Steve Gilliard nails it with this one:
This will be brief.
We need to be honest here: Iraq is not worth one more dead American.
People on the right and left want some deus ex machina to save Iraq, but we have., collectively, come to a simple conclusion:
Iraq is not worth dying for. Not for the warmongers on the right or the liberal hawks on the left.
It’s bad the soldiers are trapped there, but we have made it their problem, No one is willingly going to join them, and 5,000 have deserted so far.
When you ask liberal hawks to enlist, they are offended by the question.
When you ask conservatives to enlist, they are offended by the question.
And America’s parents are NOT sending their kids to die in Iraq if they can, at all, help it. No one blows up IED’s at Wal Mart.
We have a volunteer army with fewer and fewer volunteers, and people reenlisting only to save their friends. There is a time limit to their ability to be in combat. They cannot serve forever. They will have to be replaced. And fewer and fewer are willing to replace them,
What I want people to do is be honest.
If you will not serve in Iraq, and no one you know will serve, stop expecting someone else to do what you will not.
Therefore, it is time to stop calling for more troops, or the US to make Iraq safe. We cannot do this and even Americans are refusing to join the fight. It is time to look at your actions and realize, that despite your ideals, you oppose continuing this war. In practical terms, you have decided that this war is not worth your life or anyone you know. And million of Americans have joined you in this decision.
So, with this fact evident, it is time to call for US troops to withdraw from Iraq. Not save it, not add more boots on the ground. You have already voted by your actions. It is time that you match it with your words.
2 Responses to “Honest About Iraq”
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June 23rd, 2005 at 9:45 am
It’s clear that we’re in a quagmire in Iraq. The comparisons to Vietnam are multiplying quickly. (Daniel Ellsberg recently noted that there are differences between the two countries: “In Iraq, it’s a dry heat.”) But I wish Gilliard could have found a way to make his argument without introducing the call for withdrawal with the xenophobic statement, “Iraq is not worth one more dead American.”
As a firm supporter of the values of global responsibility, democracy, and nonviolence, I don’t accept this kind of reductionism, and I believe that progressives ought to be able to advance arguments for real solutions that move us beyond the right-left dichotomy.
I’m not for withdrawal because Iraqi lives are less valuable than American lives. I’m for withdrawal because all lives are valuable, and because we can’t afford this occupation, and because we can’t force democracy down the throats of people through armed force, and because our presence in Iraq is fueling terrorism and terrorist organizing, and for other reasons as well.
But no matter what the U.S. does, there will be costs. What alarms me is that those most vocal about the need for withdrawal seem to care not one whit for what will happen to the representatives of the fledgling Iraqi government and many innocent Iraqi civilians once we are gone.
I feel a responsibility to argue for withdrawal in a way that will provide the best possible protections to Iraqis who will be left holding our bag. I hope we can use this forum to throw some of those ideas forward.
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:33 am
I held on to that view for some time, but the more things unfold, the more it seems that we are only making things worse. If that is true, then Iraq would be better off without us.
Every time we go in after insurgents and level another city (and it’s been pretty well confirmed that we’ve been using something very similar to napalm), the more we feed the insurgency.
We don’t have enough troops to end the insurgency by military means even though we keep trying.
All of our major allies will be out by the end of the year–except Britain which has withdrawn most of its troops and left only a small force.
The vast majority of Iraqis don’t want us there, and now most Americans don’t want us there either. We won’t last long enough to establish a stable government; the Shia, Sunni and Kurds are already sqabbling, and the security situation in Baghdad is so bad they had to shut down the parliament building and postpone proceedings for a week.
The Iraqi security forces are riddled with insurgent sympathizers–they are of dubious value.
And as Steve Gilliard points out, even the war’s most vocal proponants aren’t willing to enlist to support the effort. No matter what they say, they have already voted with their feet.
We got into the wrong war for the wrong reasons and we pursued a monstrously incompetent reconstruction effort that has only made things worse.
If, a year or two ago, we had replaced our forces with a multi-national peace keeping force, there might have a chance for Iraq to achieve a stable government, but now I think it is too late.
Like they said in Animal House, “You fucked up; you trusted us.”
Under these circumstances, I don’t believe it is worth one more American life to sustain this incompetent war.