The Ticking Iraqi Clock
By John Bruhns
04/08/08 "Huffington
Post" -- - As
an
Iraq veteran it's very hard for
me to grip the strong possibility that the troop surge in Iraq
was all for naught. So recently I have been focusing on the
successes of the surge in Iraq without political or ideological
blinders. I recently wrote a piece to touch on a
different angle than my usual
argument that the war is unjustified and illegal in the eyes of
millions of Americans and the world community. However, this was
all based on a hypothetical scenario that we actually had a
compelling reason to invade and occupy Iraq in the first place.
This underscores the genesis of this disaster when we forgot
about Osama bin Laden and refocused the war on terror to Saddam
Hussein who didn't have WMDs, did not want war with us, and
posed no threat to the United States. So while recognizing the
success that the surge had from tactical military standpoint, I
remain strongly opposed to the war.
I will never dismiss the falsehoods of why we went to Iraq as a
moot point. Too many people have suffered and died for the sane
and rational to have the cavalier opinion of "to hell with it,
forget why we are there, we just need to win."
I'll leave that to the people who will forever buy the Bush
mantra hook, line, and sinker. They can't be reached and luckily
they are in the lowest of the minority. Their main argument: we
have to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here.
Really? Or is that just a way to legitimize sending another
soldier or Marine back to Iraq for his fourth or fifth
deployment? As if the Iraqi insurgents could possibly come "over
here" in the masses to invade America -- give me a break. We are
fighting the Iraqis "over there" because we are in Iraq -- plain
and simple.
It's crucial for us all to understand the Iraqi insurgency has
been disguised by the Bush Administration as AQI -- Al Qaeda in
Iraq . Catchy name isn't it -- and oh what a convenient excuse
to keep the war going. Let's justify the last 5+ years of death
and destruction by lumping the violent reaction of the Iraqi
people to an occupation of their land into the same category as
those who orchestrated and carried out 9/11.
This very same crowd living in a "fools paradise" continuously
attempt to latch onto some illusion that this tragic episode in
American/Iraqi history was a colossal failure that falls on the
back of U.S. intelligence agencies. Come on, Bush was going in
regardless of what the CIA told him.
Now the latest propaganda being formulated by those in a
perpetual state of denial is that the Bush Administration
initiated this war and occupation as philanthropists for the
Iraqi people. Explain that philanthropy to the 4.5 million Iraqi
refugees, the families of the uncountable number of dead Iraqi
civilians, and the U.S. troops who had to bear witness to it and
died in the process.
The same Iraqi government elected by its people who President
Bush proclaims such compassion for are asking us to set a
timeline to leave. Why is the
blatantly obvious impossible for the average
warmonger to grasp? The reality
is that their numbskulls deny them the humility to admit it.
I'm well aware that this sounds irresponsible. But if the Iraqis
want to do it "John Wayne" style from here on out -- why should
we interfere? After all, according to the Iraqi government they
are just so close to
standing up so we can stand
down. Sound familiar?
We have tried so many military strategies in Iraq in an effort
to clean up President Bush's mess. The only road we haven't
explored is the road home. Just something to think about.
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