Category: Politics, Religion & Money

In today’s NYTimes…

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

…and this is what I said a year ago.

We’ve got to get out of there. Now. It would be far cheaper and safer to simply give Iraq the money it needs to rebuild. Send the National Guard home where it belongs, let half of the regular Army rest, and redeploy the other half to Afghanistan. I’m no military strategist, but this is obvious.

If this was obvious to me a whole year ago, with no military experience whatsoever, what took the experts so long to start coming around to the same conclusion?

I’m so disappointed in the Democrats for failing to do real damage to Bush since taking both houses of Congress last November. I’m falling into a numb resignation that we’re stuck waiting for noon on January 20, 2009. But there are still some things I’m hearing that get me going. For example:

1. We can’t leave Iraq because it would result in utter chaos.

   This implies that if the Iraqis aren’t already worse off than before we invaded — and they are — Bush should admit they will be after we leave. I believe the blame game should be played, because it’s the right way to start heading back to sanity in the deliberation and formation of public policy, especially foreign policy.

2. The Democrats have to offer more of an alternative than simply “leave Iraq.”

   This is obviously just a GOP tactic for shifting the blame to the Democrats. “Leave” is a perfect valid position, and it happens to be my opinion. It’s going to happen anyway after Bush has left office, so why wait?

3. Progress is being made.

   No it isn’t. Except perhaps in Anbar Province, and that has nothing to do with what the U.S. has done, and the same approach won’t work in Baghdad. If the job can’t be done in 4.5 years, I say it can’t be done. And if the wrong strategy was taken before now, then Bush and Cheney are incompetent, and they should quit. Rumsfeld being gone isn’t enough.

4. Iran is providing bomb materials and expertise.

   I’ll give the Dick Cheney response. So what? What’s your point? Of course Iran is helping the Shiites. I’ll tell you what the point is in bringing this up again and again, along with the nuclear threat issue. They want to start a shooting war with Iran. Of course they do. Well, guess what? If Iran is the real problem that’s too damn bad for Bush and Cheney, because they cried wolf over the wrong place at the wrong time, and it isn’t going to work again.

5. Al Qaida is causing much of the unrest

Uh, wait a second. I thought Iran is the problem. Iran is aligned with the Shiites. Al Qaida is aligned with the Sunnis, except for the Sunnis who are pushing back. So who’s really the enemy? Or is it really a civil war? Bush is completely incapable of articulating any coherent understanding of the situation there, let alone formulate a policy that has any chance of dealing with it.

One more point is about something that Bush’s people are so far reluctant to say too loudly and too often, so the pundits in their pockets say it for them, and that’s the control of oil. We don’t want to let the oil fall into the hands of those who would not only refuse to sell it to us, but would sell it to our enemies. The problem with that assertion is, it means admitting that oil was the real reason for invading Iraq. And lying to the American people, and using false intelligence to start a war is, I would hope, a high crime and an impeachable offense.