In this context, a discussion about withdrawal is hardly a surprise. If anyone should shoulder the blame for encouraging the enemy, it is the inept leadership of this administration which has managed to fight them for years and achieved nothing beyond getting rid of a dictatorship which suppressed Islamicists in the first place.
Besides, if such discussions should not be held because they encourage the enemy, then why didn't the cacophony of voices now raised in praise of Mr. Edelman refrain from jumping all over Ms. Clinton's husband when he tried to get rid of bin Laden on August 18, 1998? Within hours, Republican Senator Dan Coats called on Bill Clinton to resign, and many others claimed that the attack (which came eleven days after the African embassy bombings) was politically motivated and should not have been launched since it took a headline away from the all-important Monica scandal. I'm sure that Osama, after realizing how getting done with his meeting early saved his neck, probably had a good belly laugh when he read the reaction of Senator Coats and others.
It is time for us to get out of Iraq. We should direct our military leadership to draw up plans for a withdrawal now, and then act on them. And no, I don't really care what our enemies think when they read that, I care that we do it because staying there any longer is not in the best interest of America. Period.
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