Hawkmoon, re: "And I know that, EVEN I, am not willing to commit that kind of time and effort to Iraq. If they can't get their act together by the middle of 2007, then the message must be sent that the Iraqis are not going to get serious about unifying their country, then we're going to let them look over that dark abyss...
And even though I've supported overthrowing Saddam and attempting to facilitate the realization of basic democratic values amongst the Iraqi people, I also know when we're getting to the point of throwing good money after bad."
WOW!
Et tu Hawkmoon, et tu?
What happened to "losing is not an option," or "we cannot afford to fail in Iraq," or "it's a test of will?" And what happened to the accusation that even talking about "cutting and running" was aiding and encouraging the enemy?
Soon those of you in the blind-faith camp will be frantically searching for ways to reconcile the real world with the world you fantasized. Good luck.
Whether your "have faith" beliefs were based on that "good man" George Bush and the Republican leadership, religious views, the power of democracy, the power of some "God given right to live in freedom" or some unrealistic "we're number one" view of the military/economic/leadership powers of the US, you ignored the countervailing facts at the start and you smugly refused to open your eyes even as the facts became more and more obvious. Only now, when a blind man could see the light, all you'll admit is that you might someday decide that we're getting to the point of "throwing good money after bad."
Over the next decades we'll all be paying for the actions of the slim majority of your number who blindly followed Bush/Cheney and the neocons in their headlong rush off the cliff of critical thinking. That's too damn bad but it's the price we pay for living in a democracy where too many people are paying too little attention.
And you're right, it will be good money after bad. When we look back however, it won't be the "good money" wasted that will be the great tragedy of the debacle in Iraq; the obscenity will be lost lives of those we sent to die on an undoable mission, and the lives of those we killed, and it will be the decades of sadness of their loved ones and the sicknesses and disabilities of the wounded, and the fact that the rest of us have to live in a less civilized, less safe world.
And that's why so many of us have said, from the beginning, that this is like Vietnam. Ed |
