Months of newspaper and magazine reading and television watching have led to me to one conclusion: Our leaders are letting us down. They are doing the wrong thing by the American people and the Iraqi people. We have a moral obligation and we're backing down.

I'm more discouraged than ever about the current state of political discourse in this country. More to the point, I'm discouraged about Iraq. I don't like the way either Democrats or Republicans talk about the issue. I don't like it when the Democrats say that we need deadlines and benchmarks and that the US should redeploy troops or bring them all home now, or in 2008. And, I don't like it when Republicans say that we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here, and that if we leave it would be a victory for the terrorists, and that if we set a deadline for troop withdrawal they bad guys will just wait us out, and that we must "win" and "achieve victory". This rhetoric has been going on for at least since 2004 and it's getting the country nowhere.

The Democrats are saying what they think the left wing of the party wants to hear while trying not to put off conservative Democrats too much by going completely anti-war. Essentially, very few Democrats have a sensible strategy. They may have personal opinions but they don't say them. Publically, the line is that Iraq is a distraction from the War On Terror (boo!), so we should get out as soon as possible. That position is mostly crap. Likewise, the Republicans are saying what they think the right wing of the party wants to hear while paying lip service to moderates and brushing off the Democrats. Consequently, the Republicans as led by George Bush have a strategy. Their strategy is to keep trying to achieve victory, even if the meaning of "victory" is more than a little unclear. The Republicans frame Iraq in win/lose terms, victory or defeat, as if it were a straightforward old fashioned war. Obviously that's a bunch of crap as well.

My opinion is that the US should never have invaded Iraq. I thought it in 2002. I thought it on the day before the war started, and I still think it. It goes without saying that I never voted for George Bush. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter because George Bush became president under the rule of law of the United States, and now we're four years into this war. The US did go into Iraq, and made a huge mess. Even if it gets better someday, this is all a total disgrace. Nonetheless, I believe that the United States has an obligation to do right by those people. We screwed up their country. We unseated a cruel dictator, but his rule was better than the way it is now. The way I see it is that we owe the Iraqi people big time. Some anti-war people may chafe at such a suggestion that WE are obligated to get Iraq right because they, like I, was never for the war and never voted for Bush. However, this is the United States. The President represents all of the people, not just the ones who voted for him. That's the deal. If one lives in the United States, that's part of it. Read the Constitution.

Now, I will fully admit that I have no idea what "doing right by those people" entails. It could very well be leaving tomorrow. Or it could be the troop surge, or it could be setting a deadline. Or it could be letting them fight it out among themselves and then having a Marshall Plan for what remains. I don't know. Thats fine because I don't have to know, but I don't think any of our leaders know either.

What I think should happen, and what I think the American people should be demanding is that our elected leaders get together and figure this thing out properly. Talk to experts, talk to scholars, talk to the military brass, talk to the troops, talk to Iraqis of all sects, look at history, then put it all on the table and determine the best way forward as a country. And I mean that both Democrats and Republicans should stop playing politics with this and have the courage to do the right thing. One thing the Republicans and Bush have right is that the stakes are high, and that leaving Iraq in a mess could be calamitous in the long run. I don't think the course they are pursuing is going to prevent that, but at least they know the stakes. The Democrats have to admit that even though they hate the war, they have to deal with it. It's real and it's bad and it's not going away. They have to be willing to forsake the anti-war faction in their party just as the Republicans have to be willing to forsake the pro-war faction in THEIR party.

I have absolutely no expectation that the above scenario will actually happen. The closest we came to it was the Iraq Study Group. Each member was out of politics, spend a great deal of time on the issue, and as a group they had to reach consensus. The only thing missing is what I feel is the moral obligation to do right by the Iraqi people whose lives we have destroyed either by death, death of family members, injury, or dislocation. We have a moral obligation that is bigger than George Bush or the new Democratic majority. I simply wish someone would have the courage to take this position. That person would win the presidency.

Labels: bush, democrats, iraq, republicans

In the time since I last posted, it seems like blogs have become even more usual. I have used this site to post my opinions about various things. So have I not had any opinions in the last year? Unfortunately no.

The main reason I haven't posted anything in over year is because I couldn't figure out how to fix the way Firefox rendered the left sidebar. This was so discouraging that I didn't want to deal with it at all. On at least two occasions I tried to fix the problem and failed. Finally, I struck gold and got the sidebar to render properly.

So many things have happened over the past year, and I've had opinions about all of them. I missed out on the mid-term election, more Iraq mess, Britney Spears going crazy, Anna Nicole Smith dying, and probably some more stuff that I forgot.

I don't really think anyone reads this stuff; certainly not now. Why bother? Its always the same. Some of blog friends have gone belly up altogether. That is always a possibility for me too, but for now I'm just going to see how it goes.