To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (688016 ) 6/28/2005 3:46:09 PM From: bentway Read Replies (1) | Respond to My opinion is we should get out NOW! Yesterday would have been even better. Best would have been never to have gone.Who's Wrong on Iraq? Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution national security expert who advised Howard Dean during the last presidential campaign, and he said that the way to think about the current predicament is this: the choice is 1968 or 1974. He was referring to Vietnam. Of course, the Vietnam analogy is rather limited. The insurgents in Iraq, for one, are not equivalent to the nationalist, popular-supported Viet Cong. But what Daalder meant was that if the United States had pulled out of Vietnam in 1968 as opposed to 1974, the end-result would have been the same with one notable exception: 25,000 or so Americans and many more Vietnamese would have still been alive. Those six years of fighting were for naught, the sacrifice meaningless. If the same is to ensue in Iraq, then pulling out sooner than later not only makes sense but is morally necessary.* Who claimed there were stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq? Bush and his lieutenants have been wrong on most of the big issues. Worse, they failed to plan adequately for the post-invasion period. They sent troops to war before there was sufficient amounts of body armor and armored vehicles available. They pissed away reconstruction money in a haphazard process without effective controls. (Halliburton says, thank you.) They claimed the transfer of sovereignty, the apprehension of Saddam Hussein, and the election in Iraq would demoralize and weaken the insurgents. None of these events did so. They have routinely ignored (in public) the periodic intelligence assessments that report Iraq has become a rather effective training ground for anti-American jihadists. And now all Bush has to say about his plan for Iraq is that he will stay the course and succeed. How inspiring. Which brings me to another argument for withdrawal. If the war is in the hands of people who cannot admit error and who cannot acknowledge reality (paging, Mr. Cheney), then the best course of action might be to stop. Just stop. And then worry about how to deal with whatever unpleasant or threatening consequences come to pass. Does it make sense to allow a reckless driver to stay behind the wheel, even if you're at one damn unpleasant destination?
