Letters to the Editor
Whispers
Published Letters: 385 Editor's Choice: 11
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descend into chaos?
[Read the article: In Iraq to stay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]NotOrbitBoy says:
"Why do you continue to equate withdrawal from Iraq with LOSING?"
Answer: Because numerous military and security experts have warned that Iraq will likely descend into chaos (again) if we leave prematurely.
It's chaos now! It's been chaos for over five years now! Get a freakin' clue!
But your excuse misses the point: chaos in Iraq is not a justification for an American occupation. Maintaining order in Iraq is not our job. The fact that the three various parts of Iraq do not wish to coexist peacefully is not our problem.
The stated reason for the invasion of Iraq was to prevent a "dangerous madman" from getting his hands on "WMDs" (i.e. nukes) and bombing America. The stated reason was always horseshit, but I can see why terrified people would buy into it.
But it was proven by the end of 2003 that it was horseshit. At which point we are left with "we have to stay to stop the country from devolving into chaos".
Of course, the country is devolving into chaos because US forces are there, not in spite of that fact.
The real reason for neocons that US forces are there is because of hare-brained imperialism that thinks that, all we have to do is have a bunch of military bases there, and we'll control the oil. After five years, how's that working out? Oil prices have increased by over 1/3 in the last year alone. Oil companies are bathing in profits and the promises of $20/gallon oil is a ludicrous fantasy.
So, what is the real reason the US is in Iraq? Well, it's because a lot of people are making a lot of money because we are in Iraq. The US government is being run by the people making money. There is little pretense of a coherent foreign policy any more.
As for the "surge", well the problem is that we don't have the manpower to actually do the job properly. If the US put the effort into dominating Iraq militarily that was put in during WWII, then we could do it. That would mean revamping the entire economy away from consumerism and towards military production. It would mean instituting a widespread draft to increase the number of available troops by a factor of 10. It would mean jettisoning the ludicrous wartime tax cuts in favor of a system whereby the costs of the war were covering while they were incurred, instead of 50 years later.
But nobody is really serious about "winning the war", whatever that's supposed to mean. Because nobody gives a crap about the war, or really thinks that it's all that important to "win", at least if "winning" requires Americans to abandon our luxurious lifestyles. And that means that, at the end of the day, pretty much everybody in positions of power realizes that it doesn't matter if the US leaves. So everybody knows that we are going to leave eventually. It's just that the Bush administration doesn't want to admit having made a mistake. And since they are leaving office at the end of the year anyway, they don't have to.
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Partisanship is a good thing
[Read the article: And Obama's veep is ... a Republican?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Or, at the very least, it is what I'm looking for from the Democratic party. If I wanted them to be embracing Republican policies, I would be voting Republican. If I didn't care either way, I simply wouldn't vote.
Believe it or not, the problems in DC have not been caused by excessive partisanship. I think it would be fair to accuse the GOP of zealous partisanship in recent years, but the Democratic party has not been equally so. And the worst excesses appear to have repeatedly been on the GOP side of the aisle. Consider the Florida mess in 2000, or the ongoing vacancies on the FEC.
Occasionally the word "bipartisan" is thrown about, as if it were a goal in and of itself. But this really does not make sense. While DC could certainly use a better atmosphere of respect, the root cause of the partisanship in the US is that it stems from differences in the electorate. And the only way these differences get worked out over time is if their respective advocates put their constituents' beliefs ahead of any pundit's desire for pleasant tea parties. Indeed, in recent years it has appeared that the leadership of the Democratic party (i.e., the DLC up until very recently), was more concerned with getting along with Republicans than with representing the desires of their constituents.
When this happened, the unfettered desires of the GOP took hold, and the result has been disastrous for the nation.
Partisanship is a way that conflicts are resolved honestly. The pretense towards bipartisanship as a goal is only appropriate in a world populated by unicorns and faeries.