14 July 2008Thanks to the outstanding professionalism of our armed fources, the courage and tenacity of President Bush and the leadership and vision of people like John McCain, we've won.
The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
We Won
Michael Yon, the most capable and competent journalist in Iraq had this to say a few days ago.
1) That's great! I have always supported our military, and I am grateful for their dedication and professionalism. It is excellent that they are accomplishing the job.
ReplyDeleteBUT:
2) If you think for one second that I am going to THANK George W. Bush for essentially putting a baseball through the neighbor's $500 billion plate-glass window, thereby obligating the rest of us to pay for fixing it[1], you have Another Think Coming. I said at the time he was agitating for war in 2003 that he was going after the wrong enemy in the wrong place for the wrong reasons, and I see no reason to change that assessment.
He put us in a "You broke it, you bought it!" situation with Iraq. While I am ecstatic that our military is up to the task of fixing what he broke, and fully agree that, once it was done, we were honor-bound to fix things, I am still exceedingly unhappy with him about it. If I was his father, he'd be grounded for the next million years or so for that little stunt.
Please don't conflate support for our military, with support for George W. Bush. They are two separate and almost completely unrelated things, and it is possible (actually it is easy), to be fully behind the one while wanting to give the other a solid boot into the next county.
[1] At the lowball estimate of $500 billion to reassemble Iraq, and a total US population of 300 million, that comes to about $1,667 for every person in the country, so my family alone owes at least $6,667 and counting. If President Bush had come around soliciting funds in 2003, and said that he wanted over six thousand dollars from us so he could overthrow some tin-pot dictator on the other side of the planet, I would have slammed the door in his face (and I suspect most other people would have, too).
Tim, thanks for the comment. Allow me to disagree.
ReplyDeleteSpending is all about priorities. By freeing Iraq, we have replaced a murderous, tyrant who was diametrically opposed to our interests with a friendly democracy.
Why don't we worry about the fact that we import bauxite, but we do worry about importing oil? We get bauxite from Australia. Sending money to the Aussies is a good thing because they're our friends.
Sending money to Saddam Hussein was a bad thing because he was our enemy. By replacing Saddam with the democracy, we have eliminated one of the ways in which we funded terrorism.
That's just one example. I'm sure you could find more.
On the other hand, we could have taken that $500B and poured it down the twin ratholes of education and agriculture and gotten nothing for it at all.
"On the other hand, we could have taken that $500B and poured it down the twin ratholes of education and agriculture and gotten nothing for it at all."
ReplyDeleteWell, that's kind of my point. We didn't end up diverting a stream of money-to-be-wasted from one rathole to another, which at least would not have been a net increase in our governmental financial hemorrhage. It was a case of creating a whole NEW stream of money, to dump down a brand-new rathole that we were obligated to fill. The money for Iraq wasn't diverted from elsewhere, it was wished into existence, to be paid for - somehow - at a later date. I believe you have railed against spending money we don't have in the past, this is more of the same.
OK, that's all I have to say on the subject. I'll shut up now.
Tim you make a good point.
ReplyDelete