Bi-Partisan Critics of Bush Administation Strategy
Commentary on David Roger's article, "More Republicans Join Critics Of Bush Troop-Surge Strategy" in January 23rd's Wall Street Journal.
It is tremendously discomforting to see that the very same politicians who supported sending troops to Iraq in the first place without fully understanding the consequences are now ready to precipitously pull out of Iraq without fully understanding the consequences of that decision either. Newly elected politicians, after decrying the folly of the previous legislature and the Bush Administration are poised to make the very same mistakes—only in reverse.
Regardless of why our troops were sent to Iraq, the fact is that we are there now and we have a moral responsibility to try and correct the problems that we unleashed. US politicians are now finding it expedient to blame the Iraqis for US failure, and they self-righteously state that the new Iraqi government must make more concrete steps toward unification in order to continue receiving US support.
Certainly the Iraqis have a great responsibility to make things right in their own country, but their actions are significantly affected by the environment in which they find themselves. This environment is in large part the result of the US mishandling of the entire affair to date. The result of a thoughtless withdrawal will be an even larger number of people in a critical region of the world who will hold the negative consequences of our actions against us. Not to mention the moral victory this will give to Al-Qaeda.
Inexplicably, we are hearing how within a year or so, the fledgling Iraqi government must fix every possible aspect of their broken socio-political system—from safety and security to utilities, healthcare, education, corruption, infrastructure, banking, and of course the production of oil and the transparent accounting for and distribution of its revenues—this in a country with no history of, or inherent faith in democracy. Civil Rights efforts in the US did not take off in a substantial way until almost 100 years after our own civil war ended.
Our legislature is more concerned with “dealing with the President’s plan” than they are in figuring out how to deal with the real issue—that of leaving Iraq in a better socio-political state than what we have allowed it to fall into. Arbitrary timelines and capricious troop numbers set by politicians motivated by votes and who know nothing about conducting a war will simply lead to more trouble in the future.
It is tremendously discomforting to see that the very same politicians who supported sending troops to Iraq in the first place without fully understanding the consequences are now ready to precipitously pull out of Iraq without fully understanding the consequences of that decision either. Newly elected politicians, after decrying the folly of the previous legislature and the Bush Administration are poised to make the very same mistakes—only in reverse.
Regardless of why our troops were sent to Iraq, the fact is that we are there now and we have a moral responsibility to try and correct the problems that we unleashed. US politicians are now finding it expedient to blame the Iraqis for US failure, and they self-righteously state that the new Iraqi government must make more concrete steps toward unification in order to continue receiving US support.
Certainly the Iraqis have a great responsibility to make things right in their own country, but their actions are significantly affected by the environment in which they find themselves. This environment is in large part the result of the US mishandling of the entire affair to date. The result of a thoughtless withdrawal will be an even larger number of people in a critical region of the world who will hold the negative consequences of our actions against us. Not to mention the moral victory this will give to Al-Qaeda.
Inexplicably, we are hearing how within a year or so, the fledgling Iraqi government must fix every possible aspect of their broken socio-political system—from safety and security to utilities, healthcare, education, corruption, infrastructure, banking, and of course the production of oil and the transparent accounting for and distribution of its revenues—this in a country with no history of, or inherent faith in democracy. Civil Rights efforts in the US did not take off in a substantial way until almost 100 years after our own civil war ended.
Our legislature is more concerned with “dealing with the President’s plan” than they are in figuring out how to deal with the real issue—that of leaving Iraq in a better socio-political state than what we have allowed it to fall into. Arbitrary timelines and capricious troop numbers set by politicians motivated by votes and who know nothing about conducting a war will simply lead to more trouble in the future.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home