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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (36696)	4/23/2007 3:52:51 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541967

I actually find myself agreeing with part of your argument which is that the victory/defeat rhetoric is wrong. Bush, of course, led himself into that language trap. But his political opponents, I agree, should move away from defeat language to other language. Well, I wouldn't say it's a trap for Bush - it serves him well to consider the ongoing activity in Iraq as part of a war - no one wants to lose a war, and Presidential authority is stronger during wartime. I think his political opponents would do well to adopt my perspective, that the coalition won the war at about the time the Mission Accomplished banner went up, and the activities since then are more like an international humanitarian assistance effort. If the people of Iraq don't want our assistance after 4+ years, and there is little benefit and lots of cost from our assistance, then its time to redeploy our significant assets to a part of the planet where they are welcome and can produce effective results. It's not that hard to argue persuasively the the Bush administration has had 4+ years to achieve various goals in post-war Iraq, and has not come close to achieving them, so cancel the assistance program. Phrasing that concept as "Lets lose the Iraq war!" is not the best use of language, IMO. Bush's language "your plan surrenders to the enemy and ensures our defeat in the War on Terror." Opponents language "US presence in Iraq is an expensive yet poorly planned and poorly run assistance program which is not delivering any benefits to America. We won the war 5 years ago, lets redeploy the Iraq assistance funds toward building schools at home..."